[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 83 (Thursday, June 14, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6358-S6361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, reauthorization of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act may be the most important step we will take 
during this Congress to affect what is surely one of the most crucial 
interests of the country--childrens' education. I have tried to devote 
appropriate attention and effort toward improving this bill. That is 
because I have believed since Committee consideration that it contains 
significant flaws. At the same time, we have improved the bill in 
important ways, and we have added substantial new commitments of 
federal funds for education. In my view, these improvements, plus the 
prospects for further improvement in Conference, outweigh my remaining 
serious reservations about policy contained in the bill at the present 
time. Therefore, while I pledge to continue in Conference to try to 
improve the policy and to assure funding, I have voted in favor of the 
bill today.
  A number of weeks ago, I opposed bringing this bill to the floor in 
the absence of some assurance that sufficient resources would be 
provided to federal education programs. That issue remains among my 
deepest concerns and considerations. Along with other improvements we 
have made since that time, we have very substantially bolstered needed 
funding for federal education--especially by including mandatory, full 
funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. This 
provision alone will mean over $3 billion for my state of Minnesota in 
IDEA funds during the coming 10 years. It will mean $153 million in 
IDEA funds for Minnesota in fiscal year 2001.
  The improvements must be balanced against policy deficiencies--
primarily in the area of mandated tests and the bill's so-called 
``straight-A's,'' or ``performance agreement,'' provisions. My view is 
that if we at the federal level are going to insist on 
``accountability'' from states, districts, schools and students, then 
we must be accountable to the principle that every student should have 
an equal opportunity to succeed. That means we must sufficiently fund 
the federal programs, such as Title I, IDEA and others, that attempt to 
give all students an equal chance. We all know that not every student 
arrives to school equally ready to learn. That is why it really is 
impossible to separate our presumption of holding schools and students 
accountable on one hand, from our own accountability to an obligation 
to sufficiently fund housing, nutrition and Head Start efforts on the 
other hand. We have not held ourselves accountable on that measure. We 
have avoided even debating this bill in that context. But if we will 
not meet that measure, and we have not, then we must at minimum ensure 
that federal education programs provide schools and students an equal 
chance at succeeding before we impose accountability and tests whose 
stakes can be very high.
  My colleagues and anyone who has listened to much of the debate on 
this bill know that I have grave reservations about its annual testing 
provisions. Indeed, I oppose those provisions. I offered one amendment 
to remove the mandate for the tests if full Title I funding is not 
provided. I then cosponsored an amendment to allow states not to 
implement the tests so that they could utilize those funds instead for 
other means of boosting student achievement in the lowest performing 
schools .
  I continue to believe that federally mandated annual testing of every 
student is a mistake. If it is implemented, I believe we will regret 
it. I say ``if'' because I hope the Senate will realize its mistake 
before the year 2005, which is when the first of these new tests would 
be required. I still intend to attempt at least to allow states to 
utilize the newly mandated tests for ``diagnostic'' purposes, rather 
than for the purpose of meeting adequate yearly progress targets. I 
hope that change can be made in Conference. If I do not succeed at 
that, I believe that we in Congress, the states and the public may very 
well reject these tests before they occur. I think they are unneeded, 
unwanted and most likely detrimental. The debate on what is becoming a 
mania for testing is just beginning.
  We are making a significant mistake in mandating these new tests on 
every child, in every school, in every district and in every state. In 
the current context, it makes little sense. We have not even begun 
fully to implement the assessments we approved in 1994 with the last 
ESEA reauthorization. Yet we are moving to double those requirements 
and to expand their scope to cover every child in the country. We have 
not had a chance to look at the effect of those 1994 changes. Only 11 
states have brought themselves into full compliance with that law. From 
what we have been able to look at, the evidence seems to indicate we 
should be very concerned about how these tests are being implemented 
and what their effect is on student learning.

