would lead to American education improvement.

This could be structured in a lot of different ways. The crucial point here is that it be as free as possible from the kinds of temptations and incentives that inevitably afflict the operating agencies of the federal government, the improvement agencies of the federal government: the inherent conflict of interest that arises if one agency is evaluating its own programs, the inherent conflicts of interest that arise if the people running for election are also obliged to defend their record while issuing supposedly objective data about how the country has been doing on their watch. It is complicated when those things happen. It needs to be broken out, turned into a separate audit function.

What we have suggested with these seven principles are a way of taking the research functions, the statistics, assessment, and program evaluation functions, and trying to buffer them behind a fire wall of organizational independence that we believe would lead to greater integrity, reliability, credibility, and ultimately utility of these very important data functions. I think we are in agreement that these data functions are important. I think their current structural arrangement cannot work as well as it needs to, and that the best way to fix this is to break them out and give them their own separate existence as an independent agency.

Thank you very much.

See Appendix F for the Written Testimony of Dr. Checker E. Finn, Jr.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Finn.

Mr. Klicka?

STATEMENT OF MR. CHRISTOPHER J. KLICKA, ESQ., SENIOR COUNSEL, HOME SCHOOL LEGAL DEFENSE ASSOCIATION, AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTER FOR HOME EDUCATION, PURCELLVILLE, VIRGINIA

Mr. Klicka. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity. For 15 years I have represented parents, parents who love their kids, parents who want them to succeed academically. Right now we have approximately 70,000 member families that are part of the Home School Legal Defense.

These families use private tests to determine the progress of their children. They are concerned that a national test will lead to national standards. They like local control. They are afraid that NAEP is beginning to creep into having a more and more significant

role in shaping state standards and creating national standards.

There are a number of groups that we have been working together with, who agree with our position, from the Mexican American Legal Defense Association to McGraw Hill Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Free Congress, many groups who share this concern, that represent grassroots Americans.

The subcommittee certainly is aware that originally in 1963 when the Commissioner of Education decided to collect information on the state of the nation's schools, it was good idea. By 1969, the NAEP was created in order to survey the longterm trends in people's achievement by measuring the progress of sampling students in the nation's schools, primarily in the area of reading, writing, math and science.

But this has changed significantly over the years, particularly with the state assessments, the State NAEP assessments that have been authorized, and this is where one of our major concerns is. We believe that the direction this is leading us, this expansion of NAEP and NAGB over time is leading us into the nationalizing of education testing and standards that will, by default, lead to a national curricula.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) report titled “National Assessment of Educational Progress: Background and Reauthorization Issues," education finance specialist Wayne Riddle confirms this direction. He said, “Given the impossibility of modifying NAEP to match the different curricula in various states or local education agencies, states and local education agencies would likely have substantial motivation to modify their curricula to more closely match the NAEP's curricula frameworks.” This is one of our bit concerns.

In 1997-98 there was big battle over national testing. President Clinton was trying to get his national test through, and the House and the Senate passed bans on this national test, and it was signed into law in 1998. We are concerned that the NAEP survey, by getting into the business of providing State NAEP assessments, and as more states begin to adopt this assessment in their states, although voluntary at this time, that that will lead to the states adjusting their standards to fit this national NAEP test, and ultimately we are going to undermine what Congress has banned, and it has provided a very clear mandate on not having a national test. Let each state create and use their own assessments, and possibly use private testing as a way to check their state assessment, use private tests that are available.

So we see NAEP beginning to shape test policy in the states through this NAEP state assessment. We did a quick survey of a number of states. In Georgia, the NAEP Coordinator of Testing indicated discussions were taking place about the NAEP state assessment being the primary assessment in the future. In Michigan, the NAEP Coordinator for Michigan Educational Assessment indicated NAEP was used to effect education policy.

When I testified before this committee on June 11,1988, Nancy Doorey, a

member of the Delaware State Board of Education, explained that NAEP standards “have become invaluable to state education leaders, who use them to develop and benchmark their own content and performance standards and inform policy decisions."

University of Kansas Professor John Poggio, in a meeting on national testing in 1997, says, "There is a sense, I think we all recognize, that what gets tested is what gets taught." He says, “And you're saying you are not controlling American curriculum." All of us here will sit and tell you what we put on those booklets is what gets the attention of the teachers. You are altering what is going to be taught. You need to be aware of that.

So the point is simply that we are concerned that NAEP is slowly creeping into this national test, and what we would recommend to this subcommittee is to adopt amendments that would end the state assessment and return to the original intent of NAEP to have this long-term trend assessment that would look at reading, writing, math and science, and not get into the values-laden areas of these other subjects, and to reduce NAEP to I think what, you know, the original role it was intended to be.

Thank you very much.

