National Educational Testing. This amendment to the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," the main education spending package, would strike pro-visions in the bill which would impose upon states the requirement to test students in grades three through eight in reading and math. The amendment would replace the national testing requirement with a requirement that the states measure students in areas in which the states have set their own "performance standards."
Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) supported the amendment because the national testing requirement of the underlying bill would naturally lead to a national test and a national curriculum. "[A]s much as I object to the new federal expenditures in H.R. 1, my biggest concern is with the new mandate that states test children and com-pare the test with a national normed test such as the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). While proponents of this approach claim that the bill respects state autonomy as states can draw up their own tests, these claims fail under close observation…. H.R. 1 will lead to de facto, if not de jure, national testing. States will inevitably fashion their test to match the ‘nationally-normed’ test so as to relieve their students and teachers of having to prepare for two different tests…. National testing will inevitably lead to a national curriculum as teachers will teach what their students need to know in order to pass their mandated ‘assessment.’"
The House rejected this amendment to H.R. 1 on May 22, 2001 by a vote of 173-255 (Roll Call 130). We have assigned pluses to the yeas.
