Yesterday, the Senate debated an amendment proposed by Mike Lee (R-UT) that would have required states to allow parents to opt-out of federally-mandated tests without penalizing their schools or districts. After Senate HELP committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) voiced his opposition, it failed 32 to 64. However, a similar amendment succeeded last week in the House, so is now included in the Student Success Act that was approved along party lines.
Senator Alexander’s floor speech on the Lee amendment, as printed in the Congressional Record, follows.
Mr. President, I thank the senator from Utah for his comments. We will be voting on the senator’s amendment this afternoon at 4 o’clock, and I want to just make a couple of comments about it. I have a little different view of what his proposal is. He talks about our being opposed to Washington’s heavy-handed approach. The way I understand his proposal, it is even more of a heavy-handed approach than the bill we are voting on today, and this is why.
His proposal is that Washington tells Utah or Oklahoma or Tennessee or Washington State what to do about whether parents may opt out of these federally required tests. Now, they are not federally designed. Utah has its test. Tennessee has its test. They are designed by the states, but they are required. And there would be—since 2001, and this continues that—for example, two tests for a third grader. The testimony would be that it might take 2 hours for each test, so that would be 2 hours for a math test, 2 hours for a science test; then again in the fourth grade, 2 hours for a math test, 2 hours for a science test. I don’t think anyone believes those are a great burden on students, it is all the other tests that seem to be required as schools prepared for the tests I just described.
What we have done in this legislation is restore to states the power to decide how much these standardized tests count. So the legislation Senator Murray and I have proposed—and that came out of our committee unanimously—for the first time authorizes states to decide whether parents may opt out, may allow their children to opt out of these tests or not. Let me say that again. The legislation that senators will be voting on, hopefully tomorrow for final passage, allows states to decide for themselves whether parents may vote to opt out of the No Child Left Behind tests.
The proposal from the senator from Utah is a Washington mandate that says to states that Washington will decide that. So our proposal is local control. His, the way I hear it, is Washington knows best. That is like Common Core. The proposal that is on the floor for a vote tomorrow says Washington may not mandate to any of our states what its academic standards should be. That ends the Washington Common Core mandate. In the same bill, why should we put a Washington mandate about whether you can opt out of your test? Why don’t we allow states to make that decision?
So I say to my Republican friends, especially, do we believe in local control only when we agree with the local policy? I don’t think so. The great economist Art Laffer likes to say: States have a right to be right, and states have a right to be wrong.
I have a different view. I am going to vote no on the amendment of the senator from Utah because it takes away from states the right to decide whether and how to use the federal tests and whether parents may opt out.
Why is that a problem? Well, in the following states, states use these tests as part of their state accountability system. They don’t have to do it, but they do use it. I am told by the state of Tennessee that if we were to adopt the Utah proposal federal mandate, that the state would have to come up with a different accountability system.
So which states on their own have decided to use these tests as part of their state accountability system? Florida has, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.
So I urge my colleagues to vote for the Alexander-Murray proposal because it reverses the trend toward a national school board and specifically allows states to decide whether states may opt out of tests while the amendment goes the other way. It is a Washington mandate that takes away from states the ability to make that decision.
