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 Be informed about your state content and achievement standards, and work with parents to educate the community about state expectations for all students. Many community members have never seen the state standards or know that they exist. Publicize the standards widely, and break them down into a language that the community members are able to understand. Community organizations can play a role in helping to inform hard to reach parents and other members of the community through the newspaper, faith-based strategies, school meetings and discussions held at the library, and onsite at many of the leading employers in the area.
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 Even though many states have already approved the state standards, the community should work with parents and the school district to recommend changes, additions, edits, or deletions to state officials. For instance, are the standards rigorous and challenging? Did the state custom-design their assessments to closely align with the standards, or did they buy an off the shelf test? Did the state set a cut score that was low, realistic or unattainable? Does the state use a norm-referenced test (which is used to compare students against other students) or a criterion referenced tests (which compares students against a set of expected outcomes)? The more community and parental awareness and involvement generated about the standards, the greater the understanding and ownership in the accountability system thereby increasing community and parental support.
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 Host meetings to discuss the impact that the standards will have on your community and on the public schools. What resources, special services, instructional materials, school staff and/or extended time does a school need to meet the standards. What community commitments will be required to assist schools in meeting the standards? Can the community provide classroom volunteers, before and after school services, summer school assistance, or preschool help?
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 Community-based organizations should work with parents to host meetings and other events to learn about the appropriate use of assessments and determine if the test is a quality instrument and well researched.
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 Some things that are important to understand include:
 
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 What are the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment?
 
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 How to guard against misusing the assessment?
 
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 What are the differences between the various testing models such as criterion reference, standardized tests, and achievement tests?
 
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 What happens when the various test outcomes contradict each other?
 
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 What are basic technical elements of an assessment such as reliability and validity, and how do I know if the assessment really does a good job of measuring what my child knows?
 
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 Does the school use a single test to make academic judgments about students such as grade promotion, retention, or graduation, or does the district take into consideration other relevant student information as well such as report card grades, student exhibits, writing samples and a teacher’s day-to-day evaluation?
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 Listen to teachers and their reactions to state assessments. Do teachers feel they are forced to teach to the test, and that there is a heavy emphasis on test scores? Do teachers see assessments as a tool for improvement, or as a punitive strategy that serves to place blame on teachers, students, parents or the principal? Are the assessments helping to improve the curriculum, or narrow the scope of the curriculum? Do you feel teachers are prepared to implement the standards, or do they require additional professional development and help? Do teachers understand the pros and cons of assessment, and can they communicate information to the parents? Do the teachers know how to use the assessments to impact increase student achievement?
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 Create a community assessment team comprised of, among others, community members, parents, testing experts, and higher education to monitor the impact of testing on students, and to assure the appropriate use of tests. Study the impact of testing on students, teachers and parents. Assure that parents understand the technicalities of the testing system, and serve as a proxy for those parents who need additional information or help.
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 Be proactive. BEFORE the assessment results are announced, get in front of the assessments by encouraging community discussions about the kinds of resources and the quality of education each school must have in place to meet the standards. Conduct an audit and analyses of the school district’s ability to meet state expectations based on such indicators as past student assessments; socio-economics status; the levels of parental involvement; quality and competency of teachers; special student needs such as health and social service support, instructional interventions such as preschool programs, before and after school offerings, tutorials, and expanded school day and school year opportunities.
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 Educate your community about the limitations of using test scores alone to determine the success of individual schools or the school districts. While test scores can be used as “signals” of how schools are measuring up to meeting the standards, test scores have limitations as indicators of school success, and should never be used as the sole determinant of achievement (See Action Brief on AYP).
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 Work with your community, parents and school districts in developing additional indicators of school academic success beyond the state assessment. For secondary schools, graduation rates MUST be selected as an additional indicator, while school districts must select at least one other indicator for elementary schools, but that can be of their choosing. Many elementary schools are using student attendance as their second indicators. Other indicators could be: socio-economic status of students, per capita student spending, levels of parent involvement, class size, school safety data, and/or other assessments such as achievement tests and teacher-made assessments.