PENCILS DOWN... September 18, 1997 TRANSCRIPT

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House Republicans -- along with a number of Democrats -- voted to ban funding for national educational standards. Elizabeth Farnsworth provides excerpts from the three hours of debate. Followed by a discussion with the NewsHour's regular panel of regional commentators.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: September 17, 1997 Online NewsHour Forum:two Senators debate national education standards. September 8, 1997: Are standardized tests the best route to better grades? August 12, 1997: Chicago Public Schools are taking a hard look at the current curriculum. February 11, 1997: President Clinton has announced his intentions to create national standards to measure the country's educational system. February 10, 1997: President Clinton's State of the Union Speech highlights his goals for education. January 16, 1997: Margaret Warner and a panel discuss a report which criticize America's public school system . Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Education.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, the national testing debate as seen by the NewsHour's regular panel of regional commentators: Patrick McGuigan of the Daily Oklahoman; Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe; Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News; Bob Kittle of the San Diego Union Tribune; and Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution. Cynthia Tucker, should there be national testing?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: Absolutely, Elizabeth. This is one country about to go into the 21st century, competing with nations around the world, and all American students ought to be taught the same things. It strikes me as ludicrous to say local school systems know what their children need to learn. It's not as if this nation is separated into all of these distinct geographical regions anymore and all Southern children need to know is about agriculture. All American children need to meet a minimum standard of mathematics and reading. And that is not--not only not bizarre, it's a very reasonable proposal.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Pat McGuigan, should there be testing so that all students are taught the same thing?

PATRICK McGUIGAN, Daily Oklahoman: Absolutely not. I think that a nationalized federal test is a bad idea. I think education should be local and personal; it should not be federal and bureaucratized. I join the critics, both left and right, in questioning the utility of all the money that's going to be spent on this. And I would much rather see--even though I'm dubious about the entire federal role in education--I would much rather see all of that money sent to the states, most of which are already testing. Here in Oklahoma we have a criterion reference test spread throughout the elementary and secondary years. And I'd much sooner trust the findings of the Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction than I would the federal U.S. Department of Education. I disagree with Cynthia on this one.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mike Barnicle, should all this--money be sent to the states, as Pat says, or should there be national testing?

MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Globe: Well, I think there probably should be "a" test. I think any test that gets children up for taking a test, that gets them into the discipline of having to take a test is probably a good thing. But that's not really the issue, and I think most of us realize it. I mean, you heard in that piece that preceded us a pack of politicians talking like politicians instead of parents.

The real problem with public education in this country is parental involvement; it's discipline in the schools; it's the sad fact that too many adults today know more about the death of Princess Diana than they know what their children are going to have for homework this evening. They know that the school day is too short. They know that the school year is too short. They know that the kids are not getting what they ought to out of public school. They know that by the time they get to the fourth grade or the eighth grade for the math test it's too late for many of these children. The schools have to get back to the basics, and people in this country have to get the feeling that they're getting the best bang for their buck in public education, which they certainly are not now. I have seven kids, and I know I'm not.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bob Kittle, is that right, that the issue is not really testing but these other matters that Mike just talked about?

ROBERT KITTLE, San Diego Union Tribune: Well, the real issue, Elizabeth, is accountability. And that's why we need a national test. We cannot hold--our parents cannot hold public officials--school board members cannot hold our schools accountable unless we know how they are doing. And we don't know how they are doing when we have this patchwork of tests that is now being used throughout the country. It's impossible for me as a parent in San Diego, for example, to know whether the schools my children attend are doing as well as the schools say in Oklahoma or in Georgia.

And that's why we need one yardstick to measure how students are doing. And with that yardstick then we can take the schools that are not performing well, whether they're in the inner city or elsewhere, and redirect our energies there, see what can be done, what kind of remedial action might be taken to help schools that are not performing well. And the schools that are performing well, perhaps we can learn from them how to do things better.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lee Cullum, do you agree with that, that the yardstick is what we really need?

LEE CULLUM: Yes. I do agree with that, Elizabeth. I have talked to a number of people the last two or three days about this issue, and I certainly find those who share the concerns expressed on that tape and expressed by Patrick McGuigan in Oklahoma City, but I also called a couple of educators whom I respect, one a woman named Liza Lee here in Dallas, who runs a private school but is very interested in public education. She says that a national test would be an efficient but blurry snapshot of where we are right now.

And it is not--it's a limited look at intelligence and achievement, but it could be useful. I also talked with Don Hearse at the University of Virginia, who is giving his life to working with elementary schoolchildren. And he says that the test, in principle, is a good idea, but you have to be very careful of the content, especially in math. You want the questions to be questions that are susceptible to factual objective answers and not the fuzzy stuff that Lynch Haney quite correctly complains about. So my own view is yes, have the test, be careful of the content, and don't let it become a tracking mechanism. Don't let it become a part of the permanent record of schoolchildren today.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bob Kittle, what about the argument that's made that this is not a proper role for federal government, that this is too much big brother getting involved in local issue?

ROBERT KITTLE: I appreciate the concern. We don't want, in my view, to have national education standards driven by a bureaucracy in Washington. But that's not what this testing plan would do. To begin with, it's voluntary. And states and school districts can participate, if they choose to. They will if it's a good test. If it's not a good test, they won't. And there's no way to force them to participate. But beyond that, the testing mechanism, as it was altered in the Senate wouldn't be the Department of Education that would draw up the test; it would be an independent bipartisan board that I think we can trust to come up with some objective, non-politicized standards in reading and mathematics so that we can all see how our children are doing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mike Barnicle, are you concerned about--are you concerned that this would give too great a role to the federal government?

MIKE BARNICLE: Yes, I am. I wouldn't want a bunch of bureaucrats from the Department of Education, as well intentioned as they are, you know, having their hands over all over public education in New England and Massachusetts. But, again, it strays from the issue. Public education is the core of this country. It's the foundation of this country. The vast majority of people are educated in public schools, in Boston, and I would imagine all over the country, are being marginalized by politics and you heard the politics of the test in the preceding clip.

They're being marginalized by teachers unions. The kids end up not getting what they ought to get out of the school day. You're going to many libraries and many larger school-urban school systems in this country. You'll find books where President Kennedy is still alive or a man has not yet landed on the Moon. We have to get back to the basics of education as it was thirty, forty, and fifty years ago in this country, where from K through 5, or K through 6, kids learn how to read, write, do math, speak English, and have nice penmanship. That's a critical need I think before we even get into testing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Pat McGuigan, do you think that because of the problems that everybody's just run through the federal government--I mean, are you not willing to accept the argument that the federal government might be the only way to solve this problem nationally, for there to be national testing?

PATRICK McGUIGAN: Sure. Well, first of all, I don't think that the public schools are the foundation of the country. I think the foundation of the country is individual human liberty: ordered liberty, government that respects the rights of individuals. I think nationalizing education in this direction would just be another step in doing some things that have not served the country well.

I believe we're going to wind up having a replay if we go this direction, even though Bob is right about the change made in the Senate, that it's a private consortium that'll oversee it in corporation with the Department of Education. I think we'll see a replay of the national history standards fight and what was it, the humanities standard fight before that, because of the polarization that's occurred around these issues. There are lots of testing instruments out there that are very credible and respected, many of which even incorporate the cultural sensitivities that Rep. Waters was talking about in the segment before we spoke.

So I think those testing instruments are there. They're available from the private sector for individual schools and school systems to use. That is a better way to go. Let's get more coal, more coal down into the ranks of our school systems, more resources for our teachers, and better teachers, and better facilities for our kids, rather than yet another testing instrument. I don't think this is a good idea.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lee Cullum, you said you were for these tests but you didn't want them to be used for tracking and other purposes that might stigmatize some people as--that's a concern, as we heard in the piece. How would you avoid that?

LEE CULLUM: Well, I think you treat it as an indication of where things stand now. You treat it as a guideline to what needs to be done next, but you don't build a database of these test scores. That's how you do it. They don't remain. I think the American way is always to expect people to grow and develop and change. The European way, as you know, is to track people from age 11 or so. They take a very definitive test, and they either go the academic route or the more vocational route. That's not the American idea, and I think this test can be arranged in a way that does not violate the American idea that one can always change and grow and develop.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Cynthia, what do you think about the argument that Maxine Waters and others have made, that the results will be used to stigmatize groups?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: I think it's a ridiculous argument, Elizabeth. The fact of the matter is, is that children coming out of poor school systems, be those children black, white, or brown, are already stigmatized. It's not as if employers don't already know that those children don't have basic skills. They do. Furthermore, it is insulting to suggest that African-American children and Latino children in poor neighborhoods can't master standardized tests. They can. It--Congresswoman Waters was right to suggest that they don't have the resources they need at the moment in many cases, so let's improve the resources. But how will we know that they have measured up to a basic standard unless we test them. And those children absolutely can meet those standards.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bob Kittle, has this gotten too political, in your view, this whole question?

ROBERT KITTLE: Oh, absolutely. It is a shame actually that we don't have just a private sector solution to this. And, you know, many, many school districts have for years used the Iowa test of basic skills that's used by private schools and public schools. And it provides a benchmark that is not politicized. Unfortunately, it's not used widely enough. It's not used universally. So we need a universal test. And it's too bad that it takes on all of the political baggage that it does, but I just think that with changes made in the bill in the Senate that this is a very sensible idea; we need it; and I hope the House will come around to the idea that this does make sense. It's a way to improve our schools, and that's what it's all about.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Pat McGuigan, just very briefly, too political?

PATRICK McGUIGAN: Yes. I think it's become too politicized and could increase if we go this direction. If we want models of what works, you don't have to look further than a city like Chicago, where there's a lot of folks who are very challenged economically and yet have succeeded through schools like Marva Collins Westside Preparatory, a private school, and a Catholic school like Providence St. Mills. Those are models--if we want to talk about intervening in ways that will positively affect the delivery of education to our most challenged children, it'd be better to go in empowering those kinds of models than to go towards a national test like this.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you all very much.

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