[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 460 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 460

    To provide for fairness and accuracy in high stakes educational 
                        decisions for students.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 6, 2001

 Mr. Wellstone introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
  referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To provide for fairness and accuracy in high stakes educational 
                        decisions for students.

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

SECTION 1. FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN HIGH STAKES EDUCATIONAL DECISIONS 
              FOR STUDENTS.

    (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) The use of large-scale achievement tests in education 
        has grown significantly in recent years. States and local 
        school districts have increasingly used these tests in such 
        contexts as raising student academic standards to make high-
        stakes decisions with important consequences for individual 
        students, such as tracking (assigning students to schools, 
        programs, or classes based on achievement level), promotion of 
        students to the next grade, and graduation of students from 
        secondary school.
            (2) The serious and often adverse consequences resulting 
        from the sole reliance on large-scale tests have increasingly 
        resulted in questions and significant concerns by students, 
        parents, teachers, and school administrators about how to 
        ensure that such tests are used appropriately and in a manner 
        that is fair.
            (3) In 1997, Congress directed the National Academy of 
        Sciences to ``conduct a study and make written recommendations 
        on appropriate methods, practices, and safeguards to ensure 
        that, among other things,...existing and new tests that are 
        used to assess student performance are not used in a 
        discriminatory manner or inappropriately for student promotion, 
        tracking, or graduation.''.
            (4) In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences, through its 
        National Research Council, completed its study and issued a 
        report entitled ``High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion 
        and Graduation''. Guided by principles of measurement validity, 
        attribution of cause, and effectiveness of treatment, the 
        National Research Council made key findings for appropriate 
        test use in educational settings, including the following:
                    (A) When tests are used in ways that meet relevant 
                psychometric, legal, and educational standards, 
                students' scores provide important information, that 
                combined with information from other sources, can lead 
                to decisions that promote student learning and equality 
                of opportunity.
                    (B) Tests are not perfect. Test questions are a 
                sample of possible questions that could be asked in a 
                given area. Moreover, a test score is not an exact 
                measure of a student's knowledge or skills.
                    (C) To the extent that all students are expected to 
                meet world-class standards, there is a need to provide 
                world-class curricula and instruction to all students. 
                However, in most of the Nation, much needs to be done 
                before a world-class curriculum and world-class 
                instruction will be in place. At present, curriculum 
                does not usually place sufficient emphasis on student 
                understanding and application of concepts, as opposed 
                to memorization and skill mastery. In addition, 
                instruction in core subjects typically has been and 
                remains highly stratified. What teachers teach and what 
                students learn vary widely by track, with those in 
                lower tracks receiving far less than a world-class 
                curriculum.
                    (D) It is a mistake to begin educational reform by 
                introducing tests with high stakes for individual 
                students. If tests are to be used for high stakes 
                decisions about individual mastery, such use should 
                follow implementation of changes in teaching and 
                curriculum that ensure that students have been taught 
                the knowledge and skills on which the students will be 
                tested.
                    (E) Problems of test validity are greatest among 
                young children, and there is a greater risk of error 
                when such tests are employed to make high stakes 
                decisions about children who are less than 8 years old 
                or below grade 3, or about their schools. However, 
                well-designed assessments may be useful in monitoring 
                trends in the educational development of populations of 
                students who have reached age 5.
            (5) The National Research Council made the following 
        recommendations:
                    (A) If parents, educators, public officials, and 
                others who share responsibility for educational 
                outcomes are to discharge their responsibility 
                effectively, they should have access to information 
                about the nature and interpretation of tests and test 
                scores. Such information should be made available to 
                the public and should be incorporated into teacher 
                education and into educational programs for principals, 
                administrators, public officials, and others.
                    (B) A test may appropriately be used to lead 
                curricular reform, but it should not also be used to 
                make high-stakes decisions about individual students 
                until test users can show that the test measures what 
                they have been taught.
                    (C) High-stakes decisions such as tracking, 
                promotion, and graduation should not automatically be 
                made on the basis of a single test score but should be 
                buttressed by other relevant information about the 
                student's knowledge and skill, such as grades, teacher 
                recommendations, and extenuating circumstances.
                    (D) In general, large-scale assessments should not 
                be used to make high-stakes decisions about students 
                who are less than 8 years old or enrolled below grade 
                3.
                    (E) High-stakes testing programs should routinely 
                include a well-designed evaluation component. 
                Policymakers should monitor both the intended and 
                unintended consequences of high-stake assessments on 
                all students and on significant subgroups of students, 
                including minorities, English-language learners, and 
                students with disabilities.
            (6) These principles and findings of the National Academy 
        of Sciences are supported in significant measure by the 
        Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, adopted 
        and approved in December of 1999, by the leading experts and 
        professional organizations on testing, including the American 
        Educational Research Association, American Psychological 
        Association, and the National Council on Measurement in 
        Education.
    (b) Test Performance.--If performance on a single large-scale test 
is considered as part of any decision about the retention, graduation, 
