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Scientifically Based Education Research,
Evaluation, Statistics and Information Act of 2000

— Legislation analysis by Dr. Karen Effrem

Print Version

INTRODUCTION:

This legislation takes education statistics, research, and testing completely in the wrong direction. It creates an unconstitutional new federal agency. The priorities that this agency is supposed to support by its research and testing are the dumbed down minimum competencies of failed outcome based education and the establishment of a federal labor market system, both decidedly unconstitutional and non-academic. Its definitions of "scientific" research create loopholes for completely unscientific methodologies to be used for validate very subjective, psychological, and non-academic programs. It concentrates very broad authority for unlimited gathering of very sensitive psychological, personal and medical data and research in the hands of appointed commissioners. These commissioners are advised by boards that are appointed and will be peopled by the same individuals in government, foundations and academia that developed and have a vested interest in the wrong-headed, invasive, and ineffective programs in the first place. These boards are told to leverage more public and unaccountable private dollars. Grants for the research will be given to non-government organizations (NGOs) that are publicly funded that are establishing this system, e.g. NCEE run by Marc Tucker. Parents have only a token representation. The protections for data privacy are weak and in the practical sense non-existent.

These are the major problems with this bill, but certainly not a comprehensive list. Specific issues are detailed below with references to the legislation. A summary and recommendations for competing legislation are at the end. Because this legislation has so many problems, amending it would not be adequate. A bill that fundamentally changes the direction of the federal education bureaucracy is sorely needed.

The indented, small-font portions of this document contain the the entirety of the bill summary produced by the committee staff for the Education and Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives for what has been introduced as HR 4875 - The Scientifically Based Education Research, Statistics, Evaluation, and Information Act of 2000. (To see the bill, use Thomas and enter "hr 4875" as the bill number.) The staff that wrote it are clearly for creating this new federal bureaucracy, which would become the data gathering and outcome monitoring arm of the whole federal education system and the final piece in the implementation of that system. (Note: For further documentation, see Dr. Karen Effrem's written testimony for the U.S. House.)

Much evidence shows that the wide dissemination of flawed, untested educational initiatives can be detrimental to the education of children. It is therefore imperative that the federal government be held to the highest standards in conducting education research, in evaluating the success or failures of federal education programs, and in producing education statistics, all of which are the foundation of crucial education decisions made at the national, state and local levels.

In an effort to ensure the quality and integrity of research, evaluation and statistics, this legislation proposes a significant restructuring of the current system.

National Academy of Education Research, Statistics, Evaluation and Information

§ The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (currently located within the Department of Education) would be eliminated and replaced with a new National academy providing the infrastructure for the undertaking of coordinated and high quality education research, statistics gathering, program evaluation, and information dissemination.

§ The academy would be separate from the Department of Education or any other federal agency as a means of ensuring its activities are carried out with the greatest level of independence and integrity.

Federal bureaucracies that have constitutionally absent or ill defined mandates almost by definition do not "conform to the high standards of quality, integrity and accuracy." There are no or very few federal education programs that are "free from ideological agendas." Volumes have been written on the ideological agendas of many federal education programs and assessments including Goals 2000, School to Work, the ESEA, the NAEP, etc. There are ideological agendas behind the History Standards and the math curricula recommended by the Department. If populated by the same people in academia, foundations, and government that have developed these programs, this bureaucracy will not be free of ideological agendas. [sec. 101(b)]

When power and function are consolidated from multiple agencies into a new multi-layered bureaucracy, oversight actually becomes more difficult. The Minnesota education agency is one example. Now called the Department of Children, Families, and Learning, it has parts of 16 different agencies, ranging from Commerce to Corrections, within its auspices. Now all of these different agencies share information and control over Minnesota students. In section 101(g) of Title I, there is evidence of plans for data sharing between agencies. This new agency is yet one more multi-layered bureaucracy that will have access to sensitive personal information about America's children.

§ A director, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would replace the assistant secretary and serve a six-year term. The director would be responsible for overseeing and ensuring the integrity of the activities carried out under the academy.

