At-Risk Students Should Be Allowed to Test from Home, Say Arizona Voters

Most Voters Support Allowing At-Home Testing and Waiving 95% Test-Taking Requirement

PHOENIX (March 24th, 2021) – It is an understatement to say that the Coronavirus pandemic has upended the education of Arizona's students. Remote schooling, Zoom lectures, and online learning have become staples in our education system, while in-person instruction was restricted in order to protect families and school faculty members. Even though thousands of Arizona families were already participating in full-time online school before the pandemic hit, more and more parents have opted for virtual learning in the last year in efforts to maintain the health and safety of their students amidst the spread of the coronavirus.

Currently, the state of Arizona requires that 95% of a school's students take two standardized tests — the AzM2 and the AzSCI — in-person. OH Predictive Insights was commissioned by Arizona Parents for Education to conduct a poll of 500 registered voters in the state of Arizona on the topic of standardized testing.

The survey found that seven in ten (69%) Arizona voters would support allowing students to take standardized tests at home, so long as a teacher supervised them via webcam. This number includes 51% of voters who strongly support the policy — which is particularly popular with women. Overall, three-quarters of women (76%) support the idea. Female support crosses the political spectrum — 91% of Democratic women, 75% of Independent women, and 58% of Republican women all support the policy.

Although the concept performs stronger with Democrats than with Republicans, no major demographic group has higher than 50% opposition. The group that comes closest is Republican men, 47% of whom oppose the policy.

Proponents argue that this policy would allow at-risk children to avoid the exposure that in-person testing may present while not excluding those children from the educational system altogether.

"Our family chose online learning for the very reason that it would allow my son, who is medically compromised, to avoid infection and exposure to illness in a classroom setting, but still afford him the opportunity to learn and participate virtually with his peers. The current testing requirements do not take into consideration those individuals who chose online learning in the first place, for reasons of medical necessity," says advocate Tara Boedingheimer.

OH Predictive Insights also asked Arizona voters whether they would support or oppose removing the requirement that 95% of students in every school take these tests so that students who could be at risk of contracting the coronavirus would be allowed to stay home.

While this proved to be a less popular solution than allowing at-home testing, a majority (54%) of Arizona voters would also be in favor of waiving the requirement. Still more popular among women than men, female support fell to 60% for this proposal. A plurality (46%) of Republican women opposed the waiver, even though a majority (58%) supported supervised at-home testing.

Methodology: This all-live caller phone survey was commissioned by Arizona Parents for Education and completed by OH Predictive Insights from March 12–16, 2021, from an Arizona Statewide Registered Voter sample. The sample demographics were weighted to accurately reflect gender, region, age, party affiliation, ethnicity, and education. Sample size: 500 registered voters, MoE ± 4.4%.

Media Contacts: Mike Noble, OH Predictive Insights — [email protected], (480) 313-1837 | Haylye Plaster — [email protected], (602) 687-3034