John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Taking this one step further, they accuse us, those who support nationalized testing and support really federalizing this whole issue say that we are anti-education because we support empowering teachers. They say we are anti-education because we support empowering parents. They say we are anti-education because we support empowering local school boards and local schools to do what they know how to do best. That makes us anti-education? It is mind-boggling.

Mr. SHADEGG. He is listed in this book as one of the experts who helped write the test which the Clinton administration will begin to implement next year in America if it can or the year after that if the Congress does not block them.

Mr. SHADEGG. I think the gentleman is right. There is clearly not a single bullet but we have ascertained some basic facts. One of those is that the more parental involvement you have, the better the school. The more you empower parents, the more you empower the teachers and the administrators at that school to control that school and to seize its direction, the better an education we produce.

Mr. SHADEGG. That is why I think that America would be in open revolt. There would be an outcry across this country if people understood that that kind of parental control of their local school was about to be stolen away by a one-size-fits-all Washington, D.C. written national test. I want to make a couple of quick points. I pointed out that this education consultant was a part of a group called the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and that he wrote it is downright dangerous to teach kids math calculations. There are a couple of quotes that I want to read from him to show how radical the people who will influence this test are.

Mr. SHADEGG. The gentleman makes an excellent point. That is, that just a few years ago, we witnessed an attempt by the Federal Government to impose national standards for education. Only we discovered that their standards taught that our veterans were evil, their history standards taught that great leaders like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington were in fact evil. So the President in this latest effort to nationalize education has said, well, we will not do subjective topics like history or social studies, we will do objective, that is, those subjects we can all agree, objective subjects like mathematics. Except that we discover that it is not objective, because, and there are really two points I want to make here, one is it is not objective because you and I and all Americans, I think, would agree that we ought to teach children that 6 times 7 is 42, but this test has been taken over by people that believe it is, and I quoted earlier, downright dangerous to teach children that 6 times 7 is 42. So they are radicalizing even an objective subject like math. I want to read you one or more of these quotes in a few minutes here. One quick quote from Mr. Leinwand, this education expert. ``But none of these larger social issues,'' he writes, ``is as compelling as what we know about the sense of failure and pain unnecessarily imposed on hundreds of thousands of students in the name of mastering these obsolete procedures.'' The obsolete procedures he is talking about are computational math skills. He goes on and writes, ``A few short years ago, we had no alternative to pencil and paper computation. A few short years ago we could even justify the pain and frustration we witnessed in our classrooms as necessary parts of learning what were then important skills. Today there are alternatives. There is no honest way to justify, he writes, no honest way to justify the psychic toll it takes to teach children to do calculations that involve simple math, that is, multiplication and division.'' ``That,'' he says, ``imposes a psychic toll and we shouldn't do it.'' I suggest in Japan and Germany, and elsewhere around the world, with whom our children in the next generation will have to compete, they are drilling their children on those same basic computational skills. The other point is we are going to move away from them if we adopt a national test, if we do not block it next week and get the help of the United States Senate in blocking the President next week. But I want to make one other point. You asked my colleague from Colorado what input he had had on the test, and he said none. I have had no input on the test, and you have had no input on the test. But, more importantly, the parents and the teachers and the administrators and even the students in the schools in my neighborhood or your neighborhood or their neighborhoods across America have not had any input. I want to talk about one gentleman that had some input. I mentioned the test was written as Mathematics Committee Recommendations to the National Test Panel. There is a national test panel. One gentleman on that panel, Alan Wurtzel, wrote a letter of objection. He said wait. This test is a mistake. This test does not test basic math skills. He dissented, and he wrote, quoting from his letter of September 25th, ``The test assumes that by the 8th grade, children can do basic arithmetic, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of whole numbers, decimals, and common fractions by hand.'' This is the guy they got to write the test. He had input. He goes on to say, ``The problem is that this assumption is all too often unjustified.'' Then he goes on and writes about a personal experience where he was talking to the others on the panel that wrote the test. ``As I told the panel, we used to test cashiers at Circuit City to determine if they could calculate the change due on a sale. So many were unable to do so, that we gave up.'' He goes on and writes, ``We have got to include in this test basic math skills.'' He is pleading as one of the panel members to include in the test basic math skills, and his ideas have been rejected. A single test written in Washington will not include the views of the parents and teachers in our schools, and, for that reason, it will nationalize the curriculum and leave America's education behind the rest of the world.

