[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 125 (Thursday, September 18, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1813-E1814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND 
                    RELATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1998

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 16, 1997

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2264) making 
     appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human 
     Services, and Education, and related agencies, for the fiscal 
     year ending September 30, 1998, and for other purposes:


  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in reluctant support of 
Representative Goodling's amendment to prohibit the use of funds in the 
bill to develop and administer a national testing program in reading 
and mathematics. I believe that Congress and the President have still 
not committed themselves to a serious discussion of education policy or 
spending in this country. Unfortunately this standard continues today 
as the parties on both sides of this issue have sought to hide behind 
this national testing initiative by labeling it as either a remedy for 
many of the problems this country is having with elementary and 
secondary education or some nefarious effort on the part of the Federal 
Government to become more involved in education curriculum.
  The national testing program included in this legislation deserves 
neither of these classifications. If implemented and carefully 
monitored, it has a number of provisions that will be of great 
assistance to both State and Federal policymakers as well as parents 
interested in their child's education. However, I oppose the national 
testing initiative included in this bill because it does not ensure 
that this Government will take any steps to address the disparity in 
mathematics and reading proficiency that we all know this testing will 
demonstrate. The local areas where there are concentrated numbers of 
students that are dropping out of high school, failing, and scoring low 
on the sporadic tests administered now desperately need direct 
injections of funding from the Federal Government. We can all argue 
about what types of restrictions or demands should be tied to these 
funds at a later date. In the meantime, we should implement a national 
testing program that includes a national formula for focused education 
spending, and we should do it as quickly as possible.
  Let me discuss some reasons why I believe this national testing 
initiative could produce a number of benefits for parents and State 
governments interested in improving elementary and secondary education. 
However, I will first address the concerns of the many parents that 
educate their children at home who have contacted my office to express 
their opinions on this amendment. I respect your decision to home-
school your children very much. However, the vast majority of children 
in the United States are educated at public schools, and it is 
essential that elected officials and education planners on the Federal 
and local level have the resources needed to develop effective public 
policy. National testing will fulfill that need without unduly 
intruding on your right to practice home-schooling.
  This national testing program would allow States or local education 
agencies [LEA's] to voluntarily administer specific tests to every 
fourth grade pupil in reading and eighth grade pupil in math. I do not 
believe enough emphasis can be placed on the fact that this program 
would be voluntary, and participation in these tests would not affect a 
State or LEA's eligibility for assistance under Federal aid programs. 
Any effort to extend the Federal role in this process beyond the design 
and administration of these tests would require further congressional 
action, and as we all know, that is simply not going to happen.
  At the present time, there is no current education test that every 
pupil in every grade takes nationwide. One or more tests are 
administered to virtually every pupil in many grades in almost all 
States, but these tests vary from State to State. Some States develop 
their own tests, others are members of multi-State consortia that 
develop assessments, and others administer tests developed by 
commercial publishers. The National Assessment of Education Progress 
[NAEP] is the closest existing initiative to a national testing 
program. However, the NAEP only determines mathematics and reading 
proficiency in samples of school children.

  The present education testing system prevents policymakers in many 
States from comparing their education statistics with other States. If 
an effective education program is implemented in one State and then 
copied in another, for example, the two State governments may not be 
able to compare the success of their efforts because of difficulties in 
correlating the research statistics or even a lack of well-documented 
results.
  More importantly, the current system prevents a parent from being 
able to compare their children's academic achievement with other 
students on a local, State, or national level. A parent whose child 
makes average grades may be satisfied with their child's academic 
progress. Unfortunately, these parents will not be aware that their 
child may have fallen behind the rest of their classmates until they 
take their SAT's at the age of 18.
  This proposal will provide every parent of every child in a State or 
LEA that chooses to participate with comparisons of their child's 
results to other students at their school, in the State, and in the 
Nation. If every family receives that envelope in the mail, I believe 
there will be a lot of parents who choose to get more involved in their 
child's education, which after all is what the majority of my 
colleagues will agree is the most effective education policy there can 
be.
  I am concerned that a national test may be constructed in a manner 
that is biased against traditionally undereducated populations, such as 
African-Americans and Hispanics. If Federal funding was tied to the 
improvement of test scores in areas that score poorly, this bias could 
lead to underserved sanctions in regions that have high numbers of 
minorities. As a result, if a national testing program is implemented 
in the future, we will have to pay careful attention to the design of 
the tests and remain skeptical of any effort to create a Federal 
enforcement procedure. However, national testing's benefits for these 
populations far outweigh these risks. By motivating parents to pay more 
attention to their child's academic development and providing 
policymakers the empirical evidence needed to design effective 
education policies targeted at minorities, this initiative will produce 
the first real effort to address the failure of current education 
policies in these areas.
  In the end, we are not interested in creating a uniform national 
education curriculum; we are only demanding a uniform national 
education outcome--a system where every child has the same opportunity 
to succeed through an advanced public education system. In my home 
State of Mississippi, sampled children already score well below the 
national average on the NAEP's fourth grade reading test and are ranked 
in the bottom fifth in eighth grade

[[Page E1814]]

math proficiency. If a well-planned, voluntary national testing program 
could be coupled with a funding distribution system directed at those 
areas most in need, then I would be happy to support such an 
initiative. I hope that this Congress and the administration will 
reconsider the design of a national testing program. However, above 
all, we must cease this piecemeal education policymaking and begin a 
legitimate debate on the whole education policy