  I would like to cite a few reports that should send us a clear 
warning about what we are about to do. The Independent Review Panel on 
Title I which was mandated in the 1994 Reauthorization issued its 
report ``Improving the Odds'' this January. The report concluded that 
``Many States use assessment results from a single test--often 
traditional multiple choice tests. Although these tests may have an 
important place in state assessment systems, they rarely capture the 
depth and breadth of knowledge reflected in state content standards.'' 
The Panel went on to make a strong recommendation. It said, ``Better 
Assessments for instructional and accountability purposes are urgently 
needed.''
  I would also like to quote from the National Research Council, as 
cited in the Report ``Measuring What Matters.'' This report was 
developed by the strongly pro-testing Committee for Economic 
Development. The report says: ``policy and public expectations of 
testing generally exceed the technical capacity of the tests 
themselves.''
  Everybody wants to find a way to address the critical challenge of 
closing the achievement gap. In people's genuine desire to do something 
about our schools, I believe they have created expectations from these 
tests, that far exceed what the tests can ever do. In fact, Robert 
Schwartz, the President of Achieve, Inc., the nonprofit arm of the 
standards-based reform movement recently said: ``Tests have taken on 
too prominent of a role in these reforms and that's in part because of 
people rushing to attach consequences to them before, in a lot of 
places, we have really gotten the tests right.''
  In this rush for answers, the tests have ceased their useful function 
of measuring the reform and have become synonymous with it. That is 
exactly where this bill goes wrong and I believe that the consequences 
will be destructive. I believe that in the not so distant future, we 
will regret ever having done this. In fact, I believe that by the time 
these new tests are to go into effect, many if not most of the Senators 
in this body will have changed their mind on this issue.
  My concerns are many and I have been over them before, but in 
summary, I am extremely concerned about how too much testing can 
subvert real learning. A Stateline News article from last week reported 
that:

       A yet to be released RAND study conducted in North Carolina 
     found that between 50 and 80 percent of the improvements in 
     student performance measured by tests are temporary and fail 
     to predict any real gains in student learning.

  RAND, which is one of the most respected research institutions in the

[[Page S6359]]

country, is not alone. A recent survey of Texas teachers indicates that 
only 27 percent of teachers believe that increases in TAAS scores 
reflect an increase in the quality of learning and teaching.
  Much of this is due to the phenomenon of teaching to the test. The 
Committee for Economic Development, a strongly pro-testing coalition of 
business leaders, warns against test based accountability systems that 
``lead to narrow test based coaching rather than rich instruction.'' 
Test preparation is not necessarily bad--but if it comes at the expense 
of real learning, it becomes a major problem. There is no question, at 
this point, that teaching to the test has become a problem. As an 
example, the recent Education Week/Pew Charitable Trust study, Quality 
Counts found that ``Nearly 7/10 teachers said instruction stresses 
tests `far' or `somewhat' too much. 66 percent also said that state 
assessments were forcing them to concentrate too much on what is tested 
to the detriment of other important topics.''
  Beyond this detrimental phenomenon, which has proven to be more 
prevalent in low income communities, there is significant evidence 
that, at the very time we are trying to bring more teachers into low 
income schools and address a teacher shortage generally, the need to 
teach to the test and to provide education based on rote memorization 
and is driving people out of the field.
  This is tragic at a time when we face an acute teacher shortage and 
we know that the single most important factor in closing the 
achievement gap between students is the quality of the teacher the 
students have. Both Linda Darling Hammond and Jonothan Kozol have 
addressed this issue when speaking to the Democratic Caucus. As Kozol 
said: ``Hundreds of the most exciting and beautifully educated teachers 
are already fleeing from inner-city schools in order to escape what one 
brilliant young teacher calls ``Examination Hell.'' I would like to 
quote from an article from today's New York Times that addresses this 
specific issue. The article explained: ``In interviews over the last 
month many fourth grade teachers questioned why they should stay in a 
job that revolves around preparation for new state exams . . . 
Principals say that they cannot keep experienced teachers in fourth 
grade or transfer them there.''
