New Report Provides Roadmap for Education Leaders to Grow Parental Support for Statewide Assessments

Washington, DC – A new report released today by the Collaborative for Student Success, EdTrust, and the National Parents Union reveals widespread parental support for the use of statewide summative assessment data when it is leveraged to target resources and improve student outcomes. The findings provide a roadmap for education leaders and advocates on how to build greater trust and engagement with families around assessments.

Titled “How District Leaders and Advocates Can Build Parent Support for Statewide Assessments,” the report draws on qualitative interviews with district leaders across five states —Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington — as well as a nationally representative survey of over 1,500 parents. The findings highlight a crucial disconnect: While district leaders use assessment data to inform key resource allocation decisions, parents remain largely unaware of the practical impact these data have on their child’s education.

“Parents want transparency and a seat at the table when it comes to decisions that affect their children’s education,” said Ariel Taylor Smith, Senior Director of the National Parents Union Center for Policy and Action. “This report shows that when families understand how assessment data is used to support students — whether through additional tutoring, curriculum adjustments, or hiring more educators — support for these assessments increases dramatically.”

Key findings from the report:

• More than half of parents (57%) say assessments would be more valuable if they clearly informed decisions about resource distribution, including 50% of parents who initially expressed negative views on assessments.
• Over 80% of parents support using assessment data to direct resources to schools and students with the greatest need.
• 77% of parents believe statewide academic tests provide valuable insights into their child’s progress.
• District leaders overwhelmingly use state assessment data to guide hiring, curriculum improvements, and academic interventions in ways that target these resources to the students, classrooms, and schools with the most need—but many parents are unaware of these efforts.

Recommendations for advocates and education leaders:

The report urges education leaders to improve family engagement and transparency by:

• Providing clear, accessible explanations of how assessment data informs funding and school improvement effort.
• Expanding communication methods beyond mailed reports to include online portals, teacher conferences, and multilingual resources
• Engaging parents in decision-making through advisory councils, surveys, and town halls

“Assessment data is a key element of strong accountability systems that shine a light on how well schools are serving the students who were for too long cast aside, including Black and Latino students, those from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners” said Nicholas Munyan-Penney, assistant director of P-12 policy at EdTrust and a co-author of the report. “Strong engagement with families to explain how the data is used to drive resources are essential steps in promoting equity.”

The full report is available here.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Joshua Parrish
Collaborative for Student Success
jparrish@forstudentsuccess.org

Carolyn Phenicie
EdTrust
cphenicie@edtrust.org

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