See Appendix G for the Written Testimony of Mr. Christopher Klicka

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Mr. Klicka.

Dr. Ward will be our final speaker.

STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL E. WARD, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

Dr. Ward. Thank you, Chairman Castle, members of the subcommittee. I am appreciative of the opportunity to offer a state perspective on the reauthorization of the National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, and the National Assessment Governing Board. It is an honor to be asked to be here with you today.

NAEP has long been a valuable tool in North Carolina's efforts to improve schools and student performance. We have built our own curriculum in North Carolina. It is a standard course of study and our own aligned testing program. NAEP provides the only continuous and reliable nationwide measure available for us to provide our citizens a barometer to gauge the success of the state's improvement efforts. NAEP assessments also show how well our students perform compared to other students across the nation. We report these results to our citizens, to the state, to the legislature, and to local school

systems.

During the past few years, North Carolina schools have made significant progress. In 1996 it was reported that our fourth graders had tied Texas for the nation's largest gain since 1992. On the NAEP math assessment, our eighth graders had the second highest gains in the nation since 1992 and the highest since 1990. In 1998 the NAEP reading results in fourth and eighth grade showed North Carolina students performing above the national average.

Education Week's “Quality Counts" report described North Carolina as one of only two states in the nation to develop a comprehensive school accountability system. The National Education Goals panel has cited North Carolina, again along with Texas, as a national leader in education improvement.

In my testimony today I want to highlight key federal functions that I believe must be maintained and enhanced through reauthorization, and reinforce them on the basis of the value that North Carolina has received from NAEP and the work of NAGB and NCES.

North Carolina has benefited tremendously from having an independent measure of state performance through NAEP, and having trend lines of performance in subjects such as math and reading. NAEP at the national and the state levels must be maintained. It must be well financed. It must have a good, consistent schedule so that as we plan assessments for our state, we can be certain they are being well coordinated with the NAEP testing.

I would like to respectfully recommend action on a few key functions and reflect on how some of these functions directly affect us in North Carolina. First recommendation is to increase the investment in and strength of federal collection, evaluation and dissemination of data on a broad range of educational issues. Increasing the timeliness of NAEP reporting and establishing a 10-year schedule for NAEP assessments would be very helpful to us in North Carolina for planning and reporting results on a regular basis.

We continue to have concerns about the disconnect between NAEP achievement levels, in particular "proficient", with what the general public perceives as "grade" level work. They are not the same, and clarification of the issue in the larger community is needed.

Second recommendation I would like to make is to continue NAGB as an independent, bipartisan body with authority for NAEP policy decisions, while maintaining authority for implementation with NCES. It is critical that NAEP results be reported in an unbiased fashion and designed and managed by an independent body.

My third recommendation is to maintain NAEP participation as voluntary and to ensure it is not required for participation in any other federal programs. In no way should

NAEP participation be tied to other federal programs. If anything, schools participating in NAEP assessments should be given financial incentives for doing so.

Recommendation four, we need to explain the purpose of NAEP to the public and ensure that NAEP is not used for program evaluation or high stakes decisions that could jeopardize its credibility and precision. NAEP results should not be used for high stakes decisions. Utilizing NAEP results for this purpose can have unintended consequences. Other assessments may be more appropriate for use in high stakes determinations.

Recommendation five, continue NCES and NAGB efforts to establish valid links between NAEP and other assessments such as TIMSS, combine national and State NAEP samples, provide states easier access, and take advantage of incorporating innovative state assessments.

Recommendation six, encourage efforts by NCES and NAGB to expand NAEP below the state level without sacrificing reliability, validity and precision. District level data could be particularly useful to us.

Recommendation seven, continue the federal initiative to develop voluntary national individual tests in reading at grade four and math at grade eight. We can use that kind of assessment.

Finally, recommendation eight, expand NAEP's efforts to be more inclusive. NAEP, NCES and NAGB need to assist states in finding ways to accommodate all students in all assessments.

Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to testify. NCES, NAGB and NAEP are all extremely important to our nation and our state.

I would be pleased now to respond to any questions you may have.

See Appendix H for the Written Testimony of Dr. Michael E. Ward

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Ward.

You guys really came through. I asked you to comment on how you would change NAGB, and you all did. That usually doesn't happen. Usually witnesses don't even talk about what I ask them to talk about, and I truly appreciate that. In fact, I am almost overwhelmed by where to begin with questions on this, because I have infinitely more questions than we could ever get through in the course of this hearing. But I guess there are some specific points. So with that, I will yield myself the customary five minutes and start asking questions.

Let me, some of this is going to be political, and it isn't even necessarily my political message. It may be somebody else's political message. But I am worried about getting things done here, and sometimes you run into things that make it difficult to get it