  It would be remiss to talk about this issue without also addressing 
the fact that these tests are not perfect instruments. No one put it 
better than the strongly pro-testing Committee for Economic 
Development. These business leaders concluded that ``tests that are not 
valid, reliable and fair will obviously be inaccurate indicators of the 
academic achievement of students and can lead to wrong decisions being 
made about students and schools.''
  For example, a study by David Rogosa of California's Stanford 9 
National Percentile Rank Scores for individual students showed that the 
chances that a student whose true score is in the 50th percentile will 
receive a reported score that is within 5 percentage points of his true 
score is only 30 percent in reading and 42 percent on ninth grade math 
tests.
  Rogosa also showed that on the Stanford 9 test ``the chances, . . . 
that two students with identical `real achievement' will score more 
than 10 percentile points apart on the same test'' is 57 percent for 
9th graders and 42 percent on the fourth grade reading test.
  We have to take such error very seriously if we are attaching 
consequences to the test results for students and schools. If we do 
not, and we continue to over rely on a single, less than accurate test, 
our ability to fairly implement any type of accountability is in 
jeopardy.

  When we rush to get them done and rush to attach stakes to them, we 
are ignoring the admonition of the National Academy of Sciences that 
our expectations for tests should not exceed their technical capacity. 
One of the most troubling quotations I have read in this regard is a 
quote from Maureen di Marco, Vice President of Houghton Mifflin company 
whose subsidiary, Riverside Publishing, is one of the major test 
publishers. She was cited in the Washington Post as saying that the 
Industry can only handle the Bush proposal as long as states make up 
the difference with off the shelf, national achievement tests that are 
mostly multiple choice and can be scored electronically. This would be 
destructive and take us in the opposite direction from where we must be 
going in terms of accurate, quality testing. Such tests are usually not 
aligned with standards and most often do not measure the depth of 
student knowledge or student reasoning. In fact, the Stanford-9, the 
test studied by Rogosa, is just this kind of test, that the companies 
are telling us we will have to rely on.
  H. D. Hoover, one of the authors of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and 
incoming president of the National Council on Measurement in Education 
said in a recent article that ``there is one heck of a capacity 
problem'' when it comes to meeting the testing requirements in this 
bill. So again, in this context, I fail to understand why we are 
rushing ahead with these new requirements. Why can we not at least wait 
until states have the knowledge and the opportunity to get the tests 
they have right before we move on to doing so many more. The Committee 
for Economic Development report clearly states ``there is more work to 
do in designing assessment instruments that can measure a rich array of 
knowledge and skills embedded in rigorous and substantive standards.'' 
Before we rush ahead, let's meet that challenge.
  But I would not be being intellectually or personally honest if I did 
not say that even if we had the most perfect assessments, I still would 
have significant concerns with the use of tests to compare all students 
and to punish schools because we have still done so little to ensure 
that every student has the same opportunity to do well on those tests. 
That concern runs as deep as any I have. It is a fairness question. 
There are few bills we will face this year where the policy proposals 
and the funding that must back up the proposals are so inextricably 
linked. Without giving more resources to low income schools so they can 
develop the capacity to help their children do well, we will only set 
up children to fail. In punishing these students and these schools for 
their poor performance, I am afraid that we are too blindly confusing 
their failure with our own. It is in fact, a failure for policy makers 
to close our eyes to the resource starved schools in our urban and 
rural areas. It is a failure to think that by testing alone we can 
reverse years of neglect and deprivation.
  A study of the Florida accountability system proves this point 
starkly. The study found that ``for every percent that poverty 
increases, the school's score drops by an average of 1.6 points.'' He 
showed that the level of poverty in a school in Florida predicted what 
the school's achievement score would be with 80 percent accuracy! Not 
one of my colleagues should be surprised by this.