This is an extremely long and broad list of duties that could take an ever increasing number of personnel and taxpayer funds to accomplish. [sec. 101(f)]

§ Under the director, a national board comprised of each of the commissioners appointed under the academy, appropriate federal agency directors, and individuals, (including teachers, parents and researchers), nominated by the president and Congress would help the director oversee the functions of the academy.

Parents have only a small voting voice on this board, when according to Pierce vs. Society of Sisters and other precedents, they have primary responsibility for the education of their children. Most of the members are unelected bureaucrats, educators who have a vested interest in the federal system or union objectives, or multinational corporate representatives who seek compliant workers with the right attitudes as opposed to intelligent, independent thinkers. Appointed people represent those who appoint them. Elected people represent those who elect them. A free nation requires those who are to make such important decisions about education to be elected.

§ The academy would consist of three main centers, including: the National Center for Education Research; the National Center for Program Evaluation and Development; and the National Center for Education Statistics.

1. National Center for Education Research

§ The National Center for Education Research would replace the six existing education institutes and be headed by a commissioner.

§ The commissioner of Education Research would oversee all research activities, guided by a seven member committee with extensive technical expertise. This committee would replace the current 15-member National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board and play a greater role in policy decisions.

§ All research funded by the center would be required to meet the requirements of 'scientifically valid research' as defined in the legislation.

The definition section makes a laudable effort to define the different types of research, but there are several potential problems. One example is the Scientifically Based Qualitative Research Standards [sec. 2(6)]. Such research may sometimes be necessary in history and other humanities, but has room for abuse by allowing every fad and fuzzy trend to be tried, as is the case with whole language and the History Standards, based on subjective measures listed under qualitative research. If qualitative research is "intended to explore issues and hypotheses whose underlying dynamics and factors are not sufficiently well refined, understood or amenable to experimental control to permit adequate study through quantitative research," how can assurances be made that the findings are "scientifically valid and replicable?" Findings become scientifically valid and replicable through quantitative research. The two concepts seem mutually exclusive.

Another example is under the definition of "Sound Program Evaluation" ([sec. 2(7)]). In part iii, it says, when experimental designs are not feasible in order to study program impacts, use the strongest possible quasi-experimental alternative, basing it on longitudinal data" and in part iv "in order to study program implementation, use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods." Terms like "quasi-experimental" and "qualitative" create very large loopholes that allow the use of very subjective criteria permitting all sorts of invasive research, conclusions, and programs that have nothing to do with true core academics or solid results. These terms negate truly high standards in research and what is attempted by the definitions.

§ The commissioner would be responsible for developing and carrying out a research agenda based upon a limited number of priorities identified through local, state, and regional surveys and 'evaluative summaries' designed to provide insight into the gaps in research covering a broad array of major issues in education.

The nature of this "limited number of priorities" must be thoroughly discussed and understood. Are the priorities to enhance academic excellence in core subject areas using norm referenced academic achievement tests and to enhance equality of opportunity for all? Or is it to impose equality of results? Equality of opportunity results in freedom. Equality of results results in a dumbed-down system of minimum competencies using the discredited outcome based education methods combined with subjective assessments of attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors as in Goals 2000. That academic content then produces the seamless national labor market system of School to Work and the Workforce Investment Act. The "challenging content (Goals 2000) and performance standards (STW)" of this legislation are then cemented into place in order for states and LEAs to receive federal funding in the latest version of the ESEA. If the priority is on academic achievement, then why is so much subjective data on the psychological and medical profiles of students being gathered by these agencies?

§ These summaries would also provide classification of all major educational research, providing insight to parents, teachers and others on the type, reliability and utility of such research. These evaluative summaries are based upon the work of the National Reading Panel that found that just a fraction of the research studies in reading actually met rigorous standards of research.

