Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield for a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I would like to have a rollcall vote. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I see a unanimous consent request which I think will be fine. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts, like other Senators, I have other amendments to this bill and there will be plenty of time for extended debate later. This is a good amendment for the Senate to go on record. I am pleased to agree to a time limit. Mr. President, I still have the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to do so.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleagues. Mr. President, first, I will be clear about this amendment. With this amendment, we want to make sure, as we talk about accountability and testing, that this is done the right way. In many ways this amendment-- really, in all ways, this amendment tracks the consensus in the testing community, the work of the Committee on Economic Development, which is the arm of the business community which is very pro-testing. We are saying a number of things: First, it is extremely important that this testing that is done-- after all, we are talking about testing every year from age 8 through age 13--that this testing that is done meet the criterion that is comprehensive; that is to say, there are multiple measures for any kind of testing that is done in our country. It is terribly important that is done. Second, it is important that it be coherent, that there is a connection, there is a relationship that the testing actually tests the curriculum and the subject matter being taught. It seems to me that is the very least we can do for our local school districts. Third, as we continue, it is important we be able to measure progress over time, how these children are doing. Moreover, this amendment says that States will provide evidence to the Secretary that the tests they use are of adequate technical quality for each purpose for which they are used. It is very important that this be done the right way. Finally, it says itemized score analyses should be provided to districts and schools so tests can meet their intended purpose, which is to help the people on the ground, the teachers and the parents, know specifically what their children are struggling with so they can help them do better. I am absolutely amazed that this amendment has not been accepted. I thought there would be a real consensus behind this amendment. The reason I say this is all across the country, in case colleagues have not taken note of this, they are having a very negative reaction to testing being done the wrong way. We have a lot of very distinguished educators at the higher end level saying we ought not rely on the SAT as a single test. We have parents, children, young people--really starting in the suburbs, interestingly enough--who are rebelling. We are having more and more reports coming out that the really gifted teachers, the very teachers we need in the school districts where children are most underserved, are leaving the profession because they do not want to teach to the standardized test; they do not want to be drill instructors. In addition, there has been, I think, some very important, moving writing that has come out. Marc Fisher, a columnist with the Washington Post, wrote a piece on May 8. The headline is, ``Mountain of Tests Slowly Crushing School Quality.'' I recommend this piece to my colleagues. What Marc Fisher is saying, on the basis of what a lot of teachers and a lot of parents are saying, is that if you just have the standardized tests, if you do not do this the right way, if you do not have multiple measures, if you do not have tests that are actually testing the curriculum that is being taught, then what you are going to have all across the country is drill education. It is a sad sight to see when you have 8-year-olds and 9-year-olds sitting in straight rows--I have seen it on television--and you have a teacher saying: 2 plus 2 is 4; 3 plus 3 is 6; 5 plus 5 is 10. This goes for education, drill education, for standardized tests, for worksheets that have to be filled out. It is educationally deadening, and not one Senator would want his or her children to be taught that way or would want to see a teacher have to teach that way. But if we are not careful, that is what is going to happen. My understanding is the administration is opposed to this amendment. I am amazed that any education Senator would be opposed to this amendment. There is another piece that Marc Fisher wrote today which is a real heartbreaker. ``Schools Find Wrong Answers To Test Pressure'' is the headline. I am just going to quote the latter part of this piece. Michael West, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, tells me that at his daughter's middle school, students who pass this week's tests have been told they can skip the final week of school. There's a great lesson: First prize--you don't learn. The testing mania has brought with it a tidal wave of mediocre teaching materials, Julie Philips, a teacher who recently moved from the New York suburbs to Montgomery County, says, ``Great books are tossed on the heap so that students can practice writing about short, fable-like tales that test prep writers concoct to imitate what is on the tests. It is so disheartening.'' Listen to a third-grade teacher who has taught in a Fairfax County school for 30 years. Here are a few of the things she says she has had to eliminate from her classroom since the SOL tests took over the curriculum: ``We would have a whole biography unit. We would read a biography of a famous American. We would talk about the elements of a biography. Then the children would choose a famous American for a report. They would write their own autobiography. Finally, they would write a biography of one of their parents. It really got the children talking to their parents about their lives. I typed this up and bound it as a book which the children illustrated. (I don't have time anymore. I have to teach to the SOLs.) ``I would teach a poetry unit. We would explore the various forms of poetry and the children would write at least one poem in each of six forms. They would illustrate them and we would bind them as a book. Something for them to keep forever. (I don't have time anymore. We read some poems and picked out the rhyming words so they can pass their SOLs.) ``I would teach reading twice a day so the children who were behind could catch up. I was able to raise some children by two years in one school year. (I don't have time anymore. I have to teach to the SOLs. I have to teach how to fill in bubbles.)'' Frustrated by the new test-driven curriculum, this teacher has decided to leave her profession. Is that school reform? I say to my colleagues: Believe me, next week I will have trigger amendments and I will talk about the mockery of not having the resources so these children will have a chance to succeed. But today you cannot even vote for an amendment that would assure quality of testing so we do not drive the best teachers out of the profession?