On the recordJuly 8, 2015
It is one thing to keep a light on problems like achievement gaps, as the underlying bill does, but it kind of sweeps everything under the rug. Before the participation threshold of 95 percent, only one State actually assessed 95 percent of students with disabilities, and it was not unusual for low-achieving students to suddenly have field trips on testing day. If you are not measuring the achievement gap, you can't deal with the achievement gap. We need to make sure that enough students test, which is 95 percent, so that we can actually identify the achievement gaps and do something about it. Parents do have the right to opt out, but when the dust settles, at least 95 percent will have had to have taken the test. We have situations now in which, if you eliminate that requirement, school systems can encourage people not to show up on testing day. They can have field trips on testing day and can manipulate the data so that, if only half of the students are taking the test and if you make sure that it is the good students who are taking the test, your scores all of a sudden will go up. The requirement that 95 percent get tested means you have meaningful data so that you can find out what the problem is, and then you can deal with it. I reserve the balance of my time.
