Byron Dorgan: “This issue is about national testing. It is not about a national curriculum. It is not about investing in schools. It is…”

“This issue is about national testing. It is not about a national curriculum. It is not about investing in schools. It is national testing. The reason I support this is we can either decide as a country to figure out what we are getting from this educational system and have some kind of national testing to determine are we reaching achievement levels in the fourth grade and eighth grade or we can have no such approach. The other body is passing legislation that would prohibit any approach of this point. 'We don't want to evaluate what is happening,' they say. That is a very strange position. It seems to me you ought to evaluate if children can read sufficiently at the fourth-grade level because these are gateways to the rest of their educational life. If you can't read sufficiently at that level, you are not going to do well the rest of your educational life. So we are talking about can children read in fourth grade. Do they have a mastery of the mathematics principles in the eighth grade they need? This is what this is about: national testing to evaluate in these two areas. It is voluntary. Any child may opt out. Any school may opt out. Any State may opt out.”