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Approximately. I am not sure exactly.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I certainly want to accommodate other Senators, but I want to hear the arguments against this amendment. I want people to come out here and debate this amendment. I want to have a chance to respond to those arguments.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to. I want to reserve 5 minutes before the vote to have a chance to summarize and, I say to my colleague from Arkansas, I will certainly try to finish my initial responses. I certainly would like to know what is the basis of the opposition to this amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Yes. That would be fine. I would be pleased to hear from my colleague.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I haven't even finished. I am not going to agree to have my amendment set aside right now. I haven't made the case for the amendment. I object. I probably will take another 15 minutes to explain why I think the amendment is so important. Then I would be pleased to yield the floor and we can move to the Lincoln amendment for a while and come back. I certainly don't want to lay the amendment aside right now.

Mr. WELLSTONE. If we would not keep jumping on the floor with the unanimous consent requests, I could be finished in about 8 minutes, and then you can have the floor and we can come back. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these two pieces by Marc Fisher be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me explain what this amendment does. By the way, so we can be clear we already know--I am going to summarize--we actually already know which children are doing well and which children are not doing so well. Children who come from families who are low income, where they do not have the same opportunities other children have for the very best developmental childcare, children who attend schools that don't have anywhere near the same resources that more affluent schools have, children who live in inadequate housing and all too often their parents move two or three times during the school year, children who are in schools where sometimes during the school year there are two or three or four teachers who come in and try to teach and can't, and who do not have the best teachers, students who are in schools where the teachers don't make nearly the salaries and don't have nearly the access to technology, we already know these children are not going to do well on these tests. We already know. Actually, what we are going to do--and I will speak more about this next week--is something that is incredibly cruel. We are going to fail these children again because all of this authorization is fiction. We have no agreement on any resources. We just had a budget that gives instructions to appropriators, which means we are going to have but a pittance. I will have a particular amendment next week that says we do the testing when we live up to the Dodd amendment and fund title I at that level. By the way, when we are talking about these children and about full funding over 10 years, why are we waiting 10 years, I ask my colleagues. If a child is 8 years old now, 10 years from now when we fully fund these programs, although we don't have any commitment to do so yet, that child will be 18. Childhood is once. You don't recover your childhood. Why aren't we helping these children now? Where in the budget are the resources to help these children now? Where is the commitment to help these children now? Instead, you are going to have people pounding their chests saying they are all for accountability. These tests don't do a thing when it comes to getting a good teacher, when it comes to a smaller class size, or when it comes to making sure children come to kindergarten ready. None of that is accomplished. I say to my colleagues, at the very minimum let's at least not drive out good teachers. Let's not make the mistake of discouraging the very best women and men from going into teaching. Let's not drive out good teachers by forcing them to be involved in drill education where they basically are having to teach the tests and that is all that it is about and no more. So they drop social studies, they drop music, they drop theater, and they drop art. None of it is tested. This amendment says we make the commitment that these tests around the country, if we are going to talk about accountability, are comprehensive. Don't use just one measurement. In addition, they are coherent. They are a measurement that the curriculum is being taught, that they are continuous, and we can see how a child is doing over a period of time. We are saying the States need to provide evidence to the Secretary that the tests they use are adequate and of technical quality for each purpose for which they are used. Why wouldn't you want to go on record making sure we have the high-quality tests used for the purposes for which they are supposed to be used? Finally, the itemized test scores are provided to the schools so the parents and others know where the children are struggling and how they can do better. I am telling you, if we don't do this, there are two things that are going to happen. First of all, you are going to have either a lot of children who are going to be held back or put into lower reading groups or math groups or whatever or you are going to have a lot of schools that are going to be identified as failing schools on the basis of single standardized tests. We all draw from our personal experience. I can certainly tell you that based upon my own personal experience. I am glad that many more schools are looking at more than SATs. I wasn't supposed to graduate from the University of North Carolina based on SAT scores. I worked hard and did great. I wasn't supposed to be a graduate of graduate school on the basis of SAT records. I