tracking, or within-class ability grouping of an individual student by 
a State educational agency or local educational agency that receives 
funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, such 
test performance shall not be the sole criterion in such decision and 
may be considered in making such decision only if--
            (1) the test, including any cut score or performance 
        standard set or established for use on the test, meets 
        professional standards of validity and reliability for the 
        purpose for which the test's results are being used;
            (2) the test allows its users to make score interpretations 
        in relation to a functional performance level, as distinguished 
        from those interpretations that are made in relation to the 
        performance of others;
            (3) the test is based on State or local content and 
        performance standards and is aligned with the curriculum and 
        classroom instruction;
            (4) the test follows implementation of changes in teaching 
        and curriculum that ensure that students have been taught the 
        knowledge and skills on which the students will be tested;
            (5) multiple measures of student achievement, including 
        grades and evaluations by teachers, are utilized to ensure that 
        scores from the test are never the only source of information 
        used, nor the sole criterion used, in making a high-stakes 
        decision about an individual student;
            (6) students tested have been provided multiple 
        opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in the academic 
        subject covered by the test;
            (7) the test is administered in accordance with the written 
        guidance from the test developer or publisher;
            (8) the State educational agency or local educational 
        agency involved has evidence that the test is of adequate 
        technical quality for each purpose for which the test is used;
            (9) the State educational agency or local educational 
        agency provides appropriate accommodations and alternate 
        assessments for students with disabilities that provide the 
        students with a valid opportunity to show what the students 
        know and can do;
            (10) the State educational agency or local educational 
        agency provides appropriate accommodations and alternative 
        assessments for students with limited English proficiency (if 
        the agency involved determines that the students have not 
        achieved sufficient English proficiency to ensure that the test 
        will validly and reliably measure the subject matter knowledge 
and skills of the students), including--
                    (A) the use of a test other than an English-only 
                test;
                    (B) the use of alternate assessments (consisting of 
                psychometrically equivalent tests in the students' 
                native language) in order to provide such students with 
                a valid and reliable opportunity to demonstrate what 
                the students know and can do; and
                    (C) in a case in which the Secretary of Education 
                determines that more than 5 percent of the students 
                enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12 in a State 
                are members of a single language minority group and are 
                limited English proficient--
                            (i) the assessment of the students in that 
                        group using tests developed in the language of 
                        that group, if the State or local educational 
                        agency determines that such tests are more 
                        likely than English-only tests to yield 
                        accurate and reliable information regarding 
                        what those students know and can do; or
                            (ii) if the language of the group is oral 
                        or unwritten or, in the case of Alaska Natives 
                        and other American Indians, if the predominant 
                        language of the group is historically 
                        unwritten, the furnishing of oral instructions, 
                        assistance, and other necessary information to 
                        such students relating to the English-only 
                        test; and
            (11) the test is not used for a decision about promotion or 
        placement in special education for a child below the age of 8 
        or third grade.
    (c) Evaluations.--
            (1) State educational agencies.--Each State educational 
        agency that receives funds under the Elementary and Secondary 
        Education Act of 1965 and uses a large-scale test as part of a 
        high stakes decision described in subsection (b), shall 
        periodically conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the impact 
        of high stakes decisions on students' education and educational 
        outcomes, with particular consideration given to the impact on 
        individual students and subgroups of students disaggregated by 
        socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, limited English 
        proficiency, disability, and gender. The State educational 
        agency shall make the results of the evaluation available to 
        the public and shall provide clear and comprehensible 
        information about the nature, use, and interpretation of the 
        test and the scores the test generate.
            (2) Local educational agency.--Each local educational 
        agency that receives funds under the Elementary and Secondary 
        Education Act of 1965, uses a large-scale test as part of a 
        high stakes decision described in subsection (b), and is 
        located in a State that does not conduct an evaluation under 
        paragraph (1), shall periodically conduct a comprehensive 
        evaluation of the impact of high stakes decisions on students' 
        education and educational outcomes, with particular 
        consideration given to the impact on individual students and 
        subgroups of students disaggregated by socioeconomic status, 
        race, ethnicity, limited English proficiency, disability, and 
        gender. The local educational agency shall make the results of 
        the evaluation available to the public and shall provide clear 
        and comprehensible information about the nature, use, and 
        interpretation of the test and the scores the test generate.
            (3) Department of education.--The Secretary shall--
                    (A) conduct an evaluation similar to the evaluation 
                described in paragraph (1) among a representative 
                sample of States and local educational agencies;
                    (B) report the results of such evaluation to 
                Congress; and
                    (C) make the results of the evaluation available to 
                the public.
    (d) Definitions.--In this section:
            (1) In general.--The terms used in this section have the 
        meanings given the terms in section 14101 of the Elementary and 
        Secondary Education Act of 1965.
            (2) Large-scale test.--The term ``large-scale test'' means 
        a test that is administered and scored under conditions uniform 
        to all students so that the test scores are comparable across 
        individuals.
            (3) Sole criterion.--The term ``sole criterion'' means the 
        only one standard (such as a test score) used to make a 
        judgment or a decision, including a step-wise decisionmaking 
        procedure where students must reach or exceed one criterion 
        (such as a cut score of a test) independent of or before other 
        criteria can be considered.
                                 <all>