Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold on the Consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act's Focus on Student Testing November 20, 2003 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, this month public school students around Wisconsin are sharpening their No. 2 pencils and settling in to take a series of annual tests called the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations. These exams, given to students in grades four, eight, and ten, test students' knowledge of reading, language arts, math, science, and social studies. These tests--and their results--have taken on new meaning for schools around my State as students and teachers in Wisconsin settle into their second school year under the No Child Left Behind Act. This law, the centerpiece of the President's domestic agenda, requires that students in grades three through eight and in one high school grade be tested annually in reading and math beginning in the 2005-2006 school year, with annual science tests to be added 2 years later. Thus, Wisconsin will be required to expand the WKCEs, and the already-existing annual third grade Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test, to include new reading tests for students in grades five, six and seven; and new math tests for students in grades three, five, six, and seven. As I travel around Wisconsin, I hear time and again from frustrated parents, teachers, administrators, and school board members about their concerns with the ongoing implementation of the NCLB. I began to hear such comments more than 2 years ago when the President first proposed his education initiative, and this drumbeat of concern has increased as my constituents continue to learn first-hand what this new law means for them and for their students and children. While Wisconsinites support holding schools accountable for results, they are concerned about the focus on standardized testing included in the President's approach. I opposed the President's education bill in large part because of this new annual testing mandate. The comments I have heard from people across Wisconsin about this new program have been almost universally negative. Parents, teachers, administrators, and others in the education community have told me that they are concerned about the effect that over-testing will have on Wisconsin's public school students. They oppose another layer of federally mandated testing for many reasons, including the cost of developing and implementing the additional tests, the loss of teaching time every year to prepare for and take the tests, and the unnecessary pressure that these additional tests will place on students, teachers, schools, and school districts. The pressure to do well on annual tests is already weighing on the teachers and schools in Wisconsin, even with 2 years to go before the additional tests are required. The stakes are very high for schools and school districts. The results on these annual tests are a central part of the complicated formula that determines whether a school is meeting or exceeding its ``adequate yearly progress'' goals. Failure to meet AYP goals in two or more consecutive years will lead to sanctions for the schools and districts in question. I have heard from many constituents about the complex AYP system, and what being determined to be a ``school in need of improvement'' or a school that ``has not met AYP'' will mean for--and how these designations will be interpreted by--parents, students, school personnel, and the general public. In order to measure AYP, Wisconsin and other States are required under NCLB to look at four indicators for each school and district: test participation, graduation and attendance criteria, reading achievement, and math achievement. Three of these four criteria are based on the annual standardized tests. This is troubling because the future of individual schools and school districts is riding on student participation in and success on just two exams--reading and math. These core subjects are important, to be sure, but I am concerned that this exclusive focus on testing--which is a top-down mandate from the Federal Government--may be detrimental to the successful education of our children, who could benefit from a more flexible approach. As a recent editorial in the La Crosse Tribune points out, ``the stakes on the schools are high. Buy what about students? The test result doesn't appear on their transcript and it doesn't count toward a grade or graduation.'' And what if a student had a bad day? Or what if the required amount of students don't take the tests, and the school fails to meet the 95 percent participation rate required by the NCLB? A missed participation rate 2 years in a row would mean that the school is ``in need of improvement,'' even if the students who took the tests did well on them. In addition, some of my constituents are concerned about the value of these tests to students, parents, and teachers. According to one teacher, the existing tests don't have any meaning to students and have little meaning to classroom teachers. And the Federal Government has mandated that students take even more tests without developing a system that makes these new tests, or the existing ones for that matter, meaningful to students. The impact of these standardized tests on students varies. Some students already have test anxiety and that anxiety may well increase unnecessarily. As the stakes increase for schools, the increased stress level is sure to filter down from administrators to teachers to students. For example, members of the Wisconsin School Counselors Association told me that they have been handing out apple-shaped ``stress balls'' for anxious third graders to squeeze while taking their reading tests. While some students experience stress out about tests, others simply do not care about the tests at all, and fill in random answers or turn in blank test sheets--after all, there's no penalty if they do so. For students who are struggling, however, a low test score on a standardized test can be demoralizing. According to one Wisconsin teacher, ``Students are being evaluated on one single test. What if the student has a bad day? ..... [T]he truly scary part is that standardized tests ensure that half of our students will always be 'below average.' How can we meet the benchmark that everyone will score proficient and advanced when the tests are designed to never let that happen? ..... Taking more tests is not going to improve learning.'' Most students, of course, try their best. But they are confused about why they are taking tests that do not count toward their grades, and many students and parents are confused by the results of these tests. With the stakes rising for schools and districts, some schools in Wisconsin have resorted to offering what amounts to bribes to encourage the students to participate in the WKCEs and to do well on them. Since the tests have little consequences for individual students, but very serious consequences for schools and districts, some schools are pulling out all of the stops to get students to take these tests seriously. According to a recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, some schools are offering prizes to students who show up and complete their exams. These prizes range from movie tickets to gift certificates for a local mall to big ticket items such as a television and a DVD player. Some schools are offering exemptions from end-of-semester exams for students who do well on the WKCEs. One elementary school is promising students additional recess