Judd Gregg: “I point out that there has been some representation that the President's initiative in the area of testing is not…”

“I point out that there has been some representation that the President's initiative in the area of testing is not adequate. In the financial area of supporting the testing regime in this bill, there is $2.8 billion committed for testing over the term of the bill. That is 7 years. Equally important, what we should point out is that what we are adding are three new tests to the regime that was put in place back in 1994 when the reauthorization of ESEA occurred. We then required that States test in three grades. At that time, when we required as a Federal Government that States test in three grades--when the President was from the other party and the Congress was controlled by the other party--we put no money on the table for the purposes of supporting the States as they did that testing. We are now asking that the States do an additional 3 years of testing on top of the three that are already required, and we are putting on the table a dramatic increase in funding--$2.8 billion over that period. But I would come back to the basic point of this amendment. This amendment's goal is to undermine the bonus system necessary to create the incentives to put in place a testing regime that will actually evaluate whether or not kids can succeed or not succeed. It is part of a sequential event of amendments, the goal of which, in my humble opinion, is to undermine the whole testing regime concept.”