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Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116 
Chaska, MN  55318 
952-361-4931
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October 5, 2001

Update on HR2666 - Vocational and Tech. Entrepreneurship Devl. Act of 2001

The "Vocational and Technical Entrepreneurship Development Act of 2001" (HR2666), a $21 million piece of the School-to-Work system, was passed on Wednesday in the U.S. House on a voice vote. Few Congressmen and Senators recognize the implementation of the new system that has businesses writing curriculum to meet their needs and that vocationalizes all education. Specialized career skills training and credentialing replaces a broad liberal arts education, the underpinnings of our free system of government. (See our previous update.)

More on HR1/S1

Change happens quickly on Capitol Hill. The latest word is that Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. John Boehner, co-chairs of the Senate and House Education Committee, will be sitting down to finish discussions on the Education Conference (HR1/S1, the "No Child Left Behind" legislation).

The spending agreement closely tracks HR1, the education bill passed by the House in May, which authorized approximately $23 billion in FY2002 for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Rep. Boehner is pushing for the massive new authority of the federal government over local curriculum through mandated national testing. Its advocates call this "accountability."

Unfortunately, it is not accountability to parents and elected school boards, but accountability to the federal national curriculum. People generally have only a vague idea of the new national curriculum. Yet it is incorporated into the textbooks, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nationally norm-referenced tests and mandated state assessments. Still, accountability sounds good to those who have not asked the question: accountability to whom? This form of accountability centralizes enormous power over local schools and teachers to a massive federal bureaucracy.

As stated by Donna Garner, a classroom teacher from Texas:

"Buried in those thousands of pages, what is the one thing around which everything else gravitates? 'The test.' Whenever legislators use the term 'accountability,' what they really mean is 'the test.' It is these state-mandated tests which will determine individual student progress and the funneling of huge sums of federal funding.

"Promotion of children, educators' jobs, classroom instruction, teacher education, textbook content, grants, state comparisons, national trends, research projects, litigation, school closures, real-estate investments, land developments, economic decisions -- all will hang in the balance depending upon a state's test results.

"Therefore, it is not an overstatement to say that 'the test' is of supreme importance. The reality is this: Whether we like it or not, teachers will teach whatever is on the state-mandated tests; the way to control day-to-day classroom instruction is by controlling what is put on 'the test.'"

An amendment by Rep. Akin states: "The testing required in Section 1111(B)(4) must be a test of objective knowledge, based on measurable, verifiable, and widely accepted professional testing and assessment standards, and shall not assess the personal opinions, attitudes, or beliefs of the student being tested."

While that amendment is no silver bullet that will resolve the requirement of a national curriculum through national testing, the Akin amendment would be a very positive step, making it more difficult to use the testing mechanism to identify, measure and record the personal beliefs and attitudes of students.

In addition, the committee will decide whether the bill will give states the right to select their own national tests. One version of the bill requires all states to use the NAEP federal test (National Assessment of Educational Progress). The other version allows states to choose their own national test. This, too, is an important issue to be resolved.

You may call House Education Chairman John Boehner (202-335-6205) and Senate Education Committee Ranking Minority Member Judd Gregg (202-224-3324) with the messages to:

1. Keep the Akin amendment in the final bill, and
2. Give states the right to choose their own national test.

Contacts for members of the Conference Committee may be found in our previous update.

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