School Testing Backlash Key in 5 Governors Races

Even as the new federal education law is pushing states toward greater emphasis on high-stakes testing of students, a backlash against such exams is emerging in key gubernatorial races around the country.

In at least five of the contests, Democratic candidates are challenging the increased use of standardized tests for purposes that include evaluating school performance and determining whether students will graduate high school.

The most aggressive has been Bill McBride, the Democratic nominee in Florida, who is pledging to scrap the testing-based system for grading school performance that Republican Gov. Jeb Bush counts as a key achievement.

Democratic nominees in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Texas also are pledging to roll back their states’ use of standardized tests.

These challenges are emerging as the new federal education reform law is requiring all states to annually test every student in third through eighth grade in reading and math -- and then reward or punish schools based primarily on their success at improving student performance on those exams.

Though the changes the Democratic candidates are advocating wouldn’t necessarily put their states in conflict with that law, many experts believe these campaign critiques spotlight an unease about testing that may result in direct challenges to federal requirements.

“There is clearly a collision coming here,” said David Plank, director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University. “Under the federal law, lots and lots of schools, including some that would be considered very good schools, are going to be identified as not meeting standards. And that’s going to be politically untenable for governors.”

The testing backlash remains sporadic. In Congress, most senators and House members from both parties voted for the so-called No Child Left Behind Act, which imposed the annual testing requirement on states. And many centrist Democrats, such as Gov. Gray Davis, say they still support tough testing regimes.

But the questions some of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates are posing this fall may signal an end to the consensus that developed for increased testing as the centerpiece of tougher educational accountability systems.

These issues have been joined most directly -- and the national implications most clearly raised -- in Florida, where education is probably playing a larger role in the governor’s race than in any other state.

Four years ago, when Bush was first elected, he promised to focus on education. But McBride, a lawyer, centered his campaign on denouncing Bush’s education record.

McBride’s ads portray Bush’s term as a failure for schools, citing statistics that show the state ranking near the bottom of the nation in per-student spending, SAT scores and class size. Accusing Bush of slighting education for tax cuts, McBride is promising to spend at least $1 billion a year more to raise teacher salaries, expand pre-kindergarten programs, reduce class sizes and build more classrooms.

But McBride, who polls show is in a tight race with Bush, has reserved his sharpest words for the governor’s proudest educational achievement: the testing-based accountability system pushed through in 1999.

Under Bush’s plan, students take annual statewide exams in reading, math and writing, and schools are graded based on student performance. Schools that score highest receive bonuses; poorly performing schools receive extra financial assistance, but their students may be eligible for vouchers to pay for private schools.

The plan has been hailed by conservative reformers and provided something of a model for the federal law -- which will provide stipends for after-school tutoring, rather than vouchers, for students in consistently low performing schools.

But in a debate this month, McBride denounced the Florida system in terms rarely heard from candidates in recent years.

“High-stakes testing has never been supported by people who know anything about how kids should be treated and how they should be evaluated,” he said. “A standardized test shouldn’t be a determinant of anything other than to find where kids are [academically], and then you ... help them.”

In an interview, McBride said he would continue giving the tests. But he said he would scrap the Bush system that ranks schools by their performance and eliminate the vouchers tied to those grades. Instead, he would fold the test into a broader “report card” on schools that would include “a whole host of criteria ... [such as] class size, amount of money spent per capita in the classroom and parent satisfaction surveys.”

Many analysts believe that, given his emphasis on the issue, a McBride victory would spur politicians to intensify questioning about testing and the new federal requirements.

“The backlash is already out there, but a McBride victory could demonstrate its strategic value as a political strategy,” said Jay P. Greene, a Florida-based education analyst for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

Bush has aggressively defended the focus on testing. “Today in Florida, because we have assessments where there’s a consequence, we’re now seeing that more children are reading at grade level,” he said.

In the campaign’s final days, Bush is charging that McBride’s plans will require him to raise far more in new taxes than the 50-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase he has proposed.

Republicans also charge that in seeking to roll back the testing and voucher systems, McBride is simply a tool of the powerful state teachers’ union.

McBride denies that his agenda has been shaped by the teachers: “The teachers have never asked anything of me.”

But the ties between his campaign and the 122,000-member Florida Education Assn. are broad and deep.

The union provided McBride his first major endorsement, invested nearly $2 million in advertising that helped him upset former U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for the Democratic nomination and has detailed its longtime political director to serve as McBride’s campaign manager for the general election.

Much of that commitment has been generated by opposition to Bush’s testing and voucher program, said Maureen Dinnen, the union’s president. “It ... puts the blame on teachers for everything that is wrong in education.”