[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 154 (Thursday, November 6, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11852-S11854]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NATIONAL TESTING

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise to speak of the need to preserve 
and protect the intense vital involvement of parents in decisionmaking 
in local schools all across America. If America is to succeed in the 
next generation, we have to have the capacity to have the kind of 
schools that meet the needs of our students. We will have to have the 
ability to experiment from one school district to another. We will have 
to have State and local governments that can tailor the programs which 
they have to meet the demands of their unique settings.
  Sometimes when we think about achievement, sometimes when we think 
about success, we think it might be necessary to try and impose the so-
called ``wisdom of Washington'' upon the Nation generally. But, I think 
that temptation ought to quickly fly from us if we would think of what 
would have happened, for instance, if we decided there needed to be a 
single uniform type of computer and we had imposed it from Washington 
saying there would just be one way of doing things. Maybe we would have 
chosen Apple computers and their way of doing things instead of IBM and 
their way of doing things. Or maybe we would have chosen a single 
software company and said that is the only way it could be handled, and 
we wouldn't have the flourishing and the flowering and the kind of 
intense opportunity and plurality for the generation of marvelous 
alternatives that have made America the far and away overwhelming 
leader in terms of the technology.
  I think whenever we feel that temptation to draw to Washington, DC, 
the decisionmaking and the prerogative of developing for the Nation a 
single uniform policy which would take the diversity and the creativity 
out of the system and would cheat America of the vital creativity and 
opportunity that is expressed when people at the local level are 
involved, whenever we have that temptation, we should think about how 
bad it would be in so many areas had we had that kind of policy.

  America's ability to flourish as a success reflects the diversity of 
this country and the ability of different groups of individuals to 
approach things differently and to do so successfully. Not only does it 
provide for us an energy which carries us to excellence, it also means 
that we don't ever have all of our eggs in a single basket. We have the 
capacity to meet a variety of challenges. We have innovative and 
creative thinking. We have the capacity to look at things from 
different points of view.
  One of the things that the President sought to bring to the United 
States--and I think his intention was good--was he wanted to improve 
education, by bringing to us national testing, testing of students on 
an individual basis all across America with a uniform test promulgated 
by bureaucrats in Washington, a single test which would, unfortunately, 
chart the direction of education all across the country.
  When you make a test, you decide that you are testing for something. 
So if you are going to make up a test that is going to be imposed on 
the country, you are going to be testing for something and you have to 
define what you are testing for.
  So the development of a test, although it might not seem to be at 
first blush, is really the development of a curriculum. If you decide 
what you are going to test for, you have to decide what you are going 
to teach. Once you decide what you are going to teach, you have 
established a national curriculum.
  Oddly enough, even deciding what you are going to teach probably 
isn't all that is controlled with the development of a test.
  The development of a test probably decides how you are going to teach 
it, because if you teach English, for instance, with phonics, teach 
people how letters sound together, and combinations and the like, that 
is one way of teaching the English language and would be tested 
differently than teaching the English language with the so-called whole 
language approach where you just have the recognition of words by rote 
or memorization.
  So when you have something like a national test proposed, you have to 
understand that you are talking about uniformity, that you are going to 
impose a single system all across the country, going to make everybody 
pretty much the same, you are going to deprive the system of the 
creativity and the vitality and diversity of what a lot of different 
folks can do when they are working simultaneously on a problem.
  Second, you are not only going to have uniformity, but you are going 
to determine from Washington, DC--if you have a uniform test, you are 
going to have a uniform curriculum. What to teach and how to teach it 
then becomes a uniform decision by bureaucrats. Because in order to 
test accurately, you have to know exactly what you are teaching and, of 
course, what you are teaching for will depend on how you are teaching.
  It troubles me to think that we might take these most fundamental 
decisions in education and pry them from the prerogative of parents and 
move them to the educators or bureaucrats of Washington, DC.
  As a matter of fact, the bureaucrats, educational bureaucrats, in 
Washington, DC, do not have a very good record. The bureaucrats in 
Washington, DC, run a couple school systems. We know that.
  As a matter of fact, they run the Department of Defense Dependent 
School System. A year or two ago they tried to put the so-called whole 
math into that system. The results were devastating. The median 
percentile computation scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills 
taken by more than 37,000 Department of Defense dependent school 
students, 1 year after the Defense Department introduced whole math, 
dropped 14 percent for third graders--this is the median percentile 
score--dropped 20 percent for fourth graders, 20 percent for fifth 
graders, 17 percent for sixth graders, and 17 percent for seventh 
graders. One year's implementation of a fad, of the new whole math, 
devastated the performance of those students.
  I am not sure we want to yield the control of our public schools to 
the Federal Government so we can have that kind of devastating impact. 
I sure do not.
  Maybe, if you think the Federal Government does things particularly 
well, you should look at another school system which the Federal 
Government runs. It is called the District of Columbia School System, 
where, I think, we have the highest per capita expenditure on students 
anywhere in the world, and we have some of the lowest achievement 
levels.
  What I am trying to say is, we do not need to forfeit to the Federal 
bureaucracy in Washington, DC, the decisionmaking in education of what 
to teach and how to teach it, and we need far less to take parents out 
of the equation.
  Some people might not understand the value of parents in education, 
but there has been a lot of work in the educational research area about 
the value of parents in education. A 1980 report in ``Psychology in the 
Schools'' shows that family involvement improved Chicago elementary 
schoolchildren's performance in reading comprehension dramatically.
  One year after initiating a Chicago citywide program aimed at helping 
parents create academic support conditions in the home, students in 
grades one through six ``intensively exposed to the program'' improved 
.5 to .6 grade equivalents in reading comprehension

