Education Next Releases Public Opinion Poll

Education Next released its annual state of education poll, and testing performed well (as it did in 2015). Parents continued to strongly support high-quality assessments that accurately measure their children’s learning.

Other findings involving assessments included:

• nearly 80 percent of respondents favoring yearly assessments,
• 73 percent supporting assessments that are comparable among states and school districts, and
• 70 percent were opposed to letting parents opt their children out of state tests (consistent with 2015).

Education Next noted, in trend data, that nearly four out of five respondents continued to favor the federal requirement that all students be tested in math and reading in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school. See Education’s Next interactive tool to view polling results

Commenting on Education Next’s poll, Jim Cowen, Executive Director of the Collaborative for Student Success, noted, “States that have ‘gone it alone’ on student assessments by pursuing independent or state-specific tests have incurred significant costs and disruptions and, in all likelihood, will end up with inferior exams.”

Additionally, while “Common Core” didn’t perform well, poll respondents did support “high, comparable standards.” Cowen, in response to the Education Next findings, said, “Education Next’s annual public opinion survey confirms what we’ve long suspected: it’s time to stop fighting about the words ‘Common Core’ and move forward. While the Common Core brand has again fallen in popularity – even though now as many people support it as oppose it – the public overwhelmingly supports rigorous, comparable academic expectations, no matter how they are described.”