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman will yield briefly, my concern here is that we are literally within days, as early as Tuesday of next week, this issue will be decided, and right now we have a fight going on between the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate where the U.S. House has said, no, do not steal local control of education away from our neighborhoods and give it to bureaucrats in Washington, and the Senate is caving in. I am impassioned in my belief we have to fight this fight and win this fight. Senator Ashcroft over on the other side is battling his colleagues. We are in grave danger of having a national test imposed by the Clinton Administration, written by these people, and I don't care how good the test is, one test will not work. We need to let parents in America write tests in their neighborhoods.

Mr. SHADEGG. I hope they will plead with their U.S. Senator to get into this fight.

Mr. SHADEGG. That test will drive the education agenda in America. The handful of textbook publishers in this country who write our students textbooks will write that national test. Can you imagine the amalgamation of power in this small little committee that the President appointed to write this one test and he did an end run around the Congress?

Mr. SHADEGG. He was flunking out and he is borderline genius in repairing and putting computers back together.

Mr. SHADEGG. Rebuilding computers.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I compliment the gentleman for his work in this area. He came to Phoenix, Arizona, to my hometown and held a hearing, ``Education at the Crossroads: What works and what doesn't?'' And I also thank my colleague from California for joining us in this effort. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell my colleagues that I feel an immense sense of urgency tonight on the topic that we are talking about; that is, education and the whole question of getting money into the classroom, because right now there is a grave threat posed to education in America. It is a feel-good, sound-good idea called national testing. It is this idea that we ought to adopt in America a single reading test for every fourth grader in America, and a single reading test for every eighth grader in America. It is a proposal that the President made on the floor of this House in his State of the Union speech last January which, as the gentleman I know already knows, the President has already implemented. That is, he created a test panel and has written that test. Now, a lot of my colleagues in Arizona say, and my friends at home say, ``Well, Congressman, what is wrong with national testing? Why are you so impassioned in your opposition to national testing and why am I concerned about it here tonight?'' Let me explain that. There is a simple concept: What is tested is what will be taught. Mr. Speaker, I have an 11-year-old son in Arizona, Stephen, and a 15- year-old daughter, about to turn 16 and to start driving, and what they are tested on throughout their education careers has been what they were taught; that is, their teachers, because they want them to perform well, have gone out and ahead of time learned what is on the tests that they will take each year and made sure that they are taught what will be on those tests. What that means is that if we let this idea of a single national test written in Washington, D.C., thousands of miles from the teacher in Phoenix, Arizona, who knows my son Stephen's name or my daughter Courtney's name, if we let that test be written in Washington, D.C., hundreds of layers of bureaucrats from the administrators in my children's school or the parents in my neighborhood or the parents in the gentleman's neighborhood in Michigan or the gentleman's neighborhood in California, if we let them write that test in Washington, D.C., we will have ceded control over much of the content of education to Washington, D.C. Mr. Speaker, that I believe is a severe disaster and the Senate is on the verge of doing it. I hope people will watch tonight and call the Senate and do something about it and urge them not to allow it to happen.

Mr. SHADEGG. No.

Mr. SHADEGG. No.

Mr. SHADEGG. No.

Mr. SHADEGG. No.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I want to make a quick point about the issue of money in the classroom and the point you make rather eloquently, about only half of that dollar getting back home to the classroom. I hope people understand that when some of us rail against the concept of national testing, they understand that the President did not come forward with a bill proposing national testing in which he suggested that the Congress study the issue and implement legislation. He did not seek dollars being appropriated for national testing. He is doing this all on his own. He will, if we do not stop him in a vote next week, he will pull money out of everywhere else in the Federal Department of Education budget, monies allocated for other purposes, part of that 50 cents that stays here in Washington, he is going to pull off and give to implement national testing. I believe our children are tested and tested and tested. And I would like to see, as you both would, that 90 cents out of every dollar get back to the classroom. But it is not going to get back to the classroom if the President is able next week to go forward with his national testing program where he will take another 5, 10 or 15 or 20 cents out of each of those dollars and allocate it to a national test written in Washington, D.C. that you and I do not get to control and that the parents and the teachers and students and the administrators in our school districts do not get to control. He is going to nationalize testing and use those scarce dollars.

Mr. SHADEGG. How about the parents?

