more spin from Public Agenda

["Kathy Emery" <mke4think@hotmail.com>]

Thought you all might be interested in information from the Public Education 
Network if you haven't seen it already -- a summary of a the most recent 
Public Agenda poll in PEN's latest email newsletter, pasted below.  (BRT 
relies on Public Agenda for its polling data in the BRT publications, by the 
way, which means that future corporate CEO tactics will most probably be 
developed from this data).

Some interesting spin being put on the data -- teachers oppose testing but 
parents don't (divide and conquer).  But  parents and teachers really don't 
challenge the validity of the tests, just the amount of them (so no real 
testing backlash to worry about -- just need to fine tune it).

kathy

from PEN:

IS SUPPORT FOR STANDARDS AND TESTING FADING?
Parents, students, teachers and administrators see high standards as 
necessary
components of school reform, but not enough. New research from Public Agenda
indicates school environment and adequate funding are bigger priorities. A 
new
report finds that five years into the implementation of the No Child Left 
Behind
Act and over a dozen years into the so-called standards movement in American
education, the public now sees these reforms as "necessary, but not 
sufficient."
The percentage of parents who say lack of emphasis on basics is a serious
problem at their child's school has dropped from more than half (52%) in 
1994 to
one in five now (20%). The percentage of parents who say low academic 
standards
is a very serious problem in their child's school has dropped from 26% in 
1994
to 15% now. The growing sense among the groups that standards and testing is 
not
the "be all and end all" of improving public education is not a rejection of 
the
idea itself, the Reality Check 2006 report concludes.  Nor is it the 
much-feared
"backlash against testing."  Neither parents nor students report significant
concern about the number or kinds of tests youngsters currently take.  The
majority of teachers are troubled by testing, but even here, the main 
concern is
the amount of testing, not its basic usefulness.
http://news.publiceducation.org/t/4842/142185/80/0/