  Tests have their place, but they also have their limits. They can not 
give a kindergartener the early childhood education that his or her 
parents could not afford to provide. They can not hire a good teacher, 
they can not reduce class size, they cannot buy students' books and 
they cannot fix the heater in a school in Minnesota in the winter. 
Until we give every child these critical tools to do well, the tests 
will measure less a child's potential and more the accident of his 
birth.
  My concerns with this bill are many, and they remain deep. But I also 
recognize that there is room for improvement and that the bill as it 
stands has many strengths. I very much appreciate the work that I and 
my colleagues have had the opportunity to do to improve this bill. I 
would like to highlight just a few of those improvements.
  In the area of testing, I want to thank my colleagues for their 
support for three amendments that I worked very hard on and that I 
think will go far to ensure that we have high quality tests that are 
not abused. In ensuring the proper use of tests, we move to ensure that 
tests most accurately measure how students learn, not what they have 
memorized. We can more accurately see what it is that students have 
actually been taught. We can get a better picture of what students need 
and how they can best be helped.

  The first is the amendment I introduced that would ensure that states 
show that their assessments are in

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compliance with the National Standards on Educational and Psychological 
Testing and that their assessments are of adequate technical quality 
for each purpose for which they are used. The amendment also would 
provide $200 million in grants for states to improve their assessments 
so that they are of the highest quality and are state of the art in 
terms of most accurately measuring the range and depth of student 
knowledge.
  These higher quality tests and fairer uses of tests are needed 
because low quality tests can lead to inaccurate assessments which do 
not serve, but rather subvert, efforts at true accountability and high 
standards. Further, if we want to avoid the negative outcomes that the 
wrong kind of testing can bring, such as teaching to the test and 
teachers leaving the field, we have to be sure that assessments measure 
students' depth and creativity. We have to measure what students have 
actually been taught and we have to measure student progress not just 
in a single point in time, but over time and in multiple dimensions. In 
doing so, teachers will not futilely train their students but rather 
will engage their students, and challenge them and explore with them 
their diverse talents. That way students will gain a deeper more 
enduring knowledge that translates to all different contexts and is 
useful when confronting all different challenges. This amendment will 
move us strongly in the right direction.
  The second amendment would achieve the same effect as the first. This 
amendment took the incentive bonus grants that the bill included, which 
would have rewarded states for completing their assessments as fast as 
possible, and instead awarded the bonuses to states that develop the 
most high quality assessments. This way we will be able to incentivize 
states to move in the direction of developing the most effective 
assessments that lead to better teacher and learning.
  The third was an amendment that I offered and which passed in the 
Committee that authorized an in depth study, conducted by the National 
Research Council, to address the impact of high stakes tests on 
individual students. I do not think there is a greater abuse of a test 
than to use it as the sole determinant of whether a student will be 
promoted or graduated. The Professional Standards on Educational and 
Psychological Testing, the National Research Council and virtually 
every major education and civil rights group agrees with this, yet 
states and districts persist in this practice. This amendment would 
look at this practice to determine what are its affects on students, 
teachers and curriculum. This study would serve as a guide for policy 
makers so they can understand better how tests can be used as a 
positive tool in children's education.
  But beyond the testing provisions, other key improvements were 
included. None may be more important than the inclusion of the Harkin 
amendment which would provide full mandatory funding for IDEA.
  The fact that we have finally decided to live up to the commitment we 
made too many years ago to fully fund the federal share of the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is perhaps the greatest 
improvement of all. For too long we have shirked this responsibility 
and for too long children with disabilities have not received the 
services they need. We assume the responsibility to educate children 
with disabilities because it is their constitutional right and it is 
their moral right. But we must never forget that we also educate these 
children because we know that if given the right opportunities, the 
vast majority of them can succeed. Passage of this amendment helps make 
sure that children with disabilities are not pushed aside, that they 
get the services they need and that they have the opportunities to do 
well. With those opportunities, so many children can do well they do 
better than well. They excel.