[[Page S11853]]

on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills over students less intensively 
involved in the program--a 50- to 60-percent better level of 
improvement when the parents are deeply involved.
  If we are going to take parents out of the equation of what to teach 
and how to teach and we are going to tell them, do not bother to try to 
get active in your schools, because if things are not working there, 
you would have to change the whole country in order to change what 
happens at your schools, and besides, all the decisions are going to be 
made at sort of a quasi-national school board in Washington, DC, I do 
not think we are going to get effective parental involvement. That is 
why I believe that locally controlled schools are the fundamental thing 
that we ought to pursue. It is not only true for Chicago 
schoolchildren, it has been proven over and over again in other cities 
across the Nation in a variety of studies.

  It is important that we have parental involvement. It is important 
that we have local determination. It is important that we not yield to 
Washington, DC, the capacity to impose uniform curricula and a uniform 
teaching methodology all across the country. It would stifle 
creativity. It would impair achievement in a very, very significant 
way.
  The Republican agenda for education has not been to centralize 
education in Washington, DC. Our agenda, as expressed in this 
legislative session, has been to give local schools block grants. It 
has been to send them the power to do what they know they need to do.
  I heard Congressman Goodling from the House talk about the 
President's plan to improve education with just one more test. We 
already have between three and nine standardized tests every year for 
every student in the country, according to USA Today.
  Congressman Goodling put it this way: ``If you are trying to fatten 
cattle, they don't get fat by weighing them one more time.'' If you are 
trying to educate students, they don't get smart just by being tested 
one more time. Students not only have the regular tests of their 
instructional regime, they also have these three to nine other tests 
which are taking instructional time. And they are telling us pretty 
clearly where we are educationally. We know where there is much to 
achieve, but weighing the cattle one more time, testing the students 
one more time, will not make them fatter or smarter.
  The truth of the matter is, the solution is to do things like the 
Republicans have sought to do here, which is to get more capacity into 
the hands of schools so that it can be devoted to students and 
teachers, not to the bureaucracy in Washington--a clear contrast.
  The bureaucracy in Washington grows under President Clinton's ability 
to dictate, through the backdoor of testing, a curriculum and a 
teaching style in uniformity across America. Under the Republican 
proposals, instead of having a growing bureaucracy, you take the 
resource which would otherwise be sapped by the bureaucracy in 
Washington, and you target it on the schools, you give block grants to 
local schools.
  Another Republican initiative, the A-plus accounts, gives parents 
choices. Instead of taking parents out of the equation by saying we are 
going to have a national school board that no parent could afford to 
come and talk to and that would impose a uniform regime all across 
America, the Republican plan is to empower parents, to give parents 
choice. Let parents invest resources so that they can send their 
children to the schools that the parents choose and invest those 
resources absent the kind of onerous tax burdens that parents normally 
would have on their investments.
  The President's agenda is more programs, more bureaucracies, more of 
Washington-knows-best. The Republican agenda is a commitment to local 
schools, local control, local education, the creativity, the pluralism, 
yes, the diversity and the energy that comes when we have local schools 
all across America.
  There is an effort being made in this year's appropriations measure 
to harmonize the kind of demands that are being made by the 
administration and the items that were passed in the Senate with items 
that were passed in the House. I think it is fundamentally important 
that we protect local schools. If we are not willing to stand up to 
protect the local schools, the prerogative of parents to operate in 
those schools, to be effective there, to get involved meaningfully in 
the development of curriculum and the development of teaching 
methodology, I think we will have failed in our duty.

