Clinton Urges National School Test

WASHINGTON —  Citing a comprehensive education study showing mixed progress in student performance, President Clinton pressed Saturday for testing based on national standards and sought to blunt GOP opposition by proposing that a bipartisan panel of experts draft the exams.

With the largest group of U.S. schoolchildren in history preparing to head back to classrooms across the country, Clinton renewed his call for nationwide testing of fourth-graders and eighth-graders to determine their competence in reading and mathematics.

Addressing the subject in his weekly radio address, Clinton called attention to a new study by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics showing gradual improvement in students’ science and math performance but little progress in reading and writing.

His appeal comes as Republican lawmakers have begun rallying against Clinton’s proposal to offer cities, states and school systems the voluntary option of administering standard tests.

Led by House Education Committee Chairman William F. Goodling (R-Pa.), opponents hope in coming weeks to bar the use of federal funds to draft standard tests that would be administered nationally.

*

GOP critics charge that national tests could clear the way for imposition of a national curriculum--a move that would usurp a long tradition of local and state control of public education.

Thinking national performance tests will improve education is “akin to claiming that better speedometers make for faster cars,” Goodling said after the president’s address.

“The president’s plan is a waste of taxpayers’ money and won’t do anything except increase federal involvement in our schools,” he told the Associated Press.

But with fresh poll results showing support for national tests by a majority of Americans, Clinton tried to head off a partisan battle.

The president, who is vacationing with his family on the resort island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., asserted in his radio address that the national standards “will help us to upgrade curricula, improve teaching, and target students and schools who need assistance.”

The Education Department study shows that U.S. students, particularly African Americans and Latinos, have significantly improved their science and math skills since 1982.

It found that among all groups, many more 17-year-olds were taking advanced math and science courses in 1996 than was the case in 1986--an indication that more 11th-graders are laying the groundwork for higher-level math and science learning.

*

But the study also found that all groups have failed to boost their reading abilities over the past 25 years. Even more troubling, 11th-graders have lost ground in their writing skills since 1984, the first year the government began keeping track.

The findings, said Deputy Education Secretary Marshall S. Smith, demonstrate that a nation galvanized to boost its children’s educational skills can do so. The improvements in math and science appear to reflect curriculum changes and increased attention to those subjects following the release in 1983 of a Reagan administration report titled “A Nation at Risk.”

But Smith said the new figures underscore that parents and school board officials need to press educators to make sure their curricula address the newly identified deficits.

The tests in the study cited by the president give only a long-range, nationwide picture and are not broken down by states. They have asked students the same questions since the late 1960s or early 1970s, and are designed to establish the general trend of academic achievement.

But the study, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also conducts tests in math, science, reading and writing that do provide the states choosing to participate with a sense of how their students compare to those elsewhere. Those tests change in content over time to reflect as closely as possible what is actually being taught in school.

*

On those tests, California has lagged far back in the pack in math, science and, especially, reading in the past few years. In May, the national testing program reported that California’s eighth-graders ranked 39th out of the 44 states that volunteered to have their students participate.

In February, the state received similarly disappointing news in the area of mathematics. Nationwide, 36% of fourth-graders scored at levels reflecting a less-than-basic understanding of age-appropriate materials, but in California, 54% of the students fell into that category. Among eighth-graders, 49% of the students had not yet mastered the basics, while nationally that group represented 38% of the students.

California has turned in its weakest performance in the area of reading. The latest NAEP results, from the spring of 1995, showed California ranked last among the participating states, tied with Louisiana.

That report said that about 60% of the state’s fourth-graders had not yet picked up the most basic ability to read, meaning that they could not understand most of the material they were expected to read in their classes. The report also said California was one of the few states in which reading performance was continuing to plunge, with the proficiency level falling from the 1992 test to the most recent test.

*

While Clinton touted the reported overall improvements in science and math, he defended his efforts to press for greater academic achievement by using national tests.

“We all know we have more to do to improve our schools and to raise learning levels for all our students,” he said. “I’ve been working to improve education for nearly 20 years now, and I am convinced we can give our children the education they need to thrive in the 21st century only by setting high standards and by challenging students, teachers, parents and principals to meet them.”

Acknowledging Republican concerns, Clinton said he has directed his staff to rewrite the administration’s education proposal, first presented in his 1997 State of the Union address, “to make sure these tests are developed not by the Department of Education but by an independent, bipartisan board created by Congress many years ago.”

Clinton’s earlier proposal was silent on the question of who would draft the national testing standards. But the White House has long expected that it would turn to the National Assessment Governing Board, a 26-member group established by Congress in 1988.

Members of the board include education experts ranging from state governors of both parties to local school board officials and educators. They oversee the drafting of the Nation’s Report Card, a periodic measure of students’ competence in reading, math, science, writing, history and geography and other fields.

Even as he sought to head off Republican opposition to his proposals, Clinton seemed determined to prevail over expected liberal critics. In the past, some have opposed national testing for fear that it would further stigmatize poor and immigrant students and their schools.

But Clinton noted that officials representing the school districts of six of the nation’s largest cities--including Los Angeles--have expressed support for his testing initiative and said they want to take part in the tests even if their states do not.

Times staff writer Richard Lee Colvin in Los Angeles contributed to this story.