Predictable Proposal from Pro-Testing Politicos

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

WHY WE NEED A NATIONAL SCHOOL TEST

Washington Post Op. Ed. -- September 21, 2006
by William J. Bennett and Rod Paige

We need to find better and more efficient ways to produce an educated 
population and close the achievement gaps in our education system. 
Americans do ultimately get themselves educated -- at work, after 
school, online, in adulthood -- but a lot of time and money are wasted 
in the process.

Ever since the Commission on Excellence in Education declared in 1983 
that America is "at risk" because of the lagging performance of its 
schools, this country has been struggling to reform its K-12 system. The 
education "establishment" has wrongly insisted that more money (or more 
teachers, more computers, more everything) would yield better schools 
and smarter kids; that financial inputs would lead to cognitive outputs. 
This is not so.

Forty years ago the sociologist James S. Coleman made clear that there's 
no reliable connection between the resources going into a school and the 
learning that comes out. Fifty years ago economist Milton Friedman made 
clear that in education, as in other spheres, monopolies don't work as 
well as markets. That's why most Republicans and some Democrats favor 
school choice in its myriad versions and why many, like us, have also 
embraced today's other important education reform strategy: standards, 
testing and tough accountability for schools.

But there's a problem. Out of respect for federalism and mistrust of 
Washington, much of the GOP has expected individual states to set their 
own academic standards and devise their own tests and accountability 
systems. That was the approach of the No Child Left Behind Act -- which 
moved as boldly as it could while still achieving bipartisan support. It 
sounds good, but it is working badly. A new Fordham Foundation report 
shows that most states have deployed mediocre standards, and there's 
increasing evidence that some are playing games with their tests and 
accountability systems.

Take Tennessee, for example. It reports to its residents that a whopping 
87 percent of its fourth-graders are "proficient" in reading. Yet the 
National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that the number is 
more like 27 percent. That's a big difference. Or consider Oklahoma. In 
one year the number of schools on its "needs improvement" list dropped 
by 85 percent -- not because they improved or their students learned 
more but because a bureaucrat in the state education department changed 
the way Oklahoma calculates "adequate yearly progress" under the federal 
law.

So while the act is clearly starting to get results, it is also starting 
to suffer from the law of unintended consequences. We can now see that 
it gives states entirely too much discretion over standards and tests 
while giving federal bureaucrats too much control over how schools operate.

The remedy? As both of us have long argued, Washington should set sound 
national academic standards and administer a high-quality national test. 
Publicize everybody's results, right down to the school level. Then 
Washington should butt out.

States that prefer to cling to their own standards and tests -- and 
endure the rules and meddling of federal bureaucrats -- would be free to 
do so. Some surely would. But many would welcome a new compact with the 
Education Department.

We're aware that many Republicans are skeptical. After all, the 
Constitution says nothing about education, and for over two centuries 
states have been responsible for meeting the nation's education needs. 
But in a world of fierce economic competition, we can't afford to 
pretend that the current system is getting us where we need to go. 
Greater federal interference is not the answer -- but neither is a naive 
commitment to "states' rights." A new model -- standards set nationally, 
daily decisions made locally -- strikes the best balance.

We're also painfully aware that national standards and tests are hard to 
get right -- and even harder to get through Congress. Another new report 
outlines four ways in which this might be done. Several scenarios would 
rely on a "bottom-up" approach, with states working together on a 
voluntary basis to forge common expectations, lessening the chances that 
Washington would mess them up.

This is a conversation that should start now and continue through the 
2008 elections and reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. But 
right-thinking Republicans should think long and hard before opposing 
national standards and tests. Competently done, they would go a long way 
toward assuring America a more well-educated population and a bright 
future -- and toward reining in Washington's impulse to micromanage our 
nation's schools.

William J. Bennett was education secretary under President Ronald 
Reagan. Rod Paige was education secretary under President George W. Bush.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092001587.html