periods, snacks, and movies. One teacher told my staff that her school is allowing students to engage in one of the ultimate school no-nos chewing gum in the classroom in order to help to relieve the stress of taking the tests. I will ask that the complete text of the two articles that I have referenced be printed in the RECORD. Mr. President, schools in my State are already feeling the pressure to compel students to participate in and succeed on annual tests 2 years before the additional, federally mandated tests are added to the mix. I am concerned about the implications that this pressure, and the resulting scramble to get students to take these tests seriously, will have on public education in my State. I am not saying that schools should not be required to be successful or to show improvement in student performance. Of course, all schools should strive to ensure that they are successful and that their students show improvement. But these examples from my State are clear evidence of one of the basic problems with the NCLB--its exclusive focus on test scores as the main measure of student achievement. When schools feel compelled to hand out goodies to get students to take tests seriously, those tests are not serving their intended purpose. Certainly, tests have their place in education. But tests should be used as one of multiple measures of student achievement, not as the sole means of determining the success or failure of a school. I am extremely concerned that the new Federal testing mandate will not achieve the desired result of better schools with qualified teachers and successful students. I fear that this new mandate will curtail actual teaching time and real learning in favor of an environment where teaching to the test becomes the norm. The unfortunate result of this would be to show our children that education is not about preparing for their futures, but rather about preparing for tests--that education is really about sharp No. 2 pencils and test sheets, about making sure that little round bubbles are filled in completely, and, if their school districts and States have enough money, maybe about exam booklets for short answer and essay questions. I am also deeply concerned that this focus on testing will rob teachers of valuable teaching time and will squelch efforts to be innovative and creative, both with lesson plans and with ways of measuring student performance. For these reasons, earlier this year I introduced the Student Testing Flexibility Act, a bill that would return a measure of the local control that was taken from States and local school districts with the enactment of the NCLB. This bill would allow States and school districts that have demonstrated academic success for 2 consecutive years the flexibility to apply to waive the new annual testing requirements in the NCLB. States and school districts with waivers would still be required to administer high-quality tests to students in, at a minimum, reading or language arts and mathematics at least once in grades 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12 as required under the law. This bill is cosponsored by Senators JEFFORDS, DAYTON, and LEAHY. I am pleased that this legislation is supported by the American Association of School Administrators; the National Education Association; National PTA; the National Association of Elementary School Principals; the National Association of Secondary School Principals; the School Social Work Association of America; the National Council of Teachers of English; the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction; the Wisconsin Education Association Council; the Wisconsin Association of School Boards; the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association; the Wisconsin School Social Workers Association; and the Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance, which includes the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators, the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators, the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, and the Wisconsin Council for Administrators of Special Services. I would also like to take a moment to discuss the recently released National Assessment on Educational Progress scores. In addition to a massive new annual testing requirement, the NCLB also requires States to participate in the previously voluntary NAEP tests for fourth grade reading and math, which are given every 2 years. Proponents of high-stakes testing argue that NAEP participation will help to ensure that the results of State-administered tests are valid, and that States are not ``dumbing down'' their tests in order to avoid Federal sanctions. The NAEP scores that were released last week are the results of the first round of required testing under the NCLB, and, for the first time, include scores from all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and 2 schools run by the Department of Defense. While the nation-wide test results are an improvement over the NAEP administered 2 years ago, I am deeply concerned about the lingering racial disparities in the test results. I am particularly concerned that the test scores for the approximately 25,000 Wisconsin eighth graders who took this test lead the Nation in the gap between White and African-American students on both the reading and the math tests. While the NAEP was taken by only a small percentage of students in my State and around the country, we cannot ignore the racial disparities in the test scores and the need to do more to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity for a quality education. The Secretary of Education heralded the NAEP results, saying, ``These results show that the education revolution that No Child Left Behind promised has begun.'' If these test scores prove anything, it is that too many children are being left behind. Study after study has shown that disadvantaged students lag behind their peers on standardized tests. I regret that the President and the Congress have not done more to ensure that schools have the resources to help these students catch up with their peers before students are required to take additional annual tests that will have serious consequences for their schools. If we fail to provide adequate resources to these schools and these students, we run the risk of setting disadvantaged children up for failure on these tests--failure which could damage the self-esteem of our most vulnerable students. Instead of focusing resources on those students and schools needing the most help, I am afraid that the testing provisions in the President's bill will punish those very schools with sanctions that will actually take badly needed funding away from them. I would like to note that my constituents have raised a number of other concerns about the NCLB that I hope will be addressed by Congress. I continue to hear about complex guidelines and a lack of flexibility from the Department of Education. I hear about the unique challenges that the new tutoring, public school transfer, and other requirements pose for rural districts. My constituents often ask when the Federal Government is going to provide the funding it promised for education programs. I share my constituents' concern about imposing new sanctions on schools that do not meet yearly goals even though the programs that would help students and schools to meet those goals are not fully funded. I will continue to monitor closely the implementation of the NCLB and its effect on public school students in Wisconsin.

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