John Tierney: “Mr. Chairman, this bill has many good features to it, and I am sure that if we manage to maintain or keep out of it some…”

“Mr. Chairman, this bill has many good features to it, and I am sure that if we manage to maintain or keep out of it some of the problems that we have run into in the past it will probably pass this body. We have managed to keep out vouchers. We have managed to keep out block grants, things that in the past administration caused this bill to stop dead in its tracks. If the President continues to maintain the position that he will not insist on those things, the bill will move forward. We still have to work on modernizing schools. We still have to work on having smaller class sizes. There is much more to be done, but I do want to call some attention to one feature of this bill that I think merits some consideration, and that is the high degree of testing that is being asked for. We have to keep in mind that there already is testing being done in the States. Virtually every State has a significant amount of testing being done and the Federal Government already requires testing three times in math and reading throughout an elementary school career.”