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate, for those who may be listening at this point, we are on the verge of a very, very critical decision in this country. I hope people understand how important it is. As Americans, we care about our children's education. We want them to do the best they can, and in this global economy in which they must compete, we want them to be able to compete with children around the world. That is why we embrace almost any idea to improve education, including ideas that are being thrown around nationally. But one of those ideas, while it sounds good, is, I believe, a grave threat to our children and to education in America, and to their ability to compete. That idea is national testing. People tuning in or just listening might say, what is wrong with national testing? What is wrong with being able to allow parents in Arizona to compare the performance of their children and their schools with parents in Michigan or Florida? The truth is, there is nothing wrong with that, but there are tests to do that right now, independently written tests, like the Iowa test of basic skills, or the Stanford test. We have those tests. What is being proposed today, and what energizes me and causes me fear, is a single exam written in Washington, DC, deep in the bowels of the Federal Department of Education or written by a committee appointed by the President, to be administered to every student in America. That one exam will have the danger of setting the national curriculum, and taking control away from parents and teachers and local administrators in my school district and in every American school district. I think Americans trust the teachers and the administrators, and even the parents and the students in their own school district. They know if they want to influence the curriculum at their school, they can go to their school and make their voice heard. They can go to their local school board and make their voice heard. But let me warn the Members, if we adopt one national test in reading for fourth graders or one national test, and that is Federal Government test, in mathematics for eight graders, we will have ceded the control of our children's education over to faceless, nameless Washington bureaucrats deep in the bowels of the education establishment, deep in the bowels of the Department of Education, or in some consulting firm. Mr. Speaker, I think we owe our children better than that. We cannot give away local control of our schools to Federal bureaucrats. Why would a national test do that? Members say, how can a national test be that dangerous? How can it be that threatening? The answer is a simple one: What is tested is what will be taught. We all understand that. My daughter, Courtney, back in Phoenix, AZ, and my son, Stephen, are doing well in school, but they are doing well because their teachers, and I have faith in teachers, they are good people, their teachers learn what Courtney and Stephen are going to be tested on, and they make sure that in the curriculum they teach them what they will be tested upon. So what is tested is what will be taught, and if we allow the test to be written in Washington, D.C., then what will be taught across America will be what some Federal bureaucrat deep in the bowels of the education department decides ought to be taught, because they will write the test, and your children's teacher and my children's teachers will be forced to teach to that test. We must block that effort to nationalize education. That fight is now, here in Washington, today. The decision will be made in Washington next week. There will be a vote in the U.S. Senate and a vote in the U.S. House. Americans who do not want to give up control over their children's education to a bunch of nameless, faceless Washington bureaucrats need to speak out now. They need to call Washington, call their Congressman, call their Senator, and say, do not let national testing steal control away from our teachers in our neighborhood, from our school board in our neighborhood. Some of the proponents of this idea say, do not worry, it is only voluntary. That is a hollow defense of a bad idea, because in America today there are only about 4 or 5 textbook writers. If we write one national test in Washington, D.C. and say, this will be given to all kids, sure, you will be able to opt out of of the test, but the textbook writers, the people who write the curriculum for the schools, will write to that test. They will have no choice. If you sit on a school board or if you sit in your parent-teacher council and do not like that test, do not like that curriculum, you will have no choice. We have to reject this idea and reject it now, and reject it decisively by a vote in the U.S. Senate as early as next week. I urge Americans who care about their children's education to speak out, and not let Washington seize control of their school's education program. The price is simply too high. There are radicals in Washington, D.C. who are writing a radical test; a test that, for example, in math does not even test basic math skills. But make no mistake about it, it does not matter whether the radicals write the test or good people write the test. If the test is a top-down, Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all idea, it will hurt education, because it will cost those parents and teachers in your school control of education in their neighborhoods. I hope Americans are listening.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time to speak on a topic that is of great concern to me this evening. It is a topic that is growing more and more important as we move into this week of the proceedings of the U.S. Congress. It is a topic that touches me very personally because I have two children. The topic I want to talk about tonight, Mr. Speaker, is the President's proposal to impose on America a national test, that is so- called national testing. And by that, what the President means is that he wants to require all students in America to take a federally written national examination. His proposal is that we give this examination to all fourth graders in the subject of reading and to all eighth graders in the subject of mathematics. And, in fact, he is going to do that and has already gotten the basic test specifications written. Right here we can see, in this document I am holding up, which says, the report of the national test panel, item and test specifications for the voluntary national tests in fourth grade reading and eighth grade mathematics. This is, I think, a critically important topic for every Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and for every single American, and that is why I wanted to talk about it. Let me first explain how I feel about the subject of education and where I come from. I am a Republican, and for that reason some of my Democrat colleagues like to say I do not care about education. They like to claim that for us Republicans education is not important. Well, I am offended by that remark. I care deeply about education, and I not only care deeply about education, I care very deeply about public