A 2015 PDK/Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans do not support standardized testing. The poll found that 64% of Americans felt there is too much emphasis on standardized testing in schools, and just 14% felt that test scores are important indicators of an effective school. 41% felt that parents should be able to excuse their child from standardized testing. Although the poll is focused on K-12, the results reflect American’s attitude toward standardized tests, and thus have significance for the standardized tests that many institutions of higher education in California use to place students into Basic Writing and first-year composition courses, such as Accuplacer, CSU’s English Placement Test, and UC’s Entry Level Writing Requirement. The report on the PDK/Gallup poll results can be found at the following link:

http://pdkpoll2015.pdkintl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/pdkpoll47_2015.pdf

For more information on NCTE position statements on standardized testing and writing assessment, visit the following links:

The Impact of the SAT and ACT Timed Writing Tests: https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Positions/SAT-ACT-tf-report.pdf

Writing Assessment: A Position Statement:

https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment

Framing Statements on Assessment:

https://www2.ncte.org/statement/assessmentframingst/