A new poll reveals that the public remains solidly behind standards-based school reform and believes that testing, when used appropriately, has real benefits.

"No evidence points to a broad backlash against higher academic standards," reports the policy analysis group Public Agenda, which has teamed up with Education Week over the past four years to produce "Reality Check," an annual

 survey of public attitudes surrounding standards-based reform. "In the fifth year of the Reality Check project, and despite some headlines trumpeting a 'backlash to testing,' Reality Check shows strong agreement on the useful role standardized tests can play and a consensus on how they should be used," the survey reports.

There is widespread opposition to using the results of one test to decide whether a student gets promoted or graduates, the poll notes. Three-quarters of parents oppose that strategy, along with 89 percent of teachers, 81 percent of employers and 83 percent of professors. There was widespread support for using standardized tests along with teacher evaluation to determine if students should graduate or be promoted. Eighty-three percent of parents, 80 percent of teachers, 86 percent of employers and 82 percent of professors agree with this combined approach.

The report's major findings are:

• Very few students seem apprehensive about school or unnerved by higher expectations.
• Even as standards are being raised, many students say they could work harder and report that classmates often get diplomas without having learned what was expected.
• There is broad agreement that schools are moving in the right direction on standards and that testing has real benefits.
• Higher academic standards are taking root, and parents and teachers report notable changes in testing, promotion and summer school policies.
• Employers and professors still say that too many high school graduates lack basic skills.

For the second straight year, "Reality Check picks up virtually no support for returning to the days before the 'standards' movement began," Education Week observes. For those informed about efforts to raise standards in their school districts, only 2 percent of parents, 1 percent of teachers, 2 percent of employers and 1 percent of professors believe that schools should abandon those efforts.

Reality Check 2002 is based on telephone interviews conducted late last year with a nationally representative sample of 600 public school teachers, 600 parents of public school students and 600 public school students. The survey also included interviews with 251 employers who hire workers who recently left high school or college and 252 professors at two- and four- year colleges who taught freshmen or sophomores in the past two years.

Additional information on the report is available online at www.publicagenda.org.