education because I got all of my education in public education. I attended public schools from eighth grade through college. Excuse me, not eighth grade through college, from kindergarten through college, and I am proud of the education I got. I am also proud that my two children, Courtney and Stephen, who are home in Phoenix, AZ, tonight, are obtaining their education at public schools, at public schools that I am proud of. And I am married to a woman, the mother of those two children, who was herself a public schoolteacher. So do not tell me I do not care about education or that I do not care about public education. Now, the topic here tonight is not generally public education; the topic here tonight is voluntary national tests. Many in America cannot understand this issue. Indeed, they cannot understand why there would be a controversy around this issue. Indeed, many Americans kind of listening to the topic of Bill Clinton proposing here in this Chamber in his State of the Union a national test for every fourth grader in America and every eighth grader in America in reading and math say, well, what is wrong with that? How is it that someone could oppose that? Why would, for example, the Family Research Council put out an extensive paper opposing it? Why would Lynne Cheney, a nationally syndicated columnist and former official of the Federal Government, write and oppose it? Why would a series of other experts speak out and speak out stridently against national testing? Why would 290-plus Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, this very body, vote to prohibit the President from going forward, at least unilaterally, on his own with just the aid of his Education Department? Why would over 290 Members of this U.S. House vote to deny the President one dime to spend on national testing? Why am I here on the floor trying to educate other Members of this Congress? Why am I asking Americans across this country, from New Hampshire to Arizona, from Oregon to Florida, to speak out and join me in opposing the effort to impose on our children a federally written national mathematics test and a federally written national English test? Well, let me explain that. Just today the Secretary of Education, Mr. Riley, took to the stump. ``White House Campaigns for Education Agenda.'' And this is an article from today's Washington Times. In it the Secretary of Education, Mr. Riley, says that he is here to fight for national testing. He says, for example, citing a recent report that says, ``The report, Mathematics Equals Opportunity, is a report released yesterday which shows that rigorous teaching of mathematics does a tremendous job in helping children get into the best colleges in America, and those children who get rigorous mathematics education do very, very well.'' There is a quote. Mr. Riley. ``These courses demand discipline, they demand hard work and they demand responsibility.'' In that regard, I totally agree with Mr. Riley. But, unfortunately, the national test that Mr. Riley advocates, the national test that Mr. Clinton wants to apply does not test mathematics skills. You say, well, wait a minute, how can that be true, it is a math exam? How can it possibly not test mathematics skills? Well, let me just find for my colleagues a copy of the materials already written. The report of the national test panel, October 1997, released this month, prepared for the national test panel by NPR Associates Inc., and it says here, ``Item and test specifications for the voluntary national tests in fourth grade reading and eighth grade mathematics.'' I have not had a chance to read every word of this report, but there is a fascinating section of it I want to call to my colleagues' attention. It says in here that on the eighth grade mathematics test, every single student will be allowed to have throughout the entire duration of the test a calculator. That is to say, at no point in the eighth grade math examination that is being proposed by President Clinton and that will, in fact, be implemented and be imposed on every single education department and every single school in America, if Bill Clinton and Mr. Riley have their way, that exam will not at any point in time require the eighth grade student to demonstrate his or her ability to do basic pen and pencil mathematic calculations without a calculator. Now, my colleagues may be saying to themselves, well, maybe it is important to test higher skills. That might be true, and there is a national assessment test which is given in which a portion of the exam includes an examination of doing certain calculations with a calculator. But in the NAEP test, which is currently given to test or to evaluate performance from State to State across America, and to see how Arizona is doing as compared with Michigan, or how Wisconsin is doing in comparison with Louisiana, in that exam at least a portion of the test requires the students to do pen and pencil calculations. But in the test Bill Clinton is proposing, in the test Mr. Riley wants, in the test that Mr. Riley is demanding this Congress agree to, on the front page of the Washington Times today he is demanding that we agree to a test to be given to every single student in America to test their math skill, in point of fact in that test, as the materials already prepared for the Department of Education, and this was written, by the way, if we turn the first page, it says this report was funded by the U.S. Department of Education. It was prepared for the U.S. Department of Education. And there will not be a single question on the test that requires an eighth grade math student to demonstrate that he or she can do multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction. Now, my colleagues might say, well, why is my fellow colleague so concerned about that? Maybe the experts thought that was the right way to go. Maybe we will just assume that students by the time they get to eighth grade can do basic math. Well, I am not alone in my concern and in my objection, because at the back of this report there is a letter of dissent. It is one of several, but it is the only one I will talk about tonight because that is all I have time for. This is the overall report. One of the gentlemen who was on this committee to write the exam, the actual test panel to which this report was given, was a gentleman by the name of Alan L. Wurtzel, W-U-R-T-Z-E- L. Mr. Wurtzel is an executive with a prominent company here in America, and he was invited to participate on the test panel, that is, to help write the exam. He writes a letter raising the very point I am concerned about and that is, he says, ``I disagree with your allowing the use of calculators on the entire test.'' And he writes, and I quote, in a letter written to Mr. Wilmer Cody, Commissioner of the Kentucky State Department of Education, a letter dated September 25 of this year, ``The test assumes that by Eighth grade children can do basic arithmetic including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers, decimals and common fractions by hand.'' But he goes on to say, ``We shouldn't do that. We shouldn't make that