Question 3: Teachers spend too much time teaching to the test rather than teaching other important materials and topics.

Graph: Question 3

The following graph shows the total response to this question. Over 64% of the parents agreed that teachers spend too much time preparing students for the SOLs. Approximately 13% showed some disagreement with this statement. Twenty-two percent responded with no opinion to this question 3.

Question 4: Failure to pass the SOL test should prevent a student from receiving a high school diploma regardless of other evaluation factors such as grades.

Graph: Question 4

Parents disagreed strongly with this statement. Only one in ten supported the concept that passing the SOL tests should be the sole requirement for graduation. Seventy-seven percent answered negatively to question 4. The "no opinion" category dropped to 11.6%, indicating that parents have a more definite negative view about the proposed use of test outcomes.

Question 5: Teachers’ pay should be tied to their students’ success on the SOL tests.

Question 6: Students’ results on the SOLs are a good measure of teacher effectiveness.

Graph: Questions 5 & 6

Parents do not support the concept that teachers’ pay should be associated with the SOL tests. Over 80% disagree with statement number 5 as indicated by the red bar. Similar results occurred for question 6. The negative response rate for this question was 61% as shown by the blue bar.

Question 7: The SOL tests add too much student anxiety for the academic benefit gained.

Graph: Question 7

Parents agreed with this statement — the academic gains that might be obtained through the SOL testing program are not worth the increased level of student anxiety. Female respondents were more concerned about the anxiety issue than males, although both tended to agree with the statement.

Question 8: I believe the current high test- failure rate is an indicator of the SOL tests and not my child’s school.

Graph: Question 8

Parents supported the hypothesis that the high SOL failure rate is a result of test design rather than a poor educational environment at their child’s school. The percentage ranges are similar to responses on other questions, which maintained a consistent pattern through the survey.

Question 9: I have enough time and knowledge to help prepare my child for the SOL tests.

Question 10: I would be willing to pay for extra tutoring or taxes for my child to pass the SOL tests.

Graph: Questions 9 & 10

Only about one third of the parents responded positively to question 10, that they have enough knowledge and time to assist their child with the SOL tests (red bars). The study population had a high degree of parents with college educations (70%), creating additional concern for children in less affluent areas of the state. Parents are not willing to provide additional financial support so that their children can pass the SOL tests (green bars).

The study also found that no significant difference existed between various parent groups with different household incomes and their willingness to pay more taxes or tuition to obtain higher SOL passing rates. Even families with incomes over $100,000 responded negatively to this question. Females were more negative than males when responding to the financial-support question. Non-white respondents were more supportive of increased financial support to areas with high failure rates.

Question 11: The SOLs are more politically than educationally motivated.

Graph: Question 11

The parents’ responses to this question may give some credence as to why they fail to support the SOL testing program. Seventy percent think it is more a political process than a sound educational strategy.

Question 12: The SOL tests are not needed and the testing program should be eliminated.

Graph: Question 12

The responses to this question were more equally distributed, although they still fail to support the present testing program. The non-Caucasian population follows a similar pattern to the Caucasian pattern but is significantly more supportive of the testing program.

Conclusions:

The study lacked some of the necessary random sampling techniques needed to accurately project the findings to the entire state population, but it does provide some significant findings about the perception parents have of the SOL tests. Throughout the entire quantitative and qualitative data is a strong negative response that the tests are flawed and used improperly as an educational strategy. Parents believe the tests are more politically motivated than a sound educational strategy. The higher the educational level of the parent, the more negative they are toward the SOLs. These parents also believe that the test will stymie creativity and fail to measure many important factors in the educational environment.