suggested it in my written testimony, that Congress would get involved in that step.

The test schedule, you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, the core subjects, the core emphasis. We believe that the test schedule through 2010 does emphasize core subjects. The State NAEP is reading, writing, math and science every four years. If you look at that schedule, while it does include a broad array of subjects, I think you will see a core emphasis. Whether it is exactly the core emphasis you desire is your judgment, of

course.

I think it is clear that we need to take actions to help states that want to participate in NAEP, make it easier to do so. It is not yet clear exactly how we do that. The board meets, with that subject on the agenda, tomorrow.

I think it is clear that the inclusion of students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency are a priority for NAEP and for states, and it should be a priority in the reauthorized NAEP.

I think it is clear that the Commissioner of Education Statistics should release NAEP results; the commissioner should release them on the commissioner's stationery, in a format determined by the board and the commissioner.

I think it is clear that there is an appropriate role for the board in the nominating process for board members. This is not only self-serving, or self-promoting. It is what was suggested by the group that recommended this board in 1988.

I think it is clear that board members should be appointed to four-year terms, not three-year terms. Mr. Chairman, you were once on the board. You heard the explanation of plausible values, for example. It didn't sound very plausible to me the first time I heard it. There are things there that have to be learned, and I would argue that a board whose members are well informed and confident in their knowledge and understanding would be a stronger, more independent board.

That brings me to the last thing that is clear. The most important thing that is clear is the first point you mentioned, Mr. Chairman. That is about independence. It is clear that the National Assessment must be buffered from partisan politics, isolated from special interests, and has sufficient resources to do the job and to ensure NAEP's operational accountability. We say that cheap tests, like cheap airplanes, are not a good idea.

Now, the need for independence was clear in 1988. The blue ribbon group that established or recommended to Congress to create this board used the terms "buffered” and "insulated" in its report to Congress. Your legislation talks about independent judgment, free from inappropriate influences and special interests.

What is not so clear is how to do this. It wasn't so clear, entirely clear, to the Congressional Research Service. They said, well, you could make incremental changes.

By "incremental" let me emphasize these are not necessarily minor or unimportant changes. They are changes like make the commissioner responsible for issuing the report; give the board policy direction, not policy guidance.

The Congressional Research Service also said you could make sweeping changes, said Congress could make NAEP an independent agency and give the governing board full responsibility for budget, operational and policy decisions.

We now have shared ambiguity. You mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, that NAGB is a quasi-independent board. That is a good characterization. We need a dose of clear responsibilities, if you will. We are quasi-independent. We are located in the Department of Education.

Unless some changes are made in the problem of shared ambiguity and weak independence of the board, it will not be less in future years, it will be more. There are two reasons for that. One, it is as good as it is going to get under the secretaries we have had in the 1990s: Dick Riley, former member of the board, very supportive. Lamar Alexander helped create the board, very supportive. We will have other secretaries who will be knowledgeable and skillful; we won't have any that are more knowledgeable and supportive of this board.

Secondly, is high stakes testing, as you also mentioned. We now have the president, Vice President Gore, Governor Bush and the Senate all recommending high stakes use of NAEP. Some of these ideas, Mr. Chairman, will be good; some of them will be not so good. All of these come from elected officials, so they will think all of them are good if they are their ideas, and you will need a strong board to weed out the good and the less good.

Finally, I would say we have not recommended an independent agency. We thought that would be a little presumptuous of us, unless you charged us with doing so. So the recommendations in my written testimony are about what we would call incremental but important changes. I am prepared to talk about the voluntary national test authority the board has been given, and I have included that in my written testimony.

See Appendix C for the Written Testimony of Mr. Mark Musick

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Mr. Musick. Next we will here from Dr.
Phillips.

STATEMENT OF DR. GARY W. PHILLIPS, ACTING
COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION
STATISTICS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by thanking you for your invitation to testify on the reauthorization of NCES, NAEP and NAGB. Last week you heard testimony on the research authority. Today I will focus on the National Center for Education Statistics. I have provided a copy of the administration's proposal, and I ask that a copy of my written testimony be submitted in the record.

Chairman Castle. Without objection, any written testimony that any of the witnesses have will be accepted for the record, and we appreciate that.

Dr. Phillips. My agency has been authorized by Congress for over 130 years to report on the condition of education in the United States. Currently, we are 117 people conducting over 50 major surveys every year. We report on educational activities from the cradle to the grave. We report on learning starting from birth through early childhood, elementary and secondary education, post-secondary education, and adult education. We also report data on states, districts and schools, and provide educational information on student achievement in other countries.

As a statistical agency, NCES does not set national education policy, but we are the major source of education data used by policy-makers. In fact, we try hard to make sure that our data are relevant to policy-makers and answer the type of questions that they need in order to make informed decisions.

We do not evaluate federal programs, but our data are often used by others to do so. Sometimes our data, for example in NAEP, are used by states to self-evaluate state programs. We do not use our data to hold anyone accountable for anything, but policymakers often use our data to help them make such decisions. We take very seriously our role to provide scientific data that are objective, timely, nonpartisan, just the facts and nothing but the facts. That is what we do and that is all we do.

During the remainder of this calendar year, NCES has an exciting portfolio of reports that it will release. In August we will be releasing the results of over 30 years of NAEP trend data in reading, math and science. Later this fall we will have our first report on the learning progress of kindergarten children, first ever reported. This will be followed by an international report on four years of progress in math and science in over 40 countries, which is a follow-up to the TIMSS, Third International Math and Science Study. We will also have our 12th annual report on high school dropout and completion rates, and in late fall we will have a second report on what students know and can do in civics.

As you know, the administration has a proposal for the reauthorization of NCES, NAEP and NAGB. The proposal was sent to the committee in the form requested last

December. This important legislative proposal would put NCES on par with other major federal statistical agencies.

Under the proposal, NCES would be separated from OERI and elevated within the Department of Education so that the Commissioner of NCES would report directly to the Secretary of Education. This is comparable to the organizational arrangement in all the major statistical agencies, such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, et cetera.

Another important aspect of the department's reauthorization proposal is that it makes explicit that the Commissioner of NCES has final authority over the methodology for data collection and over the review and the release of reports. This will help further ensure the continuing independence and reliability of NCES reports.

NCES already uses a very high statistical set of standards in our collection, analysis and reporting of data. The administration proposal makes it explicit that the center would be required to meet the very highest standards of scientific rigor, timeliness, and customer service.

Another part of the proposal would require that our overall advisory committee, called the Advisory Council on Education Statistics, would provide the Congress and the president with an annual report on how well we meet these standards. We look forward to our council producing this report, and will do everything possible to make sure that you have the information you need to evaluate the quality of our work.

Let me conclude by saying that it is an honor for me to have the opportunity to talk about this reauthorization. I look forward to addressing the issues you asked about on NAEP and NAGB in your letter to me. Thank you very much.

See Appendix D for the Written Testimony of Dr. Gary W. Phillips

See Appendix E for the Administration's Proposal on the Reauthorization of NCES, NAEP, and NAGB

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Phillips.

Dr. Finn?

STATEMENT OF DR. CHESTER E. FINN, JR., PRESIDENT,
THOMAS B. FORDHAM FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dr. Finn. Mr. Chairman, I would like to invite the subcommittee's attention to the last two pages of my statement, which is a set of principles for reauthorizing OERI, NCES,

the Department of Education. We are talking here, in this set of principles, about structure above all, and I want to take my five minutes to talk a little bit about structure.

What is under consideration here are what we might call the audit functions of American education, the parts of the federal government that attempt to report, honestly, faithfully and accurately, on how American education is doing, and incidentally on how various federal programs are doing. These are not reform programs. These are not improvement programs. These are not programs intended to change American education. They are intended, rather, to yield accurate information about how American education is doing.

Just as a corporation has an independent auditor to watch over the shoulder of the company treasurer or comptroller, to find out whether the books are in fact in balance and whether the numbers are right, the United States has an education audit function, and it is NCES, it is NAEP, it is NAGB. It is incidentally also, I think, the program evaluation activities by which the federal government tries to find out whether its efforts are succeeding in improving things.

Right now all of these audit functions are lodged within the same executive branch agency that is charged, above all, with operating the improvement programs, the service programs, and the reform programs. My fellow signers of these seven principles and I are of the view, mostly after long experience at the Department of Education, that there is an inherent and fundamental conflict of interest between locating the audit functions in the same place as the improvement functions, between locating the statistical functions in the same agency as the service programs.

We recommend, for the consideration of the Congress, the idea of creating a separate Education Audit Agency for the United States that would have housed within it no service programs, no improvement programs, no reform programs, only information programs; information programs about how American education is doing and about how other programs are doing.

It would, in effect, function as the audit bureau for American education. It would be separate and distinct from the Department of Education. It would be located outside the Department of Education, and the statistical functions of the Department of Education and the program evaluation functions of the Department of Education would move there.

This could be set up in a wide variety of ways. The closest thing we have to a model in our minds of how it ought to work is, frankly, the Federal Reserve System, independent of the direct political control of other agencies and of executive branch officers.

Chairman Castle. Do you want Mr. Greenspan to run it?

Dr. Finn. Mr. Greenspan has been doing a pretty good job in his current job and bringing about a lot of improvement, incidentally, and perhaps a similar audit agency