assumption.'' He says, ``We already know that the NAEP test tests, at least in part, the ability of children to do basic math skills.'' And he says that he believes, in his letter of dissent, that the national test should include those basic math skills. Interestingly, Mr. Wurtzel is with a large corporation in America that used to give an examination to people who run cash registers for his company, and he used to ask those people applying for a job as a cashier to do basic calculations. He writes in this letter that they gave up on that. They gave up on that because so few people applying for the job as a cashier could do basic calculations. And he, therefore, says that to assume that America's eighth graders can do basic math, basic math skills, is a mistake, and he pleads with the President's committee, this test panel, to include at least a part of the exam to be focused on basic math skills. Now, this illustrates, I think, a larger issue of what is desperately wrong with this national testing proposal, and that is it puts all of the power and all of the focus and all of the authority in Washington, DC. Now, I have to say a couple of different things. Mr. Riley may think strongly that this national test is a great idea, but I suggest that Mr. Riley has not done some reading he should have done. Because as a first basic argument there is not a word in the U.S. Constitution which calls upon the Federal Government to educate our children. Indeed, not a single American who has completed a civics class fails to understand that our Constitution gives certain roles to the Federal Government, like national defense, like trade with foreign governments and foreign countries, and trades between the States. But in the 10th amendment it reserves every single other power of government not expressly given to the Federal Government, it reserves those to the States and to the people respectively. Now, Mr. Riley has not read that part of the Constitution. I suggest he has not read the 10th amendment at all or he does not understand it. But the Founding Fathers had a good reason for writing the Constitution in that fashion, and that is the idea of Federalism. Now, I do not want to get off on notions of Federal Government and government theory, but it comes down to this simple premise: I trust the teachers and the administrators and the parents at my daughter's high school, Thunderbird High School in Phoenix, AZ. I trust them. I know them. If I want my voice to be heard in the curriculum at the Washington school district or at Thunderbird High School, my wife or I can go to their curriculum discussions and have input. We can make our voice heard. If they propose to radically alter the curriculum at Courtney's high school, at Thunderbird High in Phoenix, AZ, I can speak out and I can be heard. If at Lookout Mountain Grade School, where my 11-year-old son is in school, if the principal or the teachers or the other administrators or the parents want to alter the curriculum, Shirley and I can drive down there and we can talk about that curriculum change. But in this examination we have no input. Indeed, we will see, and my colleagues can get a copy of this report, in this report even the people on the test panel lacked input. Because the gentleman who wrote and dissented and who said we are going to give an eighth grade math exam and we are going to assume as a nation that this is a valid test of the performance of all children across America in eighth grade math, which does not devote a single question to testing whether or not those eighth graders can do a basic math calculation without a calculator, even he could not be heard. Yet that is what we are going to do. We are going to write this entire test in Washington, DC. I happen to trust, as I said, the local school officials in Arizona and the local school officials in Washington Elementary District and at Thunderbird High School to do a good job of teaching my daughter Courtney and my son Stephen. I do not happen to trust Mr. Riley and the national experts that will write a Federal test and dictate it all the way across the country. I think we would be making a grave mistake if we put all of our eggs into one basket of a national test. Some people say, but what could be wrong with a test? After all, this is not a national curriculum in mathematics. This is not just Washington, D.C. deciding what will be taught in every school in America. This is just Washington, D.C. deciding what will be tested in every school in America. Let me suggest to Members that what is tested is what will be in fact taught. Think about that one for a moment. If we as a Nation adopt a national test in mathematics and we say as a part of that national test as this report says and this is the test specification written for the national test panel, if we in that national test say we are not going to test 8th graders on any basic math skills, we are going to let them take a calculator and use that calculator on every single question, you have to understand, what is tested is what will be taught. What is tested is what will be taught. Courtney, my daughter, is a sophomore in high school. She cares very much about getting into the best possible college she can. Every one of her teachers has made sure that as a teacher he or she knew what Courtney would be tested on. And every one of her teachers having learned what Courtney would be tested on has made sure that in the classroom, in the classroom curriculum, Courtney was taught what she would later be tested on and therefore Courtney has done well on the tests that she has taken in her education to this point in time. Stephen's teachers are exactly the same. Teachers are caring people. They enjoy their jobs. They do not do it for the pay, I can tell Members that much. Both of my sisters are teachers today. One in North Phoenix and one in the Chandler School District. Both of my sisters, and I have two older sisters, are teachers today. Teachers care about their students' performance. They do not do it for the money. Go look at a teacher's salary anywhere in America. If they care about their students' performance, they are going to learn what is to be tested and they will make sure that they teach what is to be tested. Therefore, if we write a national test, if we embrace as a Nation that there is one correct theory in mathematics, if we decide that in mathematics what we should do is not test 8th graders on basic mathematical computational skills, we ought to give every one of them a calculator because it is not a good idea to force them to do basic math skills without a calculator, then that will be the emphasis in America. I suggest that that is a grave error. I want to in this discussion talk about one of the experts that helped write this point. I am talking now about the national math test because that is where I think this debate focuses at the moment. It seems that Lynne Cheney, who is an expert in this area, did some research. She discovered that one of the people who helped write the national math test and who serves on this test panel is a consultant to the Connecticut Department