[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 134 (Tuesday, October 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10906-S10908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EDUCATION IN TEXAS

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today a very interesting release was made 
of a study on education in Texas by the Rand Corporation. I will read 
some parts from this.
  I ask unanimous consent that the executive summary of the Rand 
Corporation's study that was released today be printed in the Record 
after my remarks.

[[Page S10907]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. HARKIN. What did this Rand study show? Let me read the first 
couple paragraphs:

       What Do Test Scores in Texas Tell Us?
       Do the scores on high-stakes, statewide tests accurately 
     reflect student achievement? To answer this critical 
     question, a team of RAND researchers examined the results on 
     the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), the highest-
     profile state testing program and one that recorded 
     extraordinary gains in math and reading scores.
       The team's report, an issue paper titled ``What Do Test 
     Scores in Texas Tell Us?'', raises ``serious questions'' 
     about the validity of those gains [in Texas]. It also 
     cautions about the danger of making decisions to sanction or 
     reward students, teachers and schools on the basis of test 
     scores that may be inflated or misleading.

  It continues:

       To investigate whether the dramatic math and reading gains 
     on the TAAS [the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills] 
     represent actual academic progress, the researchers compared 
     these gains to score changes in Texas on another test, 
     the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP 
     tests were used as a benchmark because they reflect 
     standards endorsed by a national panel of experts, they 
     are not subject to pressures to boost scores, and they are 
     generally considered the nation's single best indicator of 
     student achievement. Both the TAAS and the NAEP tests were 
     administered to fourth and eighth graders during 
     comparable four-year periods.

  According to the Rand study: The ``stark differences'' between the 
stories told by NAEP and TAAS are especially striking when it comes to 
the gap in average scores between whites and students of color. 
According to the NAEP results, that gap in Texas is not only very large 
but increasing slightly. According to TAAS scores, the gap is much 
smaller and decreasing greatly.
  ``We do not know the source of these differences,'' the researchers 
state. But one reasonable explanation, consistent with survey and 
observation data, is that ``many schools are devoting a great deal of 
class time to highly specific TAAS preparation.'' While this 
preparation may improve TAAS scores, it may not help students develop 
necessary reading and math skills. The authors suspect that ``schools 
with relatively large percentages of minority and poor students may be 
doing this more than other schools.''
  Then it went on to say: Other features of the Texas test also may 
contribute to the false sense that the racial gaps are closing.
  Let me read now what Governor Bush has said about the Texas tests. 
According to Governor Bush:

       One of my proudest accomplishments is I worked with 
     Republicans and Democrats to close that achievement gap in 
     Texas.

  Bush said that on ``Larry King Live.''
  The Rand study shows this claim is false. The achievement gap is not 
closing; it is actually increasing in Texas.
  Bush says that:

       Without comprehensive regular testing, without knowing if 
     children are really learning, accountability is a myth, and 
     standards are just slogans.

  That is from a George Bush press conference.
  The Rand study shows that the tests cited by Bush to support this 
claim are biased, the gains are the product of teaching to the test, 
and that claims of success far exceed the actual results.
  Here is another Bush quote:

       And our State provides some of the best education in the 
     nation, not measured by us, but measured by the Rand 
     Corporation, or other folks who take an objective look as to 
     how states are doing when it comes to educating children.

  Bush said this in a live web chat on August 30.
  Governor Bush was citing the Rand Corporation as an independent, 
outside organization to look at what States are doing and what they are 
doing in educating their children.
  Here the Rand Corporation came out with their finding today. ``I 
think the, quote, `Texas miracle' is a myth,'' Stephen Klein, a senior 
Rand researcher who helped lead the study, told Reuters in a phone 
interview. He said: the ``Texas miracle'' is a myth.
  So much for what George Bush is saying about the ``Texas miracle'' in 
education. What it shows is that Texas set up its own tests, called the 
TAAS, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. They administered those, 
put rewards out there for how well you do on these tests.
  So what did they start doing in those schools? They taught to the 
test, especially in schools that had a high proportion of minority 
students. But when measured against the national test --that is not 
biased, that is generally accepted around the Nation as the test to 
measure achievement--the Texas test falls short. It showed that the gap 
is not closing. It is actually widening, especially when it comes to 
the gap between white students and students of color.

