Standards of Student Achievement Teachers and voters both believe that requiring high school students to meet fixed academic standards before receiving a diploma should be a priority on the state's agenda. They also support, but less strongly, setting standards for advancements to the next grade. The lower priority teachers place on establishing fixed standards for students to advance to the next grade grows principally from reluctance among elementary school teachers to lose flexibility in the decision of whether or not to hold young children back. Just 37 percent of K-3 teachers believe that establishing fixed standards for students to advance would greatly increase the conditions for quality education, compared with 55 percent of middle school teachers and 53 percent of high school teachers. Figure 9 compares teachers' priority on establishing standards to advance by grade level.
Teachers reject tying their compensation to student performance on standardized tests.
Rewarding teachers based on test scores ranks 17 out of 18 changes the State of California could make, with only 22 percent of teachers offering their support. I'm totally in favor of it, because I get students coming in our school from elementary school that are testing on a fourth grade level. So I would say state standards are necessary and they're a fact. However, there were mixed feelings over the issue of using standardized tests to measure students against the standards for advancement. Criticism of standardized testing centered on the inadequacy of standardized tests to truly assess student accomplishment of the standards, the inability of standardized tests to address students with special needs and language barriers, and concern for students who were functioning at grade level but unable to pass the test.