No Child Left Untested To Death

By THOMAS J. HERLIHY

January 13, 2002

During this challenging time in our country’s history, it is hard to question the president’s judgment. The patriot and Republican in me lean heavily to his side. Unfortunately, the federal education bill he signed last week has serious negative consequences for Connecticut. What was the president thinking? And where were Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman and the House delegation when we needed them?

This legislation is historic in the manner in which it stomps on state and local control of education. Every school district in every state in the country is mandated to follow the Texas model and test students for mastery in math and reading every single year in grades 3 through 8, starting in 2005. It does not matter if you are the highest performing district in one of the highest performing states, such as Connecticut, or the lowest performing district in one of the lowest performing states, such as Arkansas.

This broad-brush approach is detrimental to Connecticut, which is ranked third in the country by the National Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth-grade math scores between 1992 and 2000. Overall, our average student outperforms two-thirds of the students in the country. Yes, we have significant performance problems, mostly in our urban centers. Yes, we need to work harder to close the achievement gap for students from impoverished families and for minority students. Even with these problems to overcome, we have one of the most envied educational systems in the land.

The federal education bill is a significant departure from current state law, which is to test for mastery in fourth, sixth and eighth grade. It does not matter if you are brilliant or below grade level, you will be tested annually whether it is in your best interest or not. You will be tested whether you are from Union, where 100 percent of the fourth-graders meet the state goal in math, or from Bridgeport, where only 16.1 percent of the eighth-graders meet the goal. It doesn’t matter that there is no proof that annual testing improves performance and that many experts and studies suggest it hinders performance.

Lawmakers have ignored the fact that we already have too much “teaching to the test” and not enough freedom to teach. They don’t see that this new testing regime will be a significant financial burden on school budgets and taxpayers and another administrative burden for teachers and administrators. It doesn’t matter that annual testing will cause additional anxiety in students.

The testing mandate is an incredible intrusion on states and towns. Local control of schools is the foundation of our educational system and should not have been given up so easily.

Thomas J. Herlihy, a Republican from Simsbury, is the state senator representing the 8th District. He is the ranking Senate member of the General Assembly’s Education Committee.