  I intend to do whatever I can, as we close this session--and I mean 
``whatever I can''--to make sure we arrive at a conclusion which makes 
it possible for parents to continue to have that kind of beneficial 
impact.
  At the end of this year the President and his bureaucrats seem to be 
winning. America's children are losing. The block grants, which would 
have cut the Washington bureaucracy by sending more funds directly to 
local school districts, were all but abandoned, and I commend the 
occupant of the Chair for having that idea, which is one of the best 
ideas that has been offered to help education in this Congress in 
decades.
  Scholarships for needy children in the District of Columbia were 
filibustered to death. Instead of giving parents the power to help 
their children in education, we lost on that ground. And the President 
has indicated that, if we succeed on that ground, he will veto it.
  On Tuesday, the Senate voted to kill A-plus accounts to help parents 
pay for the costs of their children's education. At least the vote was 
to not allow that to go forward. We could not get cloture. So those who 
sought to reinforce the position of the President there deprived 
America of another opportunity for parents to be beneficially involved.
  We have lost on the block grants. We lost on the A-plus accounts. We 
lost on the scholarships for DC students that would empower parents.
  A final ballot remains over national testing. It is a cause from 
which I do not intend to waiver.
  I do not think Senators should pack their bags for the recess just 
yet. There are rights to defend. There are students whose interests are 
in the balance. I do not think we should sacrifice the next 
generation's education for a few extra days of rest at the end of this 
year. I certainly do not intend to do so myself.
  National tests would lead to a national curriculum. I think we can 
all understand that. The President keeps saying that the national 
testing system he is proposing would be voluntary. He said these will 
all be voluntary. Do not worry. No school district would be required to 
be involved in these tests.
  That is what he said in Washington, DC. That is what he said in his 
State of the Union Message. That is what he said recently. Perhaps he 
thought we were not listening carefully when he was speaking in 
Lansing, MI, on March 10 of this year, 1997. He put it this way:

       I want to create a climate in which no one can say no, in 
     which it's voluntary but you are ashamed if you don't give 
     your kids the chance to do [these tests].

  Here is a President who says this is to be voluntary, but he says he 
wants to make it so no one can say no. When the President has the 
ability to control funding, and when he has the opportunity to give 
grants and otherwise to make favorable or unfavorable decisions about 
what happens in schools, I doubt seriously whether there will be a real 
opportunity for these to be voluntary.
  William Safire recently warned of the dangers of allowing the 
administration's testing proposal. And I quote William Safire in his 
editorial from the New York Times op-ed page entitled ``Flunk that 
Test.'' He put it this way:

       We're only talking about math and English, say the national 
     standard-bearers, and shucks, it's only voluntary.

  I continue to quote Safire.

       Don't believe that; if the nose of the camel gets under the 
     tent, the hump of a national curriculum, slavish teaching to 
     homogenizing tests, and a black market in answers would 
     surely follow.

  You know, the evils of a national test have long been understood, not 
just by Republicans, but by Democrats as well, because they have 
understood that national testing ultimately dictates national 
curricula.
  Perhaps one of the most eloquent in that respect was Joseph Califano. 
Joseph Califano was the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in 
the Carter administration. When Joseph Califano was asked about 
national

[[Page S11854]]

tests, he warned the American people. He put it this way:

       Any set of test questions that the federal government 
     prescribed should surely be suspect as a first step toward a 
     national curriculum. . . . In its most extreme form, [Joseph 
     Califano went on to warn] national control of curriculum is a 
     form of national control of ideas.