There are plenty of rigorous and objective studies and discussions on what works in reading and in most other subjects. These studies and reports are routinely ignored. One example is What Works: Research about Teaching and Learning, 2nd Edition, published by the Department of Education under William Bennett. It says "Children get a better start in reading if they are taught phonics. Learning phonics helps them to understand the relationship between letters and sounds and to 'break the code' that links the words they hear and the words they see in print." Yet many state and federal education officials push whole language. Yet another bureaucracy is not needed to evaluate research. Results of the good objective research need to be followed. States and local education agencies need to be freed from bureaucratic mandates to find and choose what really works.

§ Grants for the current National Research Centers would be extended for two years to carry out these evaluative summaries.

§ After two years, individual grants for National Research Centers would be extended only if their work fits into the research plan developed by the commissioner and if the quality of work conducted by the center can be determined will meet the high standards of research as defined in the legislation.

§ The legislation also expands competition to allow other research entities -- such as higher education institutions, and public or private, profit or non-profit, research organizations – to carry out research with funds from this act.

Will the Carnegie Foundation and the Rand Corporation that have been involved in psychological research on students and diluting academic education for more than fifty years be awarded these grants? What about the numerous non-government organizations (NGOs) that receive public funding, such as the National Center for Education and the Economy run by Marc Tucker? Will the Nobel laureates who oppose the Department's recommended math curricula that ignore basics and have an ideological agenda be ignored and not awarded these grants? This country cannot turn over the education of its children and data collection about them to people who are not elected and who have ideological agendas that are inimical to freedom.

§ Information on research grants, including the amount of funds, the use of funds and the findings would be made widely available to the public through such means as the internet as part of an annual report conducted by the commissioner.

What needs to be reported is the huge amount and broad extent of data on attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors, medical and family lives that is being collected on students without informed consent, as well as reporting who sees that data, and for what purposes it is being used. The public has some idea of this invasion of privacy, but needs to fully understand how it is affecting them and their children.

The protections mentioned in the bill, such as the Privacy Act of 1974 and the penalties for possessing individually identifiable information are certainly a step in the right direction. However, they are largely meaningless in a practical sense. The advent of the microrecord technology and the layering of public and private data makes it possible to create detailed dossiers on students even when the data are in different places and not associated with the individual at the moment. Besides, intentions are hard to prove as evidenced by the FBI file scandal. Sensitive individual data was definitely and illegally in the wrong hands, yet no one was punished because we were told it was "a bureaucratic snafu." The best protection is to limit data collection strictly to core academic areas, such as objective test scores and grades.

2. National Center for Program Evaluation

§ Currently, the Department of Education is charged with evaluating its own programs and doesn't have the incentive to dedicate the resources necessary to conduct high quality evaluations that are able to demonstrate whether programs are actually working.

§ This act ensures independent program evaluations designed specifically to determine what works and what doesn't.

There are very few federal education programs that actually work as they are intended. There have already been many studies and other measures paid by taxpayers that are routinely ignored. Creating a new federal agency will not help.

§ The commissioner of the National Center for Program Evaluation would oversee all long-term, large-scale program evaluations, including for the Title I program, to determine the impact of such programs, especially on student outcomes. (Smaller scale evaluations would remain under the Secretary of Education)

Congress itself admitted that Title I does not work when it said in the proposed reauthorization of the ESEA, HR 2, "Despite more than 3 decades of Federal assistance, a sizable achievement gap remains between minority and non-minority students, and between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers." [Sec. 1001(c)(2)] According to attorney, researcher and speaker Michele Bachmann, "There is no recognition in HR 2 of the correlation between 35 years of declining student achievement with the receipt of federal funds and federal dictates." (letter to Senator Senator Rod Grams, February 28, 2000), so the Title I Evaluation outlined in section 213 (b) hardly seems necessary.

Also concerning is the emphasis in Title II, Chapter 2, section 211 (b) "especially on student outcomes ." Are the outcomes objective academic achievement or the content and performance standards of Goals 2000 and School to Work related to behavior and attitudes? Outcome based education in the latter sense has been thoroughly discredited and rejected everywhere it has been tried. The bill also states that this agency would "evaluate education programs, on a contractual basis for other Federal or State agencies." This means that tax dollars would be used to have a federal agency assess state compliance with federal programs increasing unconstitutional federal control over state and local education programs.

