The video on No Child Left Behind: Truths and Consequences reminded me of an article that I read about a study that focuses on the relationship between perceptions of teachers, administrators, parents, and students on standardized testing and test anxiety and its effect on test performance. Interestingly, the study does not identify anxiety as a factor that influences how students perform on the tests. I have always thought that test anxiety exists in every testing environment and if not properly handled will have negative effects that could limit the student's eudcational opportunities. However, the study showed that students actually liked taking tests (surprising isn't it? my own experiences tell me otherwise:).

Teachers are most anxious over testing because the results could be used by the administration to make personnel and administrative decisions. But I also look at it in the context that they are anxious because they worry about their students. Like most of us believe, the test is not the only way to measure students' abilities and we are afraid that the results could be damaging rather than helpful to the children.