  George Bush's claim that great progress in education has been made in 
Texas is simply a myth. I am glad the Rand Corporation study came out 
at this time. The American people deserve to know this, that the 
exaggerations of George Bush on education are clearly just that--
terrible, gross exaggerations of what is actually happening in Texas, 
when he cites the Rand Corporation and then the Rand Corporation comes 
out and says, wait a minute, this is a myth. There are serious 
questions about the validity of the gains in Texas, stark differences 
between the stories told by Texas and by national testing.
  It is obvious to me. George Bush keeps talking about taking tests and 
taking tests, but when you measure against the nationally respected 
NAEP test, Texas falls far short. So much for that exaggeration. Mr. 
Bush believes so much in taking tests; he should take an exaggeration 
test. He would flunk it. So much for education.
  We were down at the White House earlier. We are sitting here now, 
almost a month into the new fiscal year. We have not passed our 
appropriations bills that fund education. We have no money for class 
size reduction, no money for rebuilding and modernizing our schools, no 
money for building new schools, no money for teacher training, no money 
for job training. We are a month into the new fiscal year. The last 
bill to be worked on is our education bill. The leadership on the 
Republican side said this year that education was their No. 1 priority. 
Yet it is the last bill to get through the Congress.
  Finally, the Governor of Texas was quoted in today's Washington Post 
as saying that the Vice President has blocked reform for the past 7\1/
2\ years. This is the exact quote from the newspaper:

       ``For 7\1/2\ years the vice president has been the second 
     biggest obstacle to reform in America,'' Bush added. ``Now he 
     wants to be the biggest, the obstacle in chief.''

  That is kind of a cute line, I have to admit. He says that the Vice 
President and President Clinton have blocked reform for the last 7\1/2\ 
years. He has his little chant: They have had their chance. They have 
not led. We will. It is a catchy little phrase.
  I have been watching George Bush. He has a lot of catchy phrases. It 
makes one wonder: What country has George Bush been living in for the 
last 8 years? Look at the record. During the Reagan and Bush years, we 
had record deficits. Our debt quadrupled in this country during those 
years, low job growth, low economic growth. Bill Clinton and Al Gore 
took us from the depths of a Republican-made recession to the heights 
of the longest peacetime economic expansion in this Nation's history, 
balanced our budgets; it took us from record deficits of $290 billion a 
year--that is what it was in 1992, a $290 billion deficit--and the 
surplus this year will be $237 billion, the largest surplus in our 
Nation's history.
  We are now on track to eliminate the public debt by 2012. The Clinton 
and Gore team, in contrast to what George Bush is saying, created 22.2 
million new jobs, an average of 242,000 new jobs every month. That is 
the highest number of jobs ever created under a single administration. 
Unemployment is now at the lowest rate in 30 years. Under the Reagan 
and Bush years, the number of people on welfare rose by 2.5 million, an 
increase of 22 percent. But under Bill Clinton and Al Gore, we ended 
welfare as we knew it. We have moved 7.5 million people off of welfare, 
a decrease of 50 percent. Today we have the lowest number of welfare 
recipients since 1968.