was lucky enough to get a doctorate degree at age 24. These tests are not always accurate. Why in the world would you want to defy what every single person in the testing field says--that you should never rely on a single standardized test. You must have multiple measures. I know there are some students and perhaps some teachers in the gallery today. The second thing that is going to happen is you are going to drive out the best teachers. You are going to make it impossible for the very communities, the very schools, and the very kids who need the best teachers to get the best teachers because you are going to channel everybody down the road of having to teach the standardized test, to teach the test. What could be more educationally dead? By the way--I will finish on this--I will have a lot to say about this bill next week. I will spend a lot of time saying it. First of all, we ought to get the testing right. Second, without the resources, it is a mockery. It is an absolute mockery. We already know what works and what doesn't work. All we have to do is look at the schools that our children and our grandchildren attend. That is all we have to do. The schools that Senators' children and grandchildren attend are good schools. They are beautiful. They are inviting. The landscape is lovely. The teachers are highly paid. The classes are small. They don't do drill education. It is exciting and rewarding. And our children and grandchildren, before kindergarten, have been read to widely, know the alphabet, and know computers. They are sophisticated and are ready to learn. We already know we don't need tests to tell us what works. All we need to do is live up to our own rhetoric and be accountable. We will not be accountable if we jam down the throats of every school district in every State in the United States of America a test without at least some standards to make sure they are high-quality tests that do not lead to what will only be a disaster for education, for these children, and for their teachers. We will not be doing our job if we do not provide the resources to go with the accountability. Today in this amendment I am focusing on the quality of testing. I would love to find out why--I had the understanding there was strong support for it. Now I understand there isn't. I would like to know in what ways the administration disagrees with this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I actually, first of all, am pleased to speak after the Senator from Arkansas. Second of all, as far as time that I need, I said what I needed to say. I am just interested in what in the world is the opposition to a high-quality testing amendment? I would like to hear what it is people have to say in opposition. So I only need time to respond. If the Senator from Vermont, and others, support the amendment--which I hope they will--I do not need to respond. If other Senators don't want to come to the Chamber and debate, then there is no one to respond to, so I will not need a lot of additional time. I already said what I needed to say on this amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I really will not need to take much more time. In a few moments, I am going to ask unanimous consent to modify my amendment. There isn't anything I have said that I would change. I just think part of the disagreement, at least with the Senator from Vermont, was more semantics. I am intending the quality of testing language here to apply to this act, this piece of legislation, this reauthorization of the ESEA. I haven't resolved this one way or the other yet. In my own mind, I have a question as to whether or not the Federal Government ought to be telling the school districts--I really mean this--in States across the country that you will do this testing, and you will do it every year in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 with every kid. That is a philosophical question. The second concern I have is that in terms of our involvement and the ways in which schools are going to be measured and accountability is going to be defined, I want to make sure we have the necessary language that deals with quality, and again I, in particular, would emphasize the importance of comprehensiveness, multiple measures, and coherence, tests measuring the curriculum and what is being taught, and that it is continuous so that we see how children are doing over time. I don't know how other Senators will vote, but I am certainly pleased to have had the discussion with my colleague from Vermont. I send my amendment to the desk and ask that the amendment be modified.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to hear from my colleague from Vermont. Sometimes when I feel particularly indignant--and I do right now about where we are heading with this bill, and I have a Senator on the floor whom I respect and like to work with, I don't want the Senator from Vermont to think this is aimed at him. My third concern, which I will talk about next week, is that we are just going to kind of keep these children thin when it comes to prekindergarten and what is being done for them, and keep them thin when it comes to the additional title I help, which could be pre-K, or extra reading help, or after school, and we are going to keep them thin when it comes to whether or not their schools have the resources and they are able to get the best teachers; and then we are going to put them on the scale, test them, and fail them again. This doesn't work. The ``accountability'' without resources doesn't work. But at least this amendment deals in part with the accountability piece, which is to make sure we don't confuse accountability and testing and a single standardized test as one and the same thing. It is not. So in the spirit of improving this bill, I hope there will be support for this amendment. I thank my colleague from Vermont for his very useful suggestions. As I say, next week I am going to have some amendments that are going to say, basically, put up or shut up. We voted for the title I authorization--not money. So at least let's not do this testing until we in fact fund it. I am going to have amendments that say that, and I am going to talk about the funding of prekindergarten. If you are going to start testing 8-years-olds, I guarantee you what has much more to do with what 8-year-olds do in school is what happens to them before kindergarten. That is absolutely true. That is what is so wrong about the direction in which we are heading. I will speak about that at great length next week. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my understanding is we will have a vote at any moment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. I will take a moment or two to summarize this amendment. Again, the amendment focuses on quality testing. The amendment says that everything we are doing within this Elementary and Secondary Education Act which has to do with these tests that are going to take place every year must meet the professional standards. In particular, what I am focused on is that there be multiple measures, not a single measurement; that, again, there be coherence; that the actual curriculum that is being taught is what is being measured; and that we also focus on continuity and are able to look at a child's progress over time. I am not at all excited about any of the direction here, but any way I can make this bill a better bill, I want to. I certainly hope my colleagues will vote for this amendment. Again, this budget resolution that was passed tells the story loudly and clearly. We are not going to have the resources going to the schools and the children. Next week I will have amendments that say we go with the testing and accountability when, in fact, we have provided the funding for title I; when, in fact, we have provided funding for early childhood development; when we have done the job by way of getting the tools to the schools and the children and the teachers so they can succeed. That is going to be a long story next week. For now, I am hoping there is good, strong support for this quality of testing amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will take 3 or 4 minutes. I notice Senator Clinton is on the floor, and Senator DeWine is on the floor as well. I say to Senator DeWine, I will let him cover the Troops to Teachers part of this legislation. It is a real addition, and I like this effort. This whole notion of Careers to Classrooms makes all the sense in the world. I want to highlight two facts. No. 1, we are focusing again on underserved children and underserved communities, be they inner city, rural, or, for that matter, in a suburb. No. 2, we want to make it possible for some people to make big career changes, to go into teaching, working with the States, and States having collaborative relationships with higher institutions to provide alternative means for certification and have more lateral entry into teaching. Some of the best teachers are women and men who midcareer decide to make this change and go into teaching. For my own part --I hope I do not have to do it too soon; some of my colleagues might disagree with me on that--I often think to myself that I would love to do some teaching in the schools I visit all the time. Even though I do have a doctorate in political science and have some experience in the area of social studies, the thought of going back to school and going through the usual certification is a disincentive. We are trying to provide more incentives for people to come into teaching. Every discussion I have been involved in at every school, once every 2 weeks for the last 10\1/2\ years, if I ask a student what makes for a good education, the first thing they talk about before anything else is good teachers. By the way, they are not talking about teachers who teach the worksheets. They are talking about teachers who fire their imagination. Finally--and Senator Clinton may speak about this--it is not just recruitment but retention, having mentors, and providing support for teachers to stay in the profession. We run into the problem of good people leaving the profession. This is terribly important. This amendment is on target. Each of us wrote our own amendments, our own bills. The Senator from Texas is right; we put this all together in a collaborative relationship. It is a very important amendment. There is widespread support for it, and I am proud to work with my colleagues on this important legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Christie Onoda and John Carwell of Senator Dodd's staff be granted the privilege of the floor during the remainder of the debate on S. 1.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this amendment greatly strengthens this legislation. It focuses on an issue that we haven't really spent a lot of time on yet. This has to do with how we make sure we have the very highest quality of testing and how we make sure we give our States and school districts the flexibility to do the very best job. There has been a rush to expand testing without stepping back to determine whether the testing system we have is working. It is only common sense--I believe we have worked hard on this amendment, and there will be strong support for it--to assume that if you want the tests to be effective, they have to be of high quality. This goes back to why we are measuring student achievement in the first place and what our goals are if we are going to set up these accountability systems. Are we measuring for the sake of measuring only or are we measuring to get the best picture of how our children are doing? That is what we are all about or should be all about. If we want to get the best picture of how our students are doing and how effective the schools are in teaching, we need to have the best possible assessments. That is what this amendment seeks. These assessments need to be aligned with standards, local curriculum, and classroom instruction. These assessments need to be free from bias. They need to reflect both the range and depth of student knowledge, and they need to assess not just memorized responses but student reasoning and understanding. They need to be used only for the purposes for which they are valid and reliable. This is important. Holding States and school districts and teachers accountable to the wrong test can, in fact, be more harmful than helpful. Using low-level national tests to measure performance within a State shows us little of how the States, the school districts, the schools, and the students are doing in achieving their State and local educational goals. This amendment seeks to allow States to develop tests that are of higher quality and better meet the localized needs of their students, their parents, and their teachers. I will repeat these words again. They should be important to Senators and staff. This amendment allows States to develop tests that are of higher quality and better meet the localized needs of their students, teachers, and parents. To ensure that the assessments are of high