FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dan Mahoney, 405-523-4219
September 10, 1997

KEATING SAYS CLINTON’S SCHOOL TESTING PLAN IS ‘SERIOUSLY FLAWED’

Oklahoma City -- Governor Frank Keating today said President Clinton’s plans for national school testing are “seriously flawed and appear to have been designed by bureaucrats who’ve never been near a classroom.” He urged Congress to reject the testing program and leave student testing to the states.

“The President wants to test fourth graders in reading and eighth graders in math, both of which are much too late,” Keating said. “Oklahoma just implemented a better system, which calls for testing third graders in reading. If they don’t do well, they will receive intensive remediation and may be held back until they master this essential skill.”

The Governor said the Clinton administration’s program, at a proposed price tag for developing the tests of $50 million, “looks like another Washington-inspired waste of money. If they really feel the need to spend the taxpayers’ funds on school testing, the administration should just give block grants to the states to help finance their testing programs, most of which are way ahead of this proposal.”

Keating also criticized the Clinton proposals for their lack of consequences for students and schools.

“Under his system, if a student fails or if a school is failing to teach real skills and knowledge, all we have is information,” he said. “There are no consequences. Students go on to the next grade incapable of learning and schools go on operating at deficient levels. That’s hardly a recipe for reform and progress.”

Keating said he is not opposed to national student testing if those tests fill a real need and if they can be used to encourage real learning. He said he supports Oklahoma’s involvement in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which measures student learning against national and international standards.

“In fact, the states are doing a far better job of testing that the plan proposed by the Clinton administration,” he said. “It looks like pure symbolism, with no real substance. If it passes in its present form, I will oppose Oklahoma’s involvement in it and urge our schools to continue to rely on the tests we are already using.” Those tests include NAEP, exams based on the state core curriculum in grades 5, 8 and 11, as well as nationally normed tests in grades 3 and 7 and ACT and SAT college entrance exams in grade 12.

“After a while you are just testing to be testing, and that serves no purpose, except to employ more bureaucrats,” Keating said. “Student testing should be closely linked to the core curriculum and it should include consequences for failure, for schools and for students.”

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