Most Illinois parents probably would jump at the chance to find out how their children’s education stacks up against the education kids are getting in, say, Iowa, or Michigan, or Texas.
President Clinton’s proposed national testing for reading and math would give them that chance, but Republicans in Congress are working furiously this week to block funding for the tests. It sort of makes you wonder what they’re afraid of.
Clinton’s aim is to establish high academic standards and allow school districts to test their students against them. In the process, districts also would find out how their kids are doing compared with others around the country taking the same tests.
The proposal is actually pretty modest, calling for 90-minute tests of 4th-grade reading skills and 8th-grade mathematics starting in 1999. No district would be required to give the tests; it’s an opportunity, not a mandate.
Of course, districts that chose not to test their students would need to have some good answers for parents–and taxpayers–as to why they don’t want to know how their students fare academically compared to their peers in other parts of the country. National testing, while not a definitive measure, will be a powerful tool for holding teachers, administrators and yes, politicians, accountable for whether students are getting the education they need and deserve.
Six states and 15 large urban school districts, including Chicago, have signed on to participate in the tests, and many more have expressed interest. But if congressional Republicans succeed in blocking the $16 million allocated for development, there may be no tests at all–even for districts that want them.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has tried to muddy the issue by pushing a rival education plan that calls for vouchers and other measures to help expand a family’s choice of schools. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not an either-or proposition. There’s no reason those measures can’t exist alongside national testing.
More foolish still are the objections of special-interest groups claiming that national tests would stigmatize the poor and minorities or would be unfair to kids with limited English skills. If poor and minority children are getting substandard education in this country, then their parents have a right to know it and to ask why.
In fact, that may be one of the questions test-shy politicians don’t want to have to answer.