  Beyond this most important, most deeply rooted issue is that the 
program has created a significant, debilitating burden on states and 
districts when it is our responsibility, not theirs, to provide a large 
portion of the funding for these critical services to children with 
disabilities. While states have a constitutional mandate to provide 
equivalent educations to students with special needs, they do not have 
the financial resources to do so. It is shameful that for so long, the 
federal government has not lived up to its promise to provide its share 
of that funding. And it is with great relief and happiness that this 
funding, which so many of us have pushed for for years, is one step 
closer to being realized. This amendment will bring more than $3 
billion in IDEA spending to Minnesota. This would make a real 
difference for children with disabilities and all children in the 
state. I am grateful to Senator Harkin for his leadership on this issue 
and I believe that mandatory full funding for IDEA will make a world of 
difference for so many of our nation's children. I very much support 
this part of the bill.

  Another critical area is the area of teacher quality. I am 
particularly pleased that the Senate has adopted an amendment that I 
introduced with Senators Hutchison, Clinton, DeWine and Kennedy to 
establish a national Teacher Corps program to help states and districts 
recruit teachers into the nation's highest need schools. The teacher 
shortage we face amounts to a crisis and the problem is most acute in 
high need urban and rural schools. Even though research shows that the 
most important factor in student achievement is the quality of the 
teacher, the rates of underlicensed teachers in urban schools is twice 
that of the nation as a whole and in low income areas, 50,000 under-
prepared teachers are hired each year. The passage of this amendment 
represents a national commitment to address this very severe barrier to 
learning.
  I want to particularly applaud the work of Senator Kennedy, who has 
fought more than anyone in the area of teacher quality. Senator Kennedy 
included key provisions that would ensure that within five years, only 
highly qualified teachers are hired in high poverty schools. No one has 
worked harder on the issue of high quality teachers than Senator 
Kennedy. When we think about closing the achievement gap between low 
and high income schools, this provision is essential. Several studies 
have shown that if poor and minority students are taught by high 
quality teachers at the same rate as other students, a large part of 
the gap between poor and minority students and their more affluent 
white counterparts would disappear. For example, one Alabama study 
shows that an increase of one standard deviation in teacher test scores 
leads to a two-thirds reduction in the gap between black-white test 
scores.
  Finally, parent involvement is an area in which I believe the bill 
has seen substantial improvement. Parent involvement is one of the most 
important parts of any child's education. When families are fully 
engaged in the educational process, students have: higher grades and 
test scores; better attendance and more homework done; fewer placements 
in special education; more positive attitudes and behavior; higher 
graduation rates; and, greater enrollment in post-secondary education. 
For this reason, I am grateful for the inclusion of my amendment to 
establish local, community based parent involvement centers to help the 
lowest income communities and the communities like the Hmong community 
in Minneapolis and St. Paul where parents, because of language and 
cultural barriers, are most isolated from their children's educational 
experience. Senator Reed's leadership on parent involvement has brought 
the issue to the forefront and his work has helped ensure that the 
benefits brought by greater family involvement in education would 
extend to all families.
  In conclusion, there are many important issues with which we grapple 
in the U.S. Senate. But, my colleagues, I truly feel that there is 
nothing more important than the education of America's children. The 
opportunity to improve America's public education was one of the key 
factors that drove me to become a public servant and to run for 
election to this body nearly a dozen years ago. I am proud of the work 
I have done with many in this body on education at all levels in this 
country.
  It is that passion to improve public education that is the reason 
that at many points during the last several months, as we moved to this 
point on the reauthorization of ESEA, I have been deeply frustrated. 
And, it is the reason that I am frustrated with this bill today. For 
all the reasons that I

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have laid out earlier, I truly feel that in many ways we are missing a 
tremendous opportunity to take a significant step forward in bettering 
America's education system.
  At the time of the final vote in our committee mark-up, I voted to 
send the bill forward to the full Senate. I was deeply conflicted about 
my vote at that point. However, along with several of my colleagues on 
that committee, I did so with the message that, as the process 
continued, the expansion of resources committed to education must come 
to match the elevation in our expectations about our schools' 
performances. On the Senate floor we have made a huge step forward in 
achieving that goal with the mandatory funding for the IDEA program. 
