House Approves Education Measure Requiring Annual Testing

The House overwhelmingly approved a sweeping educational reform measure Wednesday that requires annual testing of students and holds school districts accountable for academic performance, a proposal that was a cornerstone issue of President Bush’s election campaign.

The measure would require annual reading and mathematics testing in grades three through eight. It would also allow, for the first time, significant public funding to pay for private tutors to help children who are in failing schools or to enable them to transfer to a different public school.

The legislation, approved 384 to 45, came after conservative Republicans failed in a last-ditch effort to restore President Bush’s original initiative to offer vouchers for private school tuition, a proposal Bush ultimately abandoned for a compromise that included the private tutor provision.

Despite the defeat of vouchers, Bush said in a statement that the vote was a “giant step toward improving America’s public schools. The education reforms adopted today build on the principles of accountability, flexibility, local control and greater choices for parents.”

Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, also offered measured praise. “We’re not all going to be happy. But I think this is a very good beginning for the House of Representatives as a statement of where we should be on education.”

The voucher defeat eliminated the most critical obstacle facing the bipartisan measure, which represents the most significant education reform in more than three decades.

In the Senate, a similar education bill has been advancing slowly since it came to the floor three weeks ago. Democrats have offered a slew of amendments, many winning by wide margins, to increase funding for various programs. Republicans, though, have remained united to defeat two key Democratic proposals on class-size reduction and school construction.

Passage of the Senate bill seems assured, but the question is when. It could be taken up again as early as today, but a final vote seems likely to be delayed until after the weeklong Memorial Day recess.

The voucher issue is now considered dead for this congressional term, since the Senate is not expected to include a voucher provision in its measure.

Any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill would have to be reconciled in a conference committee before being sent to the president.

Although Bush campaigned in favor of vouchers as a linchpin of his education plan, his decision to accept a compromise came after pressure from congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Nevertheless, conservatives--led by House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas)--insisted on voting on the voucher issue, pleading for lawmakers to change their mind and give parents the option of removing their children from struggling schools that are chronically failing.

“Just once, give me a vote for the kids--just once,” Armey implored.

But lawmakers defeated two voucher proposals by wide margins, with most opponents insisting that they would do little to help students enter private schools and that they could hurt the nation’s public education system.

The first voucher measure, rejected 273 to 155, would have provided up to $1,500 for students in failing schools to use to attend private or religious educational institutions. A second, more limited proposal, which lost 241 to 186, would have spent $50 million to establish five demonstration projects to assess the effectiveness of vouchers.

The debate over vouchers was impassioned on both sides, with proponents decrying the unfairness of keeping low-income students in failing schools and opponents blasting vouchers as the death knell for public education.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), evoking the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, compared those who oppose vouchers to those who resisted school integration during that turbulent time.

“Defenders of the status quo stood in the schoolhouse door and said, ‘You may not come in.’ Now the defenders of the status quo stand in the door and say to the grandchildren of many of those Americans, ‘You may not come out,’ ” he said.

But those on the other side used equally dramatic imagery to express their opposition.

Rep. Lynn N. Rivers (D-Mich.) likened the effect of vouchers to the ancient medical practice of using leeches to bleed patients to cure disease.

“This procedure was done with all the best intentions, but unfortunately a lot of patients died,” she said.

The testing provision is seen as key to the effort to funnel new aid to struggling schools and apply sanctions to those that fail to improve.

Without annual assessments, advocates say, parents and educators have no way of knowing how many kids are falling behind and which schools need help.

No one disputes that the new proposal would accelerate the national drive for more tests. Only 15 states--including California and Texas--test schoolchildren as often as the bill requires, according to the Education Commission of the States. Sixteen other states test in at least three grades from third to eighth. The remaining 19 test in two grades or fewer.

The legislation, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for the first time in seven years, would give states three years to implement the tests and authorize federal aid to help pay for them.

Six members of the 51-member California delegation voted against the proposal. They were Democrats Bob Filner of San Diego and Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, and Republicans John T. Doolittle of Rocklin, Wally Herger of Marysville, Richard W. Pombo of Tracy and Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach.

Exactly which tests are given and how they are monitored is another crucial issue. Many proponents of school standards and accountability say lawmakers need to strengthen the testing program when legislation reaches a House-Senate conference. The Senate version, for instance, would require states to use the National Assessment of Educational Progress to help double-check results from state-chosen exams; the House version would not.

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Times staff writer Nick Anderson contributed to this report.