Survey: Parents Say State Testing is Hurting Young Kids

A recent survey distributed by New York principals asked 8,000 parents across the state how their kids in grades 3-8 felt about the English Language Arts and Mathematics state assessments and the response was overwhelming: it's hurting them in more ways than one.

The state recently passed legislation — the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) — that uses state test scores to evaluate not only students, but teachers as well. Parents said the stress of prepping for these exams for a large chunk of the school year compounded with the results impacting their teachers is overwhelming for young kids. During the exams, kids undergo six days of testing.

According to the survey, 75 percent reported their child was more anxious in the month before the test; nearly 80 percent said that test prep prevented their child from engaging in meaningful school activities, and 70 percent reported that the increased emphasis on high stakes testing has had a negative impact on their child’s school.

In addition to taking the survey, more than 4,000 parents left comments on how testing has affected their kids, and many of them said the test as well as the prep leading up to it has caused a variety of problems like:

• Physical symptoms caused by test anxiety, including tics, asthma attacks, acid reflux, vomiting.
• Sleep disruption, crying
• Refusal to go to school
• Feelings of failure, increasing as the tests progresses
• Complaints of severe boredom and restlessness from students who finished early and were required to sit still for the full 90 minutes of each test.

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When we called out to readers for their thoughts, several agreed that this was an issue.

"My daughter stressed so much before her SATs," said Lorraine Redling. "How can colleges expect students to perform well when their academic future is pinned on one test? There has to be a better way to measure a student's knowledge."

Kathleen Vaughan added, "Enough with the state testing nonsense. NYSED [New York State Education Department] needs to let the teachers teach."

Jaime Sumersille contributed to this report.