quality, this amendment says the assessments under title I have to meet relevant national standards developed by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Council of Measurement in Education. These standards are the standards from everyone in the testing field--I say to the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Massachusetts, these are the standards that have been used as guides for testmakers and test users for decades, and they are implied but they are not specifically referenced in the current law. Secondly, it says that States have to provide evidence to the Secretary that the tests they use are of adequate technical quality for each purpose for which they are used. Third, it says that itemized score analyses should be provided to districts and schools so the tests can meet their intended purpose, which is to help the people on the ground, the teachers and the parents, to know specifically what their children are struggling with and how they can help them do better. Finally, the amendment provides grants to States to enter into partnerships to research and develop the highest quality assessments possible so they can most accurately and fairly measure student achievement. I will go into this later on, but I say to the Senate: My background is education. I was a teacher for 20 years. I don't want to give any ground on rigor or accountability, but I don't want us to do this the wrong way. I want to make sure our States and school districts can design the kinds of tests that are comprehensive, that have multiple measures, that are coherent, that we are actually measuring what is being taught, and also to make sure they assess progress over time. This is so important because we don't want to put our teachers and school districts in a position of having to teach to tests. We don't want to drive out our best teachers. We want to have the best teachers in our schools. We don't want teachers to be drill sergeants. There is a distinction between training and education. The need for this amendment is clear. 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: Many States use assessment results from a single test-- often traditional multiple choice tests. Although the 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. The link between better assessments and better accountability was made by Robert Schwartz, president of Achieve, Inc., the nonprofit arm of the standards-based reform movement. He recently said: You simply can't accomplish the goals of this movement if you're using off-the-shelf, relatively low-level tests . . . 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. This amendment is about making sure we get the tests right. That is what this amendment is about. This is exactly my point. We need to get the tests right. Research shows that low-quality assessments can actually do more harm than good. The Standards on Educational and Psychological Testing clearly indicate this. The standards state: The proper use of tests can result in wiser decisions about individuals and programs than would be the case without their use and also can provide a route to broader and more equitable access to education and employment. That is if it is done the right way. The improper use of tests, however, can cause considerable harm to test takers and other parties affected by test-based decisions. It is our obligation to help States and districts ensure that tests are done right so they can achieve the best effect. The standards go on to say: Beyond any intended policy goals, it is important to consider any potential unintended effects that may result from large scale testing programs. Concerns have been raised, for instance, about narrowing the curriculum to focus only on the objectives tested, restricting the range of instructional approaches to correspond to testing format, increasing the number of drop-outs among students who do not pass the test, and encouraging other instructional or administrative practices that may raise test scores without affecting the quality of education. It is important for those who mandate tests to consider and monitor their consequences and to identify and minimize the potential of negative consequences. With my colleagues' support, we want to make sure the testing is done the right way, and that is what we will do if we adopt this amendment. One of the key problems with low-quality tests and accountability systems that rely too heavily on a single measure of student progress is in producing very counterproductive educational effects. There is too much teaching to the test, leading to drill instruction which does not reflect real learning and which excludes key components of education that are not covered by the tests. Further, the over-reliance on tests could cause teachers to leave the profession at a time when good teachers are what our country needs the most. Again, I am going to talk about this more, but if we do not get this right, we will rue the day that we have set up a system that basically creates a situation where your very best teachers are going to leave the profession, and we are not going to attract the best teachers. The first concern has to do with teaching to the test. Let me cite for my colleagues the Committee for Economic Development, which is a strongly pro-testing coalition of business leaders which 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. Many will say that teaching to tests can be good, but if the tests are of low quality, which too many are, then it most certainly is not for the good. The recent Education Week/Pew Charitable Trust study, ``Quality Counts,'' found that nearly 70 percent of the teachers said that instruction stresses tests ``far'' or ``somewhat'' too much. Sixty-six percent of the teachers also said that State assessments were forcing them to concentrate too much on what is tested to the detriment of other report topics. I will tell you what topics are neglected: social studies, arts, science, technology, all of which are integral to good education. For example, in Washington State, a recent analysis by the Rand Corporation showed that fourth grade teachers shifted significant time away from the arts, science, health and fitness, social studies, and communication and listening skills because none of these areas were measured by the tests. Is that what we want to do? We do not want to end up undercutting the quality of education of children in this country. ``Quality Counts'' goes on to say: Any one test samples only a narrow range of what students