Date: 2001-05-22
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. what this legislation says is that we shall annually measure the proficiency of students in the academic subjects in which States have adopted challenging academic content and student performance and standards. We shall try and make a determination of how the students are doing in meeting that academic standard and content. We are kind of down to the point where we can make a choice. We can do business as usual. hold onto the status quo and we can just continue to see a system that has passed children from grade to grade. not knowing whether or not those children can read. not knowing whether they can compute. not knowing whether those children can reason or whether they have mastered the language arts. Social promotion. Mr. Chairman. the gentleman from Nebraska . a former coach. talked about it in his remarks. He found as he looked at his new recruits. even though they had a diploma and grades. they could not master the work in college. We know it from our own school districts. We know it from parents that have talked to us. I teach in a continuation high school. and I see children which have been passed through from grade to grade. We want to stop that. We owe it to those children and parents to stop that. We owe it to the taxpayers of this Nation to stop that. As the gentleman from Georgia said. $120 billion later. we .have not gotten the results that we believe that these children and their families are entitled to. and we have not gotten the results that the taxpayers are entitled to. so we have asked for a system of accountability. We have asked for a system of accountability to determine how our children are doing so then local districts will have the ability to target the resources. target the resources of summer school. target the resources of afterschool tutoring and mentoring. to target the resources of Saturday school so that these children will be able to get the help that they need. Mr. Chairman. one of my colleagues said we do not fatten a pig by weighing them. Yes. one does. One wants to make a deternmination whether the pig is being fed the right thing. because pigs are sold by the pound. If the pig is sick. one wants to know that. That is why that assessment is made. People say we test in 8th and 10th grade. In our poor school districts. if a student falls behind in second or third grade. in all likelihood they will drown before they can be helped because the resources are not there. Mr. Chairman. we want to make an assessment of how these children are doing. Are they performing at ageappropriate levels and gradeappropriate levels. are they mastering the subject matter. and we want to provide the resources to those schools to improve those schools. to keep them from failing. to turn them around. But we need to have that assessment. This is the heart of accountability. One cannot just say they are for accountability. Someday my colleagues have to step up to the plate and make that determination. Let me say in closing. Motorola requires a high school education before an individual can make application to their corporation. And I think they turn away about 50 percent of their applicants because they cannot read or perform at 12th grade levels. We owe better to our students. and we certainly owe better to the poorest of our students..