The inclusion of mandatory IDEA funding has gotten us part of the way 
there on the commitment of resources that was vital, in my mind to 
match the dramatic increase in testing required by an act that confuses 
educational accountability with standardized testing.
  But, beyond this, we still have to make sure, that along with the 
passage of the Dodd-Collins Amendment on Title I, the Kennedy Amendment 
on Teacher Quality and the Boxer amendment on after school--there will 
be an adequate appropriation to match the authorization levels so we 
can truly help those students who are already so far behind where they 
should be. Without that, this bill will not work.
  While this is a vote on the final passage of this bill in the Senate, 
we all know that much work remains to be done on this bill. Whether it 
is in testing or funding or defining adequate yearly progress, I think 
that most people on this side of the aisle know that this bill has a 
long way to go. I am committed to remain deeply involved in that 
important work that must be done in the weeks ahead. Therefore, I will 
vote ``yes'' today with perhaps the deepest ambivalence I have ever 
felt on a vote during my years in the United States Senate and with a 
message similar to the one I laid out when I voted to send this bill 
out of committee.
  In particular, in the weeks ahead, as the Conference Committee does 
its work, I will continue to fight to strengthen the fairness and 
quality of the assessments that will be a part of the final bill. 
Specifically, I will continue to work toward an effective compromise. 
That compromise was included in an amendment which I filed and was 
prepared to put forward today. I decided that it would be more 
productive for me to wait until another day to offer that proposal. 
That amendment would keep in place the assessment system used for 
determining whether schools are achieving adequate yearly progress that 
was included in the 1994 reauthorization but has yet to be fully 
implemented. And, it would allow the annual testing to move forward. 
But, it would allow states and schools to use those additional annual 
tests only for the diagnostic purposes for which experts in the field 
of educational assessment say is their most appropriate use. That is, 
rather than being attached to sanctions for schools or individuals, 
assessments are best used to diagnose the academic strengths and 
weaknesses of individual students and to help them improve. Testing has 
a role in the educational system, but it should be used primarily to 
achieve what should be our ultimate goal: Helping our students live up 
to their true intellectual potential.
  I will also do everything I can to fight for the retention of the 
IDEA amendment in the Conference Report and for other funding increases 
for Title I, Teacher Quality, after school and other key programs.
  It is because of this desire to fight and because I see so much room 
for improvement that I am choosing to stay engaged in this process and 
I am voting yes. I believe we can do much, much more.
  After today, however, there will be one remaining vote on this bill--
on the bill that comes out of the Conference between the Senate and the 
House. My vote at that time will be based on the considerations I have 
outlined above. It is my sincere hope that the provisions in the bill 
related to the quality, fairness and appropriate use of tests will be 
stronger in the conference report than in this bill. There must also be 
an iron-clad commitment of resources to assist disadvantaged students 
in their educational opportunities. Finally, the bill must ensure full 
funding for the federal government's commitment to its share of our 
special education students' education. But, today, with deep 
ambivalence, I have voted ``yes'' on this bill with hope that we can 
continue to improve it and the education of America's students.
  Again, I want to congratulate the Senators who supported this bill. I 
voted for it with a considerable amount of ambivalence. Making the IDEA 
program mandatory is hugely important to Minnesota and other people in 
the country. There were amendments on testing, and on recruitment of 
teachers, and dealing with parental involvement that I am proud of, 
which I worked on along with others who were a part of this bill.
  When it goes to conference, I get to be in the conference committee. 
I am going to fight to make the testing diagnostic, without high-stakes 
consequences. The money needs to be there in appropriations. If we 
don't get the money for title I, if we are not able to make some of 
those changes, I may well vote against the conference report when it 
comes back to the floor. For right now, I want to keep on fighting.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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