should be learning. If teachers concentrate on the test-- rather than the broader content undergirding the exams--it could lead to a bump in test results that does not lead or does not reflect real learning gains. In fact, 45 percent of the teachers surveyed said they spent a great deal of time teaching students how to take tests, doing activities such as learning to fill in bubbles correctly. Another recent survey of Texas teachers indicated that only 27 percent of the teachers believe that increases in the TAAS scores reflect an increase in the quality of learning and teaching, rather than teaching to the test. A 1998 study of the Chicago public schools concluded that the demand for high test scores had actually slowed down instruction as teachers stopped introducing new material to review and practice for upcoming exams. The most egregious examples of teaching to the test are schools such as the Stevenson Elementary School in Houston that pays as much as $10,000 per year to hire the Stanley Kaplan Test Preparation Company to teach teachers how to teach kids to take tests. According to the San Jose Mercury News, schools in East Palo Alto, which is one of the poorest districts in California, also paid Stanley Kaplan $10,000 each to consult with them on test-taking strategies. According to the same article: Schools across California are spending thousands to buy computer programs, hire consultants, and purchase workbooks and materials. They're redesigning spelling tests and math lessons, all in an effort to help students become better test takers. Sadly, it is the low-income schools that are affected the most. The National Science Foundation found that teachers with more than 60 percent minority students in their classes reported more test preparation and more test-altered instruction than those with fewer minority students in their class. This research is confirmed by the Harvard Civil Rights Project and several other studies. The reason I believe the vote on this amendment will be one of the most important votes on this bill is that this amendment speaks directly to whether or not we are going to have the best teachers. I am very concerned that drill education and an increasing emphasis on scores is going to cause the best teachers to leave the profession, to leave the schools where they are needed the most. This is tragic at the very time we face an acute teacher shortage. We know that the single most important factor in closing the achievement gap between students is the quality of the teachers the students have. We will see teachers leaving the profession. Linda Darling Hammond, who is a renowned educator at Stanford University, and Jonathan Kozol, who has written some of the most powerful books about poor children and education in America, have both addressed this issue. Jonathan 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.'' It is ironic because in our quest to close the achievement gap, Kozol finds that what we are actually doing is ``robbing urban and poor rural children of the opportunities Senators give their own kids.'' What is going on? We already know where all the pressure is. We already know where all the focus is on the drill education, the teaching to the tests. It is in inner-city, rural, small towns. What you are going to have, or what you have right now, is the teachers who know how to teach and are not involved in worksheet education are the very teachers who are going to leave. It is the teachers who are more robotic and are intent to do worksheet teaching and learning, which is educationally deadening--they are going to be the teachers who stay. We will be making a huge mistake if we don't make sure the testing is done in a comprehensive and coherent way. There was an op-ed piece in the New York Times. It was written by a fifth-grade teacher who obviously had great passion for his work. Listen to his words: But as I teach from day to day . . . I no longer see the students in the way I once did--certainly not in the same exuberant light as when I first started teaching five years ago. Where once they were ``challenging'' or ``marginal'' students, I am now beginning to see ``liabilities.'' Where once there was a student of ``limited promise,'' there is now an inescapable deficit that all available efforts will only nominally affect. One way to avoid such negative outcomes and ensure that tests do not inhibit real learning is to design higher quality tests that measure how children think rather than just what they can remember. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing asserts, for example, that: If a test is intended to measure mathematical reasoning, it becomes important to determine whether examinees are in fact reasoning about the material given instead of following just a standard algorithm. Too often, today's tests are failing their mission. The Center for Education Policy's recent study on the state of education reform concludes: The tests commonly used for accountability purposes don't tell us how students reached an answer, why they are having difficulty, or how we can help them. We therefore need to design assessments that are more closely linked to classroom instruction. That is what our school districts, schools, teachers, principals, school boards, and our PTAs at the local level are telling us. We need to reflect student learning over time so that schools are not judged in a single shot but, rather, are judged more deeply and comprehensively through multiple measures of achievement. Such an approach would reward teachers who, as the Center for School Change in Minnesota recommends, are able to actually effect and improve children's analytic abilities and communications skills rather than teachers who drill the best. It would reward schools and teachers who ensure that day-to-day classroom instruction is high quality, not just those who have learned how best to game assessments. That is what this amendment seeks to do. The Committee for Economic Development report urges this approach. It says: 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. Beyond the effects in the classroom, higher quality tests and fairer use of tests are needed because low-quality tests can lead to inaccurate assessments, which do not serve but, rather, subvert the efforts at true educational accountability. Nobody put it better than the strongly protesting Committee for Economic Development. These business leaders concluded in their report--there should be almost unanimous support for this amendment--entitled ``Measuring What Matters'' 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 the schools. We want to make sure these tests are accurate, reliable, and fair. I know the language I speak is technical, but the issue is of great import. Let me just simply summarize my position. There is more to say, and perhaps we will listen to other colleagues as well, because there is much more than I can cite as evidence. One of the things we have to make sure of is that we have comprehensive multiple measures that will measure schools and students. You have to do that; otherwise, you are abusing the tests. It is very dangerous to use a single measure to determine how well schools and students are doing. But beyond pure error, it is important to realize that even without technical error, tests tell only a part of the education story. They should be accompanied by other measures to ensure that we are getting the best picture possible of how these students and schools are doing. That is the way we can hold the schools truly and fairly accountable. In his testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee, Kurt M. Landgraf, president and CEO of the Educational Testing Service, which is one of the largest providers of K-12 testing services in the country, said: Scores from large scale assessments should not be used alone if other information will increase the validity of the decisions being made. Riverside Publishing, another of the major test publishers in the country, in their Interpretive Guide For School Administrators for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, said: Many of the common misuses (of standardized tests) stem from depending on a single test score to make a decision about a student or class of students. The National Association of State Boards of Education also did a comprehensive study which indicated the same thing. The study I mentioned before, ``Quality Counts,'' shows that we need to have multiple measures. In no area is this phenomenon more evident than in the use of a single standardized test to make a high-stakes decision about a student, as whether or not that student will be promoted from one grade to another or in what reading group that student will be placed. Nearly everybody involved in the testing field, whether it is the groups that write the professional standards, the National Research Council, test publishers, the business community that invested so much in the testing movement--all agree that a single test should never be the sole determinant in making high-stakes educational decisions about individual students or, for that matter, about individual schools. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing asserts that in educational settings, a decision or characterization that will have a major impact on a student should not be made on the basis of a single test score. The National Research Council--we commissioned this report--in 1999 concludes that: No single test score can be considered a definitive measure of a student's knowledge, and an educational decision that will have a major impact on a test taker should not be made solely or automatically on the basis of a single test score. So we need multiple measures. Second, right now, too many of the tests are not aligned with the curriculum and standards. So another condition that has to be met, another problem that has to be met, is that current assessments all too often are not aligned with standards, curriculum, and instruction. That is what it has to be. I am putting into the language what we have implied. Alignment is the cornerstone of accountability. If we don't have tests that are aligned with the standards and curriculum and the instruction, then we are not going to have real accountability. Now, the Committee for Economic Development in their report makes the point that barriers to alignment are more serious when States use so- called off-the-shelf commercial tests rather than developing their own. The National Association of State Boards of Education confirms in their study and makes the point that norm reference tests are unable to measure the attainment of content and performance standards. This amendment provides grants to States to better align their assessments, as well as to ensure that the tests validly assess the domain they are intended to measure. This is common sense, but it is so important. This amendment seeks not to stop using tests but to ensure fairness and accuracy in the large-scale assessments that are used under title I. This amendment seeks not to stop using tests. I want to make sure this is done the right way. I want to make sure it is fair. I want to make sure the tests are accurate. I want to make sure we have real accountability. I want to make sure we are respectful of teachers. I want to make sure we are respectful of school boards. I want to make sure we are respectful of what goes on in our schools. This call for fairness and accuracy is a call that has been made by business leaders, by educators, by government leaders, and by the most respected research institutes in the country. I rarely read text when I speak on the floor of the Senate. However, there are so many authorities and studies to cite, the evidence is irrefutable. We want to make sure we do this the right way and we must do it the right way. This research and this call for accurate, fair testing has crossed party lines. I hope it will have bipartisan support in the Senate. The most recent National Research Council report on testing, ``Knowing What Students Know,'' outlines the direction in which I think we as policymakers need to move to make sure the testing is done fairly and correctly. The report concludes that: . . . policymakers are urged to recognize the limits of current assessments and to support the development of new systems of multiple assessments that would improve their ability to make decisions about educational programs and allocation of resources. It says: . . . needed are classroom and large-scale assessments that help all students succeed in school by making as clearly as possible to them, their teachers and other educational stakeholders the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. We surely ought to be able to meet that condition. Right now, the authors report: Assessment practices need to move beyond a focus on component skills and discrete bits of knowledge to encompass more complex aspects of student achievement. The authors recommended that: Funding should be provided for a major program of