of Education. His name is Mr. Steven Leinwand. Mr. Leinwand is in fact a part of the National Association of Mathematics Teachers. Mr. Leinwand believes and has written an article in which he argues strenuously that it is, and I quote, downright dangerous to teach children, to teach students things like 6 times 7 is 42. Indeed, he argues that it is improper and, as I said in his words, downright dangerous to continue to demand that our children master basic pencil and paper computational algorithms. What he writes is that the problem with teaching those things and by the way, therefore, the problem with testing them, according to Mr. Leinwand, is that it sorts the some out from the many. Lynne Cheney wrote an article on this, discussed Mr. Steven Leinwand, an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on September 29, 1997. She points out that Mr. Leinwand believes that such instruction, instruction in basic computational mathematics skills sorts people out. That is, it anoints the few who can do those pen and pencil calculations and it casts out the many, and that is a direct quote from Mr. Leinwand, casts out the many who fail to do them. I happen to disagree with Mr. Leinwand. I happen to think, first, that in America, the many are those who actually master those skills and do learn basic computational math. But I also disagree with his more basic premise, which is that he says it is wrong to sort out those who master those skills from others because it makes them feel bad. I suggest that if making children feel bad who do not learn basic math is the worst we are doing, we are not doing great damage, because the alternative proposal is to say to those children, ``Don't worry about math. Don't worry about pen and pencil and computations. Don't worry about mastering those skills.'' If we say that to them, we condemn them to a lifetime of not being competitive in the world in which they live. We condemn them to living in a world where they can be taken advantage of by businesspeople, by unscrupulous people, by whoever wants to take advantage of the fact that they simply cannot do basic math skills. I think Mr. Leinwand is dead wrong. But I want to make one last point on this. Let us assume that I am right and he is wrong. If we have a single test just in Connecticut where Mr. Leinwand is from, we can look at whether or not the children of Connecticut following Mr. Leinwand's, I would suggest, radical theories do better than the children in Arizona or whether they do not do better. If Mr. Leinwand turns out to be right and his system turns out to be better, Arizona can follow that, California can follow it, Florida can follow, and adopt his theories on their own. But if Mr. Leinwand is in fact wrong and he succeeds and Bill Clinton succeeds and Secretary Riley succeeds in imposing their one-size-fits-all Federal test following Mr. Leinwand's radical theory on every school child in America, I suggest to you, to all my colleagues in the Congress and to every American watching that we will be condemning a generation, maybe a generation and a half of America's children to living in a world where they are not competitive with the rest of the children around the world. I suggest to you that children in Germany and Japan and France and England and in many other countries around this world are indeed being drilled on these skills, they are mastering them and they will beat our children if we adopt a one-size-fits-all program. But even if he is right, the States could follow suit later. But if he is wrong, the risk of handing over the control of all of our children's education to one single Federal test is I think an absolute disaster. This is an issue which is going to be fought out right here in the Congress in the next few days. The President is proceeding with his national exam right now. The report I held up just moments ago is in fact the report on that national exam. There is only one way to stop it and that is by passing legislation stopping the President from spending Federal moneys which he wants to take from other parts of the Department of Education's budget and put it into his national testing program. If we do not stop him in a vote on the House floor and on the Senate floor within the next 2 or 3 weeks when this issue is resolved, it will be too late. I think there is no more time, no more urgent moment in our Nation's history if you care about education than to speak out on this topic. I am joined by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon]. I hope he is interested in jumping into this topic. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, it seems to me their point is, well, if they are against our proposal for national testing, they must, by definition, be against education. I will tell you, that argument makes me angry. I do oppose national testing. I think it is dead wrong for America. I think when the national testing would be a national math exam for eighth graders, that does not have a single question on it which requires the student to demonstrate he can do one math calculation without a calculator, I think I am right and I am demonstrating that I care about education. In my view, more testing is not the answer. If the answer were more testing, we would not have a problem in education in America today, because American students are tested, and tested, and tested. Now, what does the national test do? In this case, the national test that President Clinton is proposing is not only wrong on the merits, because it does not test basic math computational skills, thanks to Mr. Steven Leinwand and a handful of other radical theorists who do not want to test basic math skills, that say that will make students feel bad, but what does it do? It takes money away from education. That is right, the Congress was not presented with a bill from the President saying let us fund a national test. Let us define it by legislation, and let us then fund it through appropriations, the way this government is supposed to work. He is doing an end-run around the Congress, and his national testing program is going to be implemented without the approval of the Congress because the President just wants to do it, and he says he can do it. But do you know what? He has got to have money to do it. What is he going to do? He is going to take money out of other pieces of the Federal Department of Education and give it to national testing. Now, I think that is an abuse of this process, and it is dead wrong. Do you know what? As a House Republican, as a Member of this Congress who got public education and who believes to the depth of his soul in public education, I think it is dead wrong to steal money from other parts of the Federal Department of Education to push national testing, at least when that national testing will not even test the basic math skills that America's kids cannot do now. So am I playing politics with this, because I want to see the money already in the Department of Education spent for what it was supposed to be spent for? Am I anti-education, or is Bill Clinton anti-education because he wants to take that money away?

