However, the Clinton administration plans to use the NAEP tests while bypassing NAEP's governing board. The issue of who should control the national tests is not just a technical quarrel. This is certainly not the kind of initiative that should be undertaken without full public discussion and bipartisan support. The launch of national testing is precisely the kind of issue that ought to have congressional authorization, yet the administration is pushing ahead without public hearings or explicit authorization by Congress. I believe that a public debate would be healthy and that Congress would ultimately agree to endorse national tests.
Every opinion poll shows broad public support for the idea.
To date the administration has refused to seek authorization, apparently fearing that Congress would prohibit the tests. It was my experience, when I worked at the Department of Education, that any new program must be authorized by Congress. No matter how terrific an idea the White House might have, the nation's Founders did not believe that the executive branch should be able to impose new programs unilaterally. Spokesmen for the administration claim that they cannot ask NAGB to oversee the national tests because it is not authorized to oversee individual testing of this kind. This is sophistry, however, because the Department of Education certainly has never been authorized to launch a national testing program for individual students.