Closing the information gap: those who support standards and accountability must do a better job of making their case to voters, policymakers, teachers and parents, and work to expand the conversation about testing, teaching and learning.

In California and across the country, schools and districts are raising standards for what we want our kids--all our kids--to learn and achieve. And standardized tests are being used more often to see how well our kids ate learning. ETS has a special obligation to address those issues and enhance the public conversation about testing.

We are a non-profit company that provides substantial research and leadership in the measurement of educational performance. We certainly care about producing the highest quality tests--tests that are reliable and fair. After all, that is our business. But our heart is in improving teaching and learning. We want to see better schools and students who have a brighter future because of what they know and can do.

Everyone at ETS is keenly aware of the enormous importance and potential impact of what we do, and we are very conscious of the ever-growing burden of responsibility that we began to shoulder the moment that President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law last January. As I said before a Congressional subcommittee months before the law was enacted, I believe that the President's educational reform proposal is the right thing for our country and it is doable.

We understand the value of assessment and the vital role it should play in education reform. Well-designed assessments that are tied to standards and curriculum can provide useful information to guide instruction and help students learn. Test results can also provide useful data to guide sound education policy decisions.

But the real issue before us is NOT producing and administering another test. The challenge before us is to muster the political, moral and professional will to improve student learning and achievement. We need to provide resources and supports to help teachers teach and to help students learn and to monitor progress through well-designed assessments.

The No Child Left Behind Act calls for high standards, strong accountability and annual standards-based assessments. Results from these tests can and will provide important information that we need to more our nation--school by school--toward significant and lasting education reform. Most importantly, the results from these tests present us with the challenge--and the opportunity--to focus our efforts on closing stubbornly persistent achievement gaps among different groups of students.

Yet, I cannot overemphasize this one point: Testing alone is not enough. It is just one step in education reform. It is a misuse of tests when nothing is done to change poor results. If we take no action to improve teaching and learning, we would just be using children as "extras" in a high-profile political drama while undermining the social and political prospects of the nation in the process.

In addition to giving tests, we must take the necessary steps to help students and teachers improve classroom achievement so that the results improve the next time we test. Only then will we be able to reach our goal: an education system marked by excellence in student performance, elimination of the achievement gap, and yes, tangible evidence that no child is left behind.

I am fully convinced of the truthfulness of what I have just said, and I suspect that many of you believe this as well. Those of us who support standards-based reform, educational accountability and the use of standardized assessment to achieve those objectives have to do a much better job of making our case to voters, taxpayers, opinion leaders and public policymakers, to be sure. But, we also have to make an extra effort to reach out to teachers and parents, to answer their questions and to allay their concerns about testing and test use.

Expanding the conversation

At ETS, we've been working with groups of teachers across the country for more than 50 years to develop, score and administer a broad range of tests and other learning tools. But we need to expand that circle and that conversation--across our local schools and across our states.

This September, ETS launched a "pilot" communications and community outreach effort. Through our "Log On, Let's Talk" effort, we are inviting parents, students, educators and others to join the conversation about the role of testing in our schools.

ETS launched the first phase of this outreach effort in Sacramento and Harrisburg, Penn. The program has focused on reaching out to parents, administrators, teachers, policymakers, the press and the public generally, filling the "information gap" with answers about assessments. The outreach includes meetings with key education groups, policymakers and opinion leaders in K-12 education as well as in government and the business communities.

But beyond communicating messages proactively to an information-hungry public, the "Let's Talk" campaign is also offering people something that hasn't always been easy to come by at the grassroots and community levels: an opportunity to put questions directly to the people who make the tests.

ETS's belief that there is an information gap is based on more than instinct. Over the past year and a half, we have undertaken a vast amount of public opinion research, both qualitative and quantitative. We have produced two national surveys, added questions to surveys done by others, conducted a score of focus groups with parents and educators, and closely examined media coverage of testing issues.

What we have learned is that Americans, particularly parents, strongly support testing in schools. People sec the benefits of good tests. But they also have concerns about testing and how testing affects their kids. School administrators have surely sensed this, if not seen and felt it directly, further confirming our own findings.