§ The commissioner would be authorized to establish independent review panels for each evaluation conducted by the center to ensure that evaluations are meaningful, rigorous in methodology, are timely and reflective of national priorities.

Again, the national priorities themselves need to be evaluated and discussed before yet more taxpayer funds are expended on costly evaluations and "independent" review panels. These review panels are often peopled by the same representatives of NGOs discussed above.

3. National Center for Education Statistics

§ The legislation basically maintains the existing structure under the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), but moves the center outside of the Department of Education.

In section 226(b), this legislation says the following: "Except with respect to the National Assessment of Educational Progress carried out under subtitle B of this title, the Commissioner shall have final authority within the National Academy for Education Research, Evaluation, Statistics, and Information (hereafter in this chapter referred to as the ''Academy'') with respect to decisions regarding the implementation of data collection activities, including the appropriateness of specific collection methodologies." Are there not limits to how and how much data is collected? This commissioner must be superhuman to not have conflicts of interest or philosophical biases in order to be granted this much authority over collecting this sensitive data.

Also, in section 229(b)(4), it says, "No collection of information or data acquisition activity undertaken by the Center shall be subject to any review, coordination, or approval procedure except as required by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under the rules and regulations established pursuant to chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code, except such collection of information or data acquisition activity may be subject to review or coordination if the Commissioner determines that such review or coordination is beneficial." Does that mean Congress is abdicating its oversight responsibilities?

The amount and extent of data on American students by the NCES is appalling. The data element outline from the National Student Data Handbook is six pages of single line entries in two columns, and contains elements such as extensive medical information, the religious background and dwelling arrangement of our children. The entire 2000 edition of the NCES data handbook is 298 pages. There are 26 coded entries for religious background. What business is that of the federal government? For what purpose is that information used? Under the First Amendment to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, we are all equal and free to exercise the religion of our choice. It should not be in a dossier that is kept by the federal government and looked at by employers. There are 14 different entry codes for dwelling arrangement, ranging from homeless shelter to institution.

To make sure that the federal education bureaucracy can reach out and touch you, there are 18 different codes for communication type ranging from home telephone to beeper number to telex. This information might be necessary for a local district for emergency contact purposes, but why does it need to be in a federal database?

The medical information kept by the NCES is the most disturbing. It begins before the cradle by keeping prenatal data on students like the gestational age of the baby when the mother had her first doctor visit and the number of doctor visits the mother had during pregnancy. The database continues with birthmarks, number of teeth decayed, oral soft tissue condition, and every kind of physical and emotional disturbance and disease. In the explanation of data elements, emotional disturbances are characterized by the following incredibly vague characteristics:

• An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors;
• An inability to build or maintain satisfactory relationships with peers or teachers;
• Inappropriate types of behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances;
• A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or
• A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems

The Minnesota state data outline uses exactly the same phraseology to describe emotional disturbance. Who decides what is appropriate? Is it a state bureaucrat or district official looking at a diagnosis that will provide more federal dollars from programs like IDEA or Medicaid where according to a Medicaid official writing a school superintendent "the potential for dollars is limitless?"

There is not a single thing in the information that is given to the local school district that is understood by the parents to be confidential and for local use that does not end up in a huge federal database where many eyes can see it and potentially steal or abuse it.

SPEEDE / ExPRESS (Standardization of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange / Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically for Students) is the final collector of all federal education data. It takes the NAEP, NCES, and numerous other sources of data and catalogs it for uniform recording and transfer among postsecondary institutions, which is its stated purpose. The data also goes to corporations and other entities, however. In fact, there are 29 automatic recipients of this data. Included are the US National Goals Panel (implementing Goals 2000), all of the national computerized testing companies, the Rand Corporation, and the US Department of Defense Manpower Data Center. One of these automatic recipients of NAEP data is the same company that developed Osiris, a software package that collects supposedly local student data from individual school districts here in Minnesota. The fact that these supposedly confidential data are being examined and used by this many people in this many different entities is disturbing enough, but what is being done with the data must still be more thoroughly examined. Funding to continue this development of dossiers of non-academic data on innocent children should be eliminated.