  George Bush is saying: They are big spenders; they wanted to spend 
all this money. The size of Government has grown.
  Let's look at the record.
  Bill Clinton and Al Gore have shrunk spending. Today, Federal 
Government spending as a share of the economy, of our gross product, 
has

[[Page S10908]]

dropped to its lowest level since 1966. It is right at about 18.5 
percent, the lowest level since 1966.
  Al Gore was the head of reinventing government, which has saved us 
approximately $136 billion since he took over. How? There are now 
377,000 fewer Federal Government employees than in 1993. We now have 
the smallest Federal workforce since 1960. Yet under George Bush in 
Texas, the size of the Texas government has grown. They have more 
people working for government. Under Clinton and Gore, we have reduced 
the size of the Government by 377,000 people to the lowest level since 
1960. Those are the irrefutable facts.
  Crime has been reduced. It has dropped for 7 years in a row, the 
longest consecutive decline in crime ever recorded. The environment has 
improved. During this time of economic growth, our environment has 
improved. They have set the toughest smog and soot standards ever. We 
have cleaned up over 500 toxic waste dumps. We have protected over 650 
million acres of public lands, more than any administration since 
Franklin Roosevelt was President.
  We have made new investments in our schools. We have begun an 
initiative to hire 100,000 more teachers to reduce class size. We have 
opened up slots for 200,000 new Head Start students. We have connected 
classrooms across America to the Internet. We have expanded 
afterschool, summer school, and college prep programs.
  Evidently, George Bush does not think much of these results. Maybe 
these aren't the kinds of reforms in which he is interested. I guess 
Governor Bush would rather take us back to the old days of deficits, 
debts, and recession. Tax breaks for the rich; tough breaks for 
everyone else.
  In essence, what Governor Bush wants to do is return to the failed 
policies of the past. Let's move beyond that. Those failed policies of 
the past brought us deficits, brought us more debt, brought us 
recession, but the economic programs of the Clinton-Gore administration 
have brought us the greatest prosperity we have known since World War 
II.
  That is the record. Those are the facts. No amount of catchy little 
phrases or platitudes uttered by Governor Bush can erase that record.
  Lastly on education, the Rand study shows that the Texas miracle is 
really a Texas myth.

                             Exhibit No. 1

                 What Do Test Scores in Texas Tell Us?

       Do the scores on high-stakes, statewide tests accurately 
     reflect student achievement? To answer this critical 
     question, a team of RAND researchers examined the results on 
     the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), the highest-
     profile state testing program and one that has recorded 
     extraordinary gains in math and reading scores.
       The team's report, an issue paper titled What Do Test 
     Scores in Texas Tell Us? raises ``serious questions'' about 
     the validity of those gains. It also cautions about the 
     danger of making decisions to sanction or reward students, 
     teachers and schools on the basis of test scores that may be 
     inflated or misleading. Finally, it suggests some steps that 
     states can take to increase the likelihood that their test 
     results merit public confidence and provide a sound basis for 
     educational policy.
       To investigate whether the dramatic math and reading gains 
     on the TAAS represent actual academic progress, the 
     researchers compared these gains to score changes in Texas on 
     another test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress 
     (NAEP). The NAEP tests were used as a benchmark because they 
     reflect standards endorsed by a national panel of experts, 
     they are not subject to pressures to boost scores, and they 
     are generally considered the nation's single best indicator 
     of student achievement. Both the TAAS and the NAEP tests were 
     administered to fourth and eight graders during comparable 
     four-year period.
       The RAND team--Stephen P. Klein, Laura Hamilton, Daniel 
     McCaffrey and Brian M. Stecher--generally found only small 
     increases, similar to those observed nationwide, in the Texas 
     NAEP scores. Meanwhile, the TAAS scores were soaring. Texas 
     students did improve significantly more on a fourth-grade 
     NAEP math test than their counterparts nationally. But again, 
     the size of this gain was smaller than their gains on TAAS 
     and was not present on the eighth-grade math test.
       The ``stark differences'' between the stories told by NAEP 
     and TAAS are especially striking when it comes to the gap in 
     average scores between whites and students of color. 
     According to the NAEP results, that gap in Texas is not 
     only very large but increasing slightly. According to TAAS 
     scores, the gap is much smaller and decreasing greatly.
       ``We do not know the source of these differences,'' the 
     researchers state. But one reasonable explanation, consistent 
     with survey and observation data, is that ``many schools are 
     devoting a great deal of class time to highly specific TAAS 
     preparation.'' While this preparation may improve TAAS 
     scores, it may not help students develop necessary reading 
     and math skills. The authors suspect that ``schools with 
     relatively large percentages of minority and poor students 
     may be doing this more than other schools.'' Other features 
     of the TAAS also may contribute to the false sense that the 
     racial gaps are closing.
       Problems with statewide tests are not confined to the TAAS 
     or Texas, the authors observe. To lessen the likelihood of 
     invalid scores on such tests, they recommend that states:
       Reduce the pressure associated with high-stakes testing by 
     using one set of measures for decisions about individual 
     students and another set for teachers and schools;
       Replace traditional paper-and-pencil multiple choice exams 
     with computer-based tests that are delivered over the 
     Internet and draw on banks of thousands of questions;
       Peridocially conduct audit testing to validate score gains; 
     and
       Examine the positive and negative effects of the testing 
     programs on curriculum and instruction.
       In July, RAND released a detailed analysis by David 
     Grissmer and colleagues that compared the NAEP scores of 44 
     states, including Texas. That study and today's issue paper 
     are not directly comparable. They differ in scope, focus and 
     data. Grissmer et al. found that Texas ranked high in 
     achievement when comparing children from similar families. 
     Both found at least some gains in the NAEP scores in Texas. 
     Grissmer et al. suggested that the Texas accountability 
     regime, of which TAAS is a part, might be a ``plausible'' 
     explanation for the state's NAEP gains, but added that more 
     research is needed before a linkage can be made. What Do Test 
     Scores in Texas Tell Us? represents an important contribution 
     to that research effort. It is also the latest in a 
     continuing series of RAND analyses involving high-stakes 
     testing issues.