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, he has already developed the test, as near as I can see. He proposed it here on the floor of the House in his State of the Union address in January, and now they already have, as I have talked about earlier this night, item and test specifications for the voluntary national test, and we ought to talk about whether or not they are voluntary, for fourth grade reading and eighth grade mathematics, the report of the national test panel. So while that panel in Delaware included parents and teachers and local school administrators, and probably students from all over Delaware, and it took them three years to write what they felt was a good test, to make the model, and recognizing that States are, in fact, charged with educating their children, the President has done a one- size-fits-all, it is here, finished, done, he got it finished between January and October. By the way, it says we are not going to test whether or not you can do any math computations with a pen and pencil; we are going to give you a calculator for the whole exam.

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, there is a great tendency in these discussions on the floor to focus on the partisan bickering and on the President wants this and I listened to the gentleman do that and reflected on it earlier in the evening. I was talking about the President's plan and his wants and his goal and he wrote this test. I hope that people understand, this is not a partisan fight between a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. This is not a partisan attack on Bill Clinton, the person. For all I know, the President and the First Lady genuinely care about educating America's children. But this is a vitally important debate about that, that is, about educating America's children. The gentleman mentioned we held a field hearing of your committee in my city, in Phoenix. I cannot tell you how proud I am of the strides that have been made in Arizona in the education field. We are doing new and innovative things. We are charting new ground. We are doing, I think, not a perfect job, but a yeoman's job in a workmanlike fashion to try to craft for Arizona school children the best education possible. In some regards we are failing. We have an education funding debate going on in the State that needs to be resolved. But this much I know: I trust the parents and the teachers and the administrators and the local school boards in Arizona to focus on my children's education and to adapt the education that is necessary in my community, and I know that a test written thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C., a test written deep in the bowels of the Federal Department of Education, a test written by a handful of Federal education experts, cannot reflect my input or the input of the parents and the principals and the school administrators and the school board officials and the other people in Arizona that care about Arizona kids. You know, it is the point, can you say that Mr. Leinwand and Secretary Riley care more about my kids' education than I do? If so, I would like to ask them what their names are, because they do not know the names of my kids, but parents and teachers know their kids and care about their education. They do not want to have shoved down their throat a federally written Department of Education test. I want to just ask the gentleman, either gentleman can comment on this, you mentioned that a national test will drive school curricula all across America. That is, it will take choice, it will take educational options about curriculum away from the parents in Michigan in your district, or the parents in Arizona in my district, or the parents in Florida. I would like you to explain that.