§ The legislation also maintains the current 18 member advisory council to review and advise the commissioner on a broad spectrum of general policies for the activities and operations of the center.

National Education Library and Clearinghouse Office

· The National Education Library and Clearinghouse Office would also be located under the academy and would be responsible for streamlining the existing maze of federal education clearinghouses and maintaining a national education library.

· The structure would be built around the existing Educational Resources and Information Center (ERIC) system. This would be comprised of other federal education clearinghouses, including the Eisenhower Math and Science Clearinghouse, to provide high quality, user-friendly internet-based information for schools, teachers, educators, researchers and policy makers.

· Such activities would include the collection, archiving and disseminating, of all research, statistics and evaluations undertaken within the agency as well as other relevant education-related materials from other federal agencies and research institutions.

The problem with such a clearinghouse is that it would be disseminating research, best practices and other information based on the flawed concepts, goals, priorities, and research that supports the minimum competencies of outcome based education in Goals 2000 and School to Work using the never ending stream of sensitive data from students who are not developmentally capable of understanding what they are consenting to by participating in the tests. Parents are not given enough information about the tests, surveys and assessments to give truly informed consent.

Other Provisions:

National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB): Would be given full authority to develop the policy and carry out the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

If there are no limits on the authority of the NAGB regarding the NAEP, what is to stop it from becoming a national test? And, then why bother to say later that a national test could not be developed?

The NAEP, although a norm-referenced test, is filled with psychological and non-academic questions. It is truly an assessment, which is subjective, not a test, which is objective, hence the name National Assessment of Educational Progress. This is confirmed in Section 252 (c)(2)(B)(ii) under discussion of state assessments: "Such agreement shall contain information sufficient to give States full information about the process for consensus decision making on objectives to be tested, and the standards for sampling, test administration, test security, data collection, validation, and reporting." There doesn't need to be "consensus decision making" on testing objective information.

The NAEP is also not about high academic achievement for all. If it were, the NAEP would not need to "include information on special groups, including, whenever feasible, information collected, cross-tabulated, analyzed, and reported by sex, race or ethnicity and socioeconomic status." America is about individual achievement, not group or class outcomes, and the data collected about socioeconomic status is quite detailed.

In section 251(e)(4) it says, "The Board shall have final authority on the appropriateness of cognitive and noncognitive items." Why are there noncognitive items and for what purpose are they used?

In the section 251(e)(5), it also says, "The Board shall take steps to ensure that all items selected for use in the National Assessment of Educational Progress are free from racial, cultural, gender, or regional bias." Why are there no steps to protect children from unconstitutional, psychological and "noncognitive" probing?

There are some attempts to give the appearance of concern over data privacy. For instance, it says in section 252(c)(3): "In carrying out the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the National Assessment Governing Board shall not collect any data that are not directly related to the appraisal of educational performance, achievement, and traditional demographic reporting variables, or to the fair and accurate presentation of such information." This is a lofty ideal, but very vague. It is contradicted by the statements above and by the incident in Pennsylvania where only 60 of 375 questions were academic and the rest were asked to determine a child's locus of control and several other psychological variables.

Also in section 252(c)(2)(A) is the statement, "The National Assessment Governing Board shall ensure that all personally identifiable information about students, their educational performance, and their families, and information with respect to individual schools, remains confidential, in accordance with section 552a of title 5, United States Code." Confidential does not mean that numerous agencies, state organizations and private entities do not see this data. All of this data follows a student for life. There are 29 automatic recipients of NAEP data from the Department of Defense to the Rand Corporation. In the next subsection it says, "The National Assessment Governing Board shall not maintain a system of records containing a student's name, birth information, social security number, or parent's name or names." The NAGB does not have to keep this data, because the NCES keeps all of it and the NAEP data as well.