         STATEMENT OF RAND PRESIDENT AND CEO, JAMES A. THOMSON

       The issue paper on Texas Education and Test Scores that 
     RAND issued today is already the subject of intense 
     controversy, as we expected. I want to underscore several 
     points:
       This research was thoroughly reviewed by distinguished 
     external and internal experts. We stand behind the quality of 
     both this paper and of our July report on the meaning of 
     national test scores across the country, which also sparked 
     considerable controversy.
       The timing of the release of both reports was based on the 
     same, constant RAND standard; we release our work as soon as 
     the research, review and revision processes are complete. We 
     don't produce findings for political reasons, we don't 
     distribute them for political reasons and we don't sit on 
     them for political reasons. This is a scrupulously 
     nonpartisan institution.
       The July study--Improving Student Achievement: What State 
     NAEP Scores Tell Us--also touched on Texas schools and 
     received widespread press play. Both efforts draw on NAEP 
     scores. The new paper suggests a less positive picture of 
     Texas education than the earlier effort. But I do not believe 
     that these efforts are in sharp conflict. Together in fact 
     they provide a more comprehensive picture of key education 
     issues.
       The July report differed in scope (it covered almost all 
     states, not just Texas), in methodology (it adjusted states' 
     NAEP scores for family characteristics, such as racial and 
     socioeconomic differences), and most of all in focus. It 
     sought to explain why student achievement scores vary so 
     widely across the states even after those demographic 
     adjustments are made. The team that researched the new Issue 
     Paper on the other hand focused on Texas and its statewide 
     testing program. Texas was studied because the state 
     exemplifies a national trend toward using statewide exams as 
     a basis for high-stakes educational decisions.
       From the Texas standpoint, the good news is that the state 
     ranks high in adjusted student achievement. Our July study 
     correlates this with specific ways that resources are 
     allocated to high-leverage programs, such as pre-
     kindergarten, one of the features of the Texas reform effort. 
     The bad news is that the statewide testing system in Texas 
     needs improvement. The Issue Paper team suggests ways this 
     can be done in Texas and other states.

  Mr. HARKIN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________