[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16655-16656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND REFORM

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, over the weekend President Obama 
announced that all 100,000 public schools across the Nation should 
limit testing to 2 percent of a student's time in the classroom. It is 
a recommendation, not

[[Page 16656]]

a requirement, and it comes in response to a nationwide backlash from 
teachers, students, and parents who are sick of overtesting.
  I was glad to see the President's comments. He is right about 
students taking too many tests. But I hope the President will stop and 
think before trying to cure overtesting by telling teachers exactly how 
much time to spend on testing or what the tests should be. Classroom 
teachers know better than Washington how to assess their students' 
progress. They also know that the real reason we have too many tests is 
that there are too many Federal mandates that put high stakes on 
student test results and that one more Washington decree--even if it is 
only a recommendation for now--is not the way to solve the problem of 
too many Federal mandates.
  Instead, the best way to fix overtesting is to get rid of the Federal 
mandates that are causing the problem. That is precisely what the 
Senate did when it passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, 81 to 
17, legislation to fix No Child Left Behind and give more flexibility 
to States and to classroom teachers to decide which tests will decide 
what progress students are making in the classroom.
  No Child Left Behind, a Federal law enacted in 2001, requires 
students to take 17 standardized tests over the course of their 
education, kindergarten through the 12th grade. It then uses those 
tests to decide whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing.
  In the Senate's work to fix No Child Left Behind, no issue stirred as 
much controversy as these high-stakes tests. At first, I was among 
those who thought the best way to fix overtesting might be to get rid 
of the 17 Federal tests. But the more we studied the problem, the more 
the issues seemed not to be the 17 Federal tests but the federally 
designed system of rewarding and punishing schools and teachers that 
was attached to the tests.
  A third grader, for example, is required to take only one test in 
math and one in reading. Each of those tests probably takes 1 or 2 
hours, according to testimony before our committee. But here is the 
problem: The results of these tests count so much in the federally 
mandated accountability system that States and school districts are 
giving students dozens of additional tests to prepare for the Federal 
tests.
  A new survey says students in big-city schools will take, on average, 
112 mandatory standardized tests between prekindergarten and high 
school graduation. That is eight tests a year. One Florida study showed 
that a Fort Myers school district gave more than 160 tests to its 
students. Only 17 of those are federally required.
  So after hearing this, the Senate decided to keep the federally 
required 17 tests. That is two annual tests in reading and math in 
grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well as science tests 
given three times between grades 3 and 12. We also kept the practice of 
reporting results publicly so parents and teachers know how their 
children are performing. These results are disaggregated, so we know 
how students are doing based upon their gender, their ethnicity or 
their disability. Then, to discourage overtesting, we restored to 
States and classroom teachers the responsibility for deciding how to 
use these Federal test scores to measure achievement.
  The Senate bill ends the high-stakes, Washington-designed, test-based 
accountability system that has caused the explosion of tests in our 
local schools. The Senate bill reverses the trend toward a national 
school board.
  I am glad to see President Obama's focus on overtesting, but let's 
not make the same mistake twice by decreeing from Washington exactly 
how much time to spend on tests or what the tests should be. States and 
3 million teachers in 100,000 public schools are in the best position 
to know what to do about overtesting our children.
  Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have now passed 
similar bills to fix No Child Left Behind and to reduce the Federal 
mandates that are the real cause of overtesting. The best way to have 
fewer and better tests in America's classrooms is for Congress to 
finish its work and the President to sign our legislation before the 
end of the year.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. 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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