[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1163 Introduced in House (IH)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1163

 To limit the use of Federal funds appropriated for conducting testing 
   in elementary or secondary schools to testing that meets certain 
                  conditions, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 22, 2001

   Mr. Akin introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                Committee on Education and the Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To limit the use of Federal funds appropriated for conducting testing 
   in elementary or secondary schools to testing that meets certain 
                  conditions, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Accountability in Testing Act of 
2001''.

SEC. 2. FUNDS APPROPRIATED FOR ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL TESTING.

    (a) In General.--No funds appropriated to carry out any Federal law 
may be used to conduct any test or assessment in a public elementary 
school or a public secondary school unless--
            (1) the test or assessment is selected or designed by the 
        State educational agency (or by a local educational agency to 
        which the State has delegated such authority) in the State in 
        which the test is to be administered;
            (2) the test or assessment is appropriate for students at 
        least at the grade level of the students being tested;
            (3) the test or assessment is objectively scored by machine 
        or other standardized means;
            (4) each question of the test or assessment--
                    (A) is with respect to its design uninfluenced by 
                any 1 opinion, belief, or attitude, and does not test 
                the individual student's personal opinions, beliefs, or 
                attitudes; and
                    (B) tests objective knowledge based on widely-
                agreed-upon, measurable, and verifiable professional 
                psychometric standards; and
            (5) the results of the test or assessment--
                    (A) with respect to each individual student, are 
                made available to the student's parents or guardians;
                    (B) with respect to each school as a whole, are 
                made publicly available; and
                    (C) with respect to each State as a whole, are made 
                publicly available.
    (b) Prohibited Conditions.--No Federal official, including the 
Secretary of Education, may require, as a condition of the receipt or 
use of any funds appropriated to carry out any Federal law for the 
purpose of conducting testing in an elementary school or a secondary 
school, that--
            (1) a test be verified by the Federal government for any 
        reason other than to verify that the conditions set forth in 
        subsection (a) have been met;
            (2) a private school or a home school test any of its 
        students;
            (3) the test data or results be used for the purposes of 
        tracking or career selection; or
            (4) the demographic data collected from the individual 
        students as part of the test be used for anything other than 
        aggregate statistics.
    (c) Definitions.--In this section, the terms ``elementary school'', 
``local educational agency'', ``State educational agency'', and 
``secondary school'' have the meanings given such terms in section 
14101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 
8801).
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