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, perhaps we could have a dialogue here. It seems to me, first of all, the most important premise is to establish the fact that for those of us who oppose national testing, our opponents on the other side, that is the President and Secretary Riley and the educational experts and bureaucrats in the Education Department, would argue that if we oppose national testing, it is because we do not care about education. Let me ask the gentleman, you indicated you had a long history in public education. Do you believe that those of us who oppose a one- size-fits-all national test; that is, that a Federal Government mathematics test, written inside the Beltway, in Washington, D.C., is a bad idea. Do you believe those of us that think that is a bad idea do not care about education?

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, sometimes in these discussions we get a little esoteric and just talk theory. I want to bring this back home. There is a woman who teaches at Arizona State University in Phoenix, AZ, and in Tempe, AZ, who is a scholar herself and quite an expert in education. Her name is Marianne Jennings. She has written a nationally syndicated column on this issue. It turns out that 1 day her eldest daughter was doing some homework in her bedroom, and Marianne walked in and interrupted the child as she was doing the homework. She looked down, and what the child was doing was using a calculator to calculate what 10 percent of 470 was. Mrs. Jennings looked at that and said, what are you doing? And she discovered that her daughter needed a calculator to calculate 10 percent of 470, and needed a calculator to calculate what 25 percent of a fairly simple number was, and did not fully understand that 25 percent equaled one-quarter. She became enraged, and started to get involved in this issue, and in her daughter's education. She discovered that what was happening was that her daughter was being taught whole math or new, new math. She had to inject herself deeply into her own daughter's education, because the focus was in the wrong direction. I want to make the point that it is not that we do not understand the goal of national tests. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to compare the performance of kids in Arizona with the performance of kids in Michigan. But there are already ways we can do that, and in this proposal, we would create a single national test. That single national test could embody radical theories inside the Federal Department of Education like Mr. Leinwand's new, new math or whole math, where students are not taught basic computational skills because Mr. Leinwand believes it is downright dangerous to teach them those basic skills. I want to read or I want to emphasize this issue of ``voluntary.'' The President says and listeners tonight might think, what is wrong with a voluntary test? I have heard our colleagues on the other side of the aisle here defend the national test by saying, look, if you out in Arizona, if you do not want to participate in these national tests, if you think the Department of Education should not write a one-size-fits- all math test on which every eighth-grader should be tested, you may simply opt out. I want to point out to those listening that that option, that claim that that is voluntary, is a hollow claim. It will not work. In point of fact, and this is pointed out by Lynne Cheney in her article ``A Failing Grade for Clinton's National Standards,'' she points out that even if my State, Arizona, chooses not to participate in the national tests, or your school district in your hometown chooses not to participate in the national test, there are in reality in America only a handful of textbook writers. The minute we adopt as a Nation a single test, the minute we give away from Phoenix, AZ, to Washington, DC, the authority to write one test, every textbook writer in America will be compelled to bring out their next edition in math for 8th graders or reading for 4th graders to meet that national test. The curriculum will indeed have been written in Washington, DC, as a result of that test, and so my school department, my school board, the principal at Stephen's school or Courtney's school, will not have hardly any choices but to adopt a text, a textbook, written to teach to that national test. I think it is a disastrous idea that scares me a great deal. I want to point out that in today's Washington Times Mr. Riley makes a point. I want to quote. Mr. Riley says that instead of being controversial, he believes the country will embrace national tests as a chance to show their support for education. ``We think it's going to catch on, and we think the people in this country are going to almost look at it,'' that is, national testing, ``as a patriotic thing, to get involved in getting this country to read well, getting this country to do math well, and getting our children ready for college and important jobs.'' It is like do not dare challenge us, we in Washington, DC, know all the answers. The gentleman mentioned earlier that in his field hearings across the country what he found was that those schools that were succeeding were schools where the parents and teachers and the administrators in that school took possession of their children's education. They said, the heck with the State capitol, the heck with Washington, DC, we are going to make education better right here. I would like to ask the gentleman, will a nationally dictated curriculum in the form of a national test, to top-down give this test and do it on these subjects because we think this is the way math should be tested, is that going to help those people and encourage them to take control of their schools? I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra].