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[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2348 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

106th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2348

        To provide for fairness and accuracy in student testing.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             April 4, 2000

 Mr. Wellstone introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
  referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
        To provide for fairness and accuracy in student testing.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN STUDENT TESTING.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) The use of large-scale achievement tests in education 
        has grown significantly in recent years. States and local 
        school districts have increasingly used these tests in such 
        contexts as raising student academic standards to make high-
        stakes decisions with important consequences for individual 
        students, such as tracking (assigning students to schools, 
        programs, or classes based on achievement level), promotion of 
        students to the next grade, and graduation of students from 
        secondary school.
            (2) The serious and often adverse consequences resulting 
        from the sole or determinative reliance on large-scale tests 
        have increasingly resulted in questions and significant 
        concerns by students, parents, teachers, and school 
        administrators about how to ensure that such tests are used 
        appropriately and in a manner that is fair.
            (3) In 1997, Congress directed the National Academy of 
        Sciences to ``conduct a study and make written recommendations 
        on appropriate methods, practices, and safeguards to ensure 
        that, among other things,...existing and new tests that are 
        used to assess student performance are not used in a 
        discriminatory manner or inappropriately for student promotion, 
        tracking, or graduation.''.
            (4) In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences, through its 
        National Research Council, completed its study and issued a 
        report entitled ``High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion 
        and Graduation''. Guided by principles of measurement validity, 
        attribution of cause, and effectiveness of treatment, the 
        National Research Council made key findings for appropriate 
        test use in educational settings, including the following:
                    (A) When tests are used in ways that meet relevant 
                psychometric, legal, and educational standards, 
                students' scores provide important information, that 
                combined with information from other sources, can lead 
                to decisions that promote student learning and equality 
                of opportunity.
                    (B) Tests are not perfect. Test questions are a 
                sample of possible questions that could be asked in a 
                given area. Moreover, a test score is not an exact 
                measure of a student's knowledge or skills.
                    (C) To the extent that all students are expected to 
                meet world-class standards, there is a need to provide 
                world-class curricula and instruction to all students. 
                However, in most of the Nation, much needs to be done 
                before a world-class curriculum and world-class 
                instruction will be in place. At present, curriculum 
                does not usually place sufficient emphasis on student 
                understanding and application of concepts, as opposed 
                to memorization and skill mastery. In addition, 
                instruction in core subjects typically has been and 
                remains highly stratified. What teachers teach and what 
                students learn vary widely by track, with those in 
                lower tracks receiving far less than a world-class 
                curriculum.
                    (D) Problems of test validity are greatest among 
                young children, and there is a greater risk of error 
                when such tests are employed to make significant 
                decisions about children who are less than 8 years old 
                or below grade 3, or about their schools. However, 
                well-designed assessments may be useful in monitoring 
                trends in the educational development of populations of 
                students who have reached age 5.
            (5) The National Research Council made the following 
        recommendations:
                    (A) If parents, educators, public officials, and 
                others who share responsibility for educational 
                outcomes are to discharge their responsibility 
                effectively, they should have access to information 
                about the nature and interpretation of tests and test 
                scores. Such information should be made available to 
                the public and should be incorporated into teacher 
                education and into educational programs for principals, 
administrators, public officials, and others.
                    (B) A test may appropriately be used to lead 
                curricular reform, but it should not also be used to 
                make high-stakes decisions about individual students 
                until test users can show that the test measures what 
                they have been taught.
                    (C) High-stakes decisions such as tracking, 
                promotion, and graduation should not automatically be 
                made on the basis of a single test score but should be 
                buttressed by other relevant information about the 
                student's knowledge and skill, such as grades, teacher 
                recommendations, and extenuating circumstances.
                    (D) In general, large-scale assessments should not 
                be used to make high-stakes decisions about students 
                who are less than 8 years old or enrolled below grade 
                3.
                    (E) High-stakes testing programs should routinely 
                include a well-designed evaluation component. 
                Policymakers should monitor both the intended and 
                unintended consequences of high-stake assessments on 
                all students and on significant subgroups of students, 
                including minorities, English-language learners, and 
                students with disabilities.
            (6) These principles and findings of the National Academy 
        of Sciences are supported in significant measure by the 
        Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, adopted 
        and approved in December of 1999, by the leading experts and 
        professional organizations on testing, including the American 
        Educational Research Association, American Psychological 
        Association, and the National Council on Measurement in 
        Education.
    (b) Test Performance.--If performance on a standardized test is 
considered as part of any decision about the retention, graduation, 
tracking, or within-class ability grouping of an individual student by 
a State educational agency or local educational agency that receives 
funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, such 
test performance shall not be the sole determinant in such decision and 
may be considered in making such decision only if--
            (1) the test meets professional standards of validity and 
        reliability for the purpose for which the test's results are 
        being used, including the validity and reliability of any cut 
        score or performance standard set or established for use on the 
        test;
            (2) the test allows its users to make score interpretations 
        in relation to a functional performance level, as distinguished 
        from those interpretations that are made in relation to the 
        performance of others, is based on State or local content and 
        performance standards, and is aligned with the curriculum and 
        classroom instruction;
            (3) multiple measures of student achievement are utilized, 
        including grades and evaluations by teachers, so that scores 
        from large-scale assessments are never the only source of 
        information used nor assigned determinative weight in making a 
        high-stakes decision about an individual student;
            (4) students tested have been provided multiple 
        opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in the subject matter 
        covered by the test;
            (5) the test is administered in accordance with the written 
        guidance from the test developer or publisher;
            (6) the State educational agency or local educational 
        agency has evidence that the test is of adequate technical 
        quality for each purpose for which the test is used;
            (7) the State educational agency or local educational 
        agency provides appropriate accommodations and alternate 
        assessments for students with disabilities that provide the 
        students with a valid opportunity to show what they know and 
        can do;
            (8) the State educational agency or local educational 
        agency provides appropriate accommodations for students with 
        limited English proficiency, including--
                    (A) if such a student is tested in English, the 
                student received academic instruction primarily in 
                English for at least 3 years prior to the test, or if 
                the student received instruction in English for more 
                than such 3 years, the local educational agency 
                determines that the student has achieved sufficient 
                English proficiency to ensure that the test will 
                accurately measure the student's subject matter 
                knowledge and skills;
                    (B) in the case of students with limited English 
                proficiency who have not been taught primarily in 
                English for 3 years prior to the test, such students 
                are assessed, to the greatest extent practicable, in 
                the language and form most likely to yield accurate and 
                reliable information about what those students know and 
                can do; and
                    (C) in the case of Spanish-speaking students with 
                limited English proficiency, such students are assessed 
                using tests developed and written in Spanish, if 
                Spanish language tests are more likely than English 
                language tests to yield accurate and reliable 
                information on what those students know and can do; and
            (9) the test is not used for a decision about promotion or 
        placement in special education for a child below the age of 8 
        or grade 3.
    (c) Evaluations.--
            (1) State educational agencies.--Each State educational 
        agency that receives funds under the Elementary and Secondary 
        Education Act of 1965 and uses a standardized test as part of a 
        high stakes decision described in subsection (b), shall conduct 
        a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the test's use on 
        students' education and educational outcomes, with particular 
        consideration given to the impact on individual students and 
        subgroups of students disaggregated by socioeconomic status, 
        race, ethnicity, limited English proficiency, disability, and 
        gender. The State educational agency shall make the results of 
        the evaluation available to the public and shall provide clear 
        and comprehensible information about the nature, use, and 
        interpretation of the test and the scores the test generate.
            (2) Local educational agency.--Each local educational 
        agency that receives funds under the Elementary and Secondary 
        Education Act of 1965, uses a standardized test as part of a 
        high stakes decision described in subsection (b), and is 
        located in a State that does not conduct an evaluation under 
        paragraph (1), shall conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the 
        impact of the test's use on students' education and educational 
        outcomes, with particular consideration given to the impact on 
        individual students and subgroups of students disaggregated by 
        socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, limited English 
        proficiency, disability, and gender. The local educational 
        agency shall make the results of the evaluation available to 
        the public and shall provide clear and comprehensible 
        information about the nature, use, and interpretation of the 
        test and the scores the test generate.
            (3) Department of education.--The Secretary shall--
                    (A) conduct an evaluation similar to the evaluation 
                described in paragraph (1) among a representative 
                sample of States and local educational agencies;
                    (B) report the results of such evaluation to 
                Congress; and
                    (C) make the results of the evaluation available to 
                the public.
    (d) Definition of Standardizes Test.--In this section the term 
``standardized test'' means a test that is administered and scored 
under conditions uniform to all students so that the test scores are 
comparable across individuals.
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