research, guided by a synthesis of cognitive and measurement principles, that focus on the design of assessments that yield more valid and fair inferences about student achievement. And key components are what? Multiple measures of student achievement and a move to more performance-based, curriculum-embedded assessment. Doesn't that make sense, to have multiple measures, and to make sure what you are testing is aligned with the curriculum? The three principles of good assessment are laid out. I conclude on the principles: Comprehensiveness, meaning you have a range of measurement approaches so that you have a variety of evidence to support educational decisionmaking; coherence, meaning that the assessment should be closely linked to curriculum and instruction; and continuity, meaning that the assessment should measure student progress over time. I emphasize, this legislation, S. 1. is a major departure in public policy in the sense we are now calling on all of the school districts in all of the States in all of the schools in all of our States to test children as young as age 8 to age 13 every single year. There can be a philosophical discussion about whether we should be doing that. The only thing I am saying is, let's do it the right way. I have been working on this amendment, using the best studies we have. I have been in touch with people all over the country. Basically, I am saying, let's make sure there is comprehensiveness, which means multiple measures. Make sure there is coherence; that we actually measure the curriculum and instruction. Otherwise the teachers teach to the tests. We don't want that. We don't want drill education. Finally, let's have continuity, which means that the assessment should measure student progress over time. Jonathan Kozol is someone I think we all respect. He writes that it is the best teachers that hate testing agenda the most. They will not remain in public schools if they are forced to be drill sergeants for exams instead of being educators. Hundreds of the most exciting and beautifully educated teachers are already fleeing from inner-city schools in order to escape what one teacher, a graduate of Swarthmore calls ``examination hell.'' I don't know that we have been in the inner-city neighborhoods; I don't think we visit the inner-city neighborhoods that Jonathan Kozol does. The dreariest and most robotic teachers will remain, the flowing and passionate teachers will get out as fast as they can. They will be hired in exclusive prep schools to teach the children of the rich under ideal circumstances. He goes on to say: Who will you find to replace these beautiful young teachers? This is another way of robbing the urban poor and rural children of the opportunities that we give to our own children. I think he is right. I have been a college teacher for 20 years. I have been in a school almost all the time in Minnesota, about every 2 weeks for the last 10\1/2\ years. I desperately believe in the value of equal opportunity for every child. I absolutely believe education is the foundation of opportunity. I know from my 20 years as a college teacher that you can take a spark of learning in a child and if you ignite that spark of learning and you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment. That is the best thing about the United States of America. I also know you can pour cold water on that spark of learning. I have raised two objections to this piece of legislation, but I think this legislation can be improved upon and can end up being a good, strong, bipartisan effort. Maybe. One of those concerns is, for God's sake, if you are going to do the testing, you better give the children and the teachers and the schools the tools so they can do well. That is the Federal Government living up to our commitment by way of resources. That is holding us accountable. The other issue I raise, which is what this amendment speaks to, is let's just do the testing the right way. There is a reaction all over the country about too much of a reliance on one single standardized test. You have to have multiple measures. Let's make sure the tests actually are connected to the curriculum and to the instruction that is taking place, that is respectful of our teachers and our local school districts. Let's make sure the tests assess the progress of a child over a period of time. I have been taking all of the best research and all of what we have implied in this bill, language we already have in this bill, making it explicit that we are going to do this the right way; that we are going to make sure that States and school districts can do this the right way. There could not be a more important amendment. I am sorry that some of my presentation was so technical and seemed so cut-and-dried. But if we do this the wrong way, we will have worksheet teaching and worksheet education. We will have drill education. It is going to be training, but it is not really going to be education. It is not going to fire the imagination. Then arts gets dropped and music gets dropped and social studies gets dropped and drama gets dropped--because none of it is tested in this drill education. My God, we do not want to do that. We do not want to channel schools down that direction. We do not want to force them to go in that direction. This amendment makes sure that this testing--if this is the path we are going down, using this definition of accountability--is done the right way. If my colleagues think about their own States, they will see what is happening. A lot of the teachers and kids around the country, actually mainly in the suburbs, are now rebelling against these standardized tests. They hate them. Some are refusing to take them, because the parents in the suburbs are saying we don't want one-third of the time of the teachers who could be involved in great education wasted just teaching to these tests. It is interesting from where the rebellion is coming. Again, one more time: The very school districts which are the most underserved are the ones where you want to get the best teachers. I have two children in public education. One is in an inner-city school, the other isn't, but both hate this reliance on single standardized tests. You are not going to get the teachers. I would not teach under this kind of situation, and you would not. If the Federal Government is going to have this mandate, for God's sake, let's do it the right way. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time. There is no time limit, I gather, on this amendment.