That it is the intention to make the NAEP the national test is evident in government documents from as far back as 1969. For example, according to research done by Beverly Eakman in her 1998 book The Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality Through Education (p.76), a 1969 book by Walcott Beatty called Improving Educational Assessment and an Inventory of Measures of Affective Behavior "stated that federal funding for schools would hinge on data collection at the local level and the use of national testing (NAEP) objectives in obtaining this data, including information on attitudes and opinions, would be the key.... Beatty emphasized the collection of non-cognitive information, with the caveat that the whole arrangement avoid the appearance (emphasis by Eakman) of establishing a national test or curricula."

Office of Planning, Performance Measurement, and Technical Assistance: The act would replace current offices within the Department of Education with a new, more narrowly focused, Office of Planning, Performance Measurement, and Technical Assistance tasked with the following activities:

Planning, Performance Measurement: In addition to short-term evaluations, the office would oversee strategic planning and program performance measurement as required by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).

Regional Technical Assistance: The office would also oversee a regionally based grant program combining funds currently directed to Regional Educational Laboratories, Comprehensive Centers, Regional Technology Centers, and a portion of the funds under the Eisenhower Math and Science Consortium currently used for technical assistance.

Each region of the country, as designated by the director of the office, would convene a governing board to determine its unique priorities and to develop a plan for disseminating educational research, providing technical assistance, and for carrying out applied research projects.

These boards [Title III, sec. 301(e)(2)(A)] are disturbingly similar to the governors' workforce development boards and regional partnerships for School to Work. They are appointed, not elected, difficult to oversee, and connecting states to unconstitutional federal control over education. The regional boards are then to be connected providing a quasi-national board of unelected bureaucrats to research and monitor every aspect of education at every level for every group imaginable. These boards are to leverage private and other public funds [sec.301(e)(2)(G)(i)]. When private funds are mixed in, there is no control over the policies they fund, which makes oversight extremely difficult. By leveraging other public funds, federal control over more tax dollars is increased.

Each region, at a minimum, would have to address issues surrounding reading, math, science, technology, and federal education program support. These regional boards would have the authority to enter into grants and contracts to carry out such activities which may include the continuation of funds to existing labs and centers to the extent they are meeting the needs of the region.

Consumer-Driven Technical Assistance Grants: The office would also oversee a state-based competitive grant program providing funds for high-need schools seeking the opportunity to select their own providers of high quality technical assistance.

These grants are to be used to help LEAs "coordinate all its various sources of funds for technical assistance into an integrated system for acquiring and using outside technical assistance and other means of building its own capacity to provide the opportunity for all children to achieve challenging State academic content standards [sec. 301(f)(3)(B)(ii)]." The "challenging state academic content standards" are neither challenging nor academic. They are a regurgitation of the mushy social and psychological goals of Goals 2000, which is reported to be sunsetting, but the technical assistance grants are established by that legislation and are mentioned in this bill [sec. 301(e)(2)(E)(iv & v)] . The technical assistance grants result in uniformity of computer systems simplifying the work of federal monitoring of student and LEA compliance with these mandates by collecting the sensitive non-academic information described above. These standards are supposed to be state developed, but are strikingly similar from state to state and to the national goals of Goals 2000.

Prohibition on National Tests: The act also includes the prohibition of federally sponsored national individualized tests including the development of such tests.

This is irrelevant as discussed under the section on the NAGB above.

CONCLUSION: This legislation creates a new federal bureaucracy to research and monitor state, LEA, and student compliance with federal education mandates. While the above discussion is by no means exhaustive, it reveals that this bill has so many fatal flaws with regard to constitutionality, data privacy, overarching federal control over education, parents' rights and unwarranted, unconsented psychological testing, that rewriting it will not be enough. It must be completely withdrawn. Legislation should be immediately substituted that:

• Supports the research and testing of true academic achievement
  
• Exposes the content and performance standards as minimum competencies of flawed outcome based education
  
• Reins in or stops federal involvement in:

* extensive data collection

* non-cognitive testing

* leveraging of more local and unaccountable private spending

* multi-layered, unelected bureaucracy

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