Rural Elementary Administrators’ Views of High-Stakes Testing

Abstract

This study examines how rural elementary school administrators perceive the effects of high-stakes testing in comparison to suburban and urban elementary administrators. High-stakes testing had a greater impact, both positively and negatively, on rural administrators than on their counterparts in suburban and urban schools. Specifically, the positive effects were that rural administrators were more motivated by the testing program to do a better job, found the test results more useful in assessing teachers, and found the test results more useful in meeting the academic needs of students. The negative effects were that rural administrators felt more pressure than urban administrators to improve test scores and found their school rating to more negatively affect their ability to attract high quality teachers than administrators in suburban schools.