Absent good, timely information, people are left with little more than fragments, impressions and a few scattered facts. Shadows, but not truth. The result, not surprisingly, is that the value of assessments--both as a measure of learning and as a classroom tool--remains insufficiently understood.

To help close this information gap, we are using a variety of communications tools, from paid advertising and direct mail to community outreach and media relations. We have also produced a video for teachers that features an open discussion about how tests are used and answers frequently asked questions.

To reach the widest audience and to create a permanent, ongoing assessment resource, we have also carved out a special section on the ETS Web site, www.ets.org, called "Let's Talk About Testing." The "Let's Talk" site is a strategic component of the outreach effort.

Among its features is a Q&A that invites readers to e-mail us tough questions on testing. It's updated regularly with new question and frank answers, for all to see. The site also has information in plain language about test development and test fairness as well as tips and resources for teachers, students and parents.

My ETS colleagues have also been meeting and speaking with groups of parents, teachers and community organizations to answer basic questions about tests and test use in Sacramento and Harrisburg. Staff involvement in a community outreach effort of this type is key. Simply put, it helps put a human face on this aspect of education, which is, after all, a uniquely human endeavor.

Let's talk--in four languages

A fundamental goal of the "Let's Talk" program is to convey information and to provide what we call "information opportunities" to communities whose information needs have long been underserved, if not overlooked altogether.

This is an important point, and it goes directly to the issue of America's achievement gap and the uneven distribution of educational resources that continues to bedevil our nation as well as students in every state.

ETS is a nonprofit corporation, established by legal charter. And because our mission is to advance quality and equity in education "for all people worldwide," we are bound, in everything we do, to do whatever we can to ensure that the least and most advantaged are equally served in their education needs and opportunities. It is not a principle, it is not a goal, it is not a hope--it is a mandate for us to do right by all learners.

We believe in high standards in education. And we reject the notion, which floats in and out of style, that high standards put poor children and English language learners at even more risk. That is not only defeatist, it is an affront to human dignity and to the notion of equal opportunity. Demand low standards, and you surely will get poor results.

High-flown words, to be sure. But we can report that we are living by them in the "Let's Talk" campaign. In Sacramento last month, for instance, my colleague Sharon Robinson, president of ETS's Educational Policy Leadership Institute, and California Secretary of Education Kerry Mazzoni met with parents at Fern Bacon Middle School, where 43 percent of students are English-language learners.

To accommodate the cultural diversity of the group and to make sure that everyone who had something to ask or say got their turn, four translators were present at the meeting. Robinson and Secretary Mazzoni took questions and comments in four languages: Mien, Hmong, Spanish and Russian. As we hoped and expected, the dialogue at Fern Bacon Middle School covered parents' questions and concerns about the tests and how they could use the results to enhance their education and ensure future progress.

We hope to accomplish three things through the "Let's Talk" outreach effort: We want to answer the public's questions about testing; we want to create a partnership to help us all use test results to improve the academic performance of all students: and we want to broaden public understanding of and support for assessments.

We are encouraged by the response to our pilot effort in Sacramento and Harrisburg, and we intend to expand our reach over the coming months. Certainly, the issues and the concerns in Sacramento and Harrisburg are shared by administrators, teachers, parents, policymakers and the public elsewhere.

Our aim will continue to be to help increase understanding and awareness of the value, proper use and potential of educational assessments. No surprise there; that's our business and our expertise. But assessments are becoming increasingly central to education, particularly as a classroom learning tool as well as a measurement tool. We think that's a good thing.

But we know that not everyone agrees. Maybe that's an understatement. And yet in our view, the concern and even the contention over assessments are not bad things. We see this as an opportunity not only to work with our colleagues in education and the broader community to create better, more useful assessments, but moreover to create better schools for all our kids.

That's what "Let's Talk" is all about. But this is just the beginning; we ask you to help us expand the circle and continue this conversation about testing, teaching and learning in your school and across your district. I also invite you to continue the conversation and share your questions and thoughts with us at ETS. Log on to our Web site: www.ets.org/testing. We want to hear what's on your mind.

Kurt Landgraf is president and CEO of ETS.