  We could have a long debate about the potential evils of national 
control of ideas, but it is pretty clear to me that none of us believes 
that Washington, DC, should control ideas. I think all of us understand 
that if Washington, DC, controls things, it generally does not do them 
well. As a matter of fact, what this country has controlled from 
Washington, DC, has not been exemplary. It has been an example of what 
to avoid rather than what to embrace.
  When you are talking with individuals about the so-called tests which 
they would impose, you have to wonder whether Washington's imposition 
of tests would be something like Washington's attempted imposition of 
the standards for history, which they tried to develop at the end of 
the last decade and early in the 1990's.
  The National Endowment for the Humanities sought to develop a set of 
history standards telling us what we should know and what we should 
teach. What was interesting to me is that the standards tended to be 
far more politically correct than they were historically correct.
  When you are thinking about mathematics, I do not think we should 
think about that which is politically correct or historically correct. 
We should think about things that are arithmetically correct.
  But here is what happened to the national history standards. The 
national history standards were more interested in those who were 
politically correct.
  The standards slighted or ignored many central figures in U.S. 
history, particularly white males. To name a few, Robert E. Lee was 
left out, Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers were left out, Paul 
Revere was left out, so we could have many, many references to the Ku 
Klux Klan, so we could have references to heroes from other continents.

  The truth of the matter is the U.S. Senate understood what was 
happening there and voted against those standards. I believe that these 
standards were rejected unanimously in the Senate. George Will attacked 
the failed history standards as ``cranky anti-Americanism.'' It didn't 
surprise the American public. The American public has witnessed the 
Federal Government go awry, time after time after time on issue after 
issue after issue.
  The proponents of the proposed national tests have indicated that 
their interest is in the whole math curriculum. As a matter of fact, 
when we found out what they were talking about with the whole math 
curriculum we discovered they were talking about a rejection of 
computation. Computation is 3 times 6 is 18; 3 times 18 is 54; 4 times 
18 is 72. They reject that. One whole math proponent was quoted in the 
Wall Street Journal as having said we can't ask students to say 6 times 
7 is 42, put down the 2, carry the 4. They said that is discriminatory. 
Most students can't do that, they are too dumb. That is ridiculous. Our 
students are smarter than that. They are not that dumb.
  As a matter of fact, the only thing that will dumb down American 
education is if we have low expectations. I have studies that show when 
you have low expectations you get low performance. Here you have people 
designing the tests who want to run away from the ability of American 
students to compute. They want to supply everyone with a calculator so 
no one has to know the multiplication table and no one has to do things 
in his or her head. I think such dumbing down of America's educational 
performance would be inappropriate.
  Most importantly, it is fundamental that we maintain in this great 
land the ability of moms and dads to be at the focal point of 
educational policy and development and not bureaucrats in Washington, 
DC. It is fundamentally important that we maintain local control of 
education rather than Washington control.
  As we are working our way to see whether or not we can have an 
appropriations bill that maintains this balance, I want to say to the 
U.S. Senate that we have an obligation to stay here and work until we 
do protect the rights and opportunities of the next generation for a 
decent education by making sure that their parents are in charge, that 
local school boards and States are in charge, and that we don't forfeit 
the prerogatives of education policy to bureaucrats in Washington, DC, 
who would impose a kind of mindless ``dumbed down'' national curriculum 
which would fail to have the diversity and creativity and energy --
especially the energy--that comes from local involvement that we need.
  I intend to do whatever I can and everything that is possible to make 
sure that we protect that prerogative. I hope Members of this body and 
Members of the House will join me in doing so. As we are seeking in 
these moments to reach an agreement with the White House in this 
respect, I hope it will be their understanding that a plan to have a 
uniform stifling environment promulgated from Washington is not a plan 
for a prosperous America but is a plan which would pull the educational 
rug out from under the feet of our children and would destroy our 
capacity to compete in the next generation.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I ask unanimous consent I may proceed for 10 minutes as 
in morning business
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). Without objection, it is 
so ordered.

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