Copyright 1999 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
May 27, 1999
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2384 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY May 27, 1999 MARK D. MUSICK HOUSE EDUCATION AND THE
WORKFORCE OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT
BODY:
Testimony of Mark D. Musick Chairman,
National Assessment Governing Board before the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations Committee on Education and the Workforce U.S. House of
Representatives Hearing on Student Exclusions and Public Release of NAEP 1998
Reading Assessment May 27, 1999 Good morning, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to
testify before the Subcommittee today on behalf of the National Assessment
Governing Board. I am Mark D. Musick, the current Chairman of the Governing
Board, which sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. I
also am president of the Southern Regional Education Board, which is based in
Atlanta, where I live. The National Assessment Governing Board was created by
Congress in 1988. It is an independent, bipartisan, 26-member group, composed of
state and local officials, educators, test experts, and business and public
representatives. The National Assessment, for which it sets policy, is the only
program that provides sound, comparable data on what American students know and
can do in a range of academic subjects. The Assessment has been doing this for
the nation as a whole, through nationally representative surveys, since 1969.
NAEP's state-by-state assessments--which also are done as representative- sample
surveys--started in 1990. Since then, 49 states have participated, on a
voluntary basis, in assessments of mathematics, reading, science, and writing.
In many respects, the National Assessment has become the nation's most valuable
and reliable report card on student achievement in elementary and secondary
schools. It is because of NAEP's role, as an independent, external measure of
what students have learned that the issues before this subcommittee today are so
important. The administration and reporting of NAEP must be scrupulously honest,
consistent, and fair, and the National Assessment must be carried out free from
political pressures to make American education look either good or bad. The
Governing Board was created to help ensure these important objectives. In fact,
the blue-ribbon study commission, which recommended its creation, envisioned the
board as a means to "buffer" the National Assessment from what it called
"manipulation by any individual, level of government, or special interest within
the field of education." Congress included in the 1988 legislation a structure
for NAEP that the commission felt would "supply needed checks and balances and
separations of power for this important and sensitive enterprise." The Governing
Board's commitment to these objectives remains strong. And they relate closely
to the issues I was asked to focus on today: first, the release of the 1998 NAEP
reading results, and, second, the question of whether the reading scores for
some states may have improved because more students were excluded from taking
the test because of disabilities or limited proficiency in English. RELEASE OF
THE 1998 NAEP READING RESULTS: POLICY AND PROCESSES As you may know, I have
served on the Governing Board since it was established in 1988. I have been
appointed to it by both Republican and Democratic secretaries of
education--William Bennett, Lamar Alexander, and Richard Riley. The current
vice- chairman of the Board, Michael Nettles, was appointed by both Secretary
Alexander and Secretary Riley. Since it was established, the Board has tried to
make sure that the release of NAEP results is straight-forward and separated
from partisan politics. The Board adopted its first policies on this issue in
November 1990. And the policies have been followed almost completely in more
than two dozen data releases since then- -with only two important exceptions.
The first was the premature release of NAEP reading results by President Bush in
May 1992 at a school visit and then a political fund-raiser in Atlanta. The
second was this past February when Vice President Gore came to the Education
Department to announce NAEP's reading results for the nation. In both cases, the
chairman of the Board, first my predecessor Richard Boyd, and then myself,
clearly and publicly expressed our concern that these actions were contrary to
the Board's policy and could harm the credibility of National Assessment
results. After the most recent case, the Board reviewed its policy and adopted
revisions at the Board meeting of May 15. The new policy makes it even more
explicit that NAEP results are to be released by the Commissioner of Education
Statistics in an independent and non-political way. Since February, there has
been one more major NAEP data release-- the 1998 state NAEP results, which were
reported on March 4. That release completely followed the Board's policy and the
Board- approved plan for the data release. I would like to submit for the record
the letters written by Richard Boyd and myself along with a copy of the Policy
Statement on Reporting and Dissemination of National Assessment Results, as
amended and adopted by the Board unanimously on May 15. You will notice that
both of the letters are addressed to the Commissioner of Education Statistics.
That is because of the rather complicated structure of the National Assessment
program. The Governing Board sets policy for NAEP, and under the law this
includes the test content frameworks, the student performance standards, the
methodology of the assessment, and the "guidelines for reporting and
disseminating results." However, the NAEP program is carried out or administered
by the Commissioner of Education Statistics who is head of the National Center
for Education Statistics, which is part of the Department of Education. By law,
in setting its policies, the Governing Board is "independent of the Secretary
and the other offices and officers of the Department of Education ." The
Commissioner implements Board policies, but he is an officer of the Education
Department, appointed by the President and subject to confirmation by the
Senate. Going back to 1990, the Board's policy has stated that NAEP results are
to be "issued by the Commissioner...in accordance with NCES clearance and review
procedures" and that the reporting and dissemination of NAEP results "shall be
apolitical...(and) insulated from partisan political considerations and
processes." Another important point of the policy has been that "any initial
public release of NAEP data shall be made only in accord with a specific plan
and timetable approved in advance by the Board or one of its duly constituted
committees." Unfortunately, the plan approved by the Board was not followed in
the case of Vice President Gore's presentation at the February 10 reading
release. As I said in my letter, "the format, tone, and substance of that event
was not consistent with the principle of an independent, non-partisan release of
National Assessment data...." I don't think there was anything sinister in what
happened, but clearly the release got away from NCES and the approved plan. In
revising the NAEP release policy earlier this month, the Board added new
language which underlines our previous position. It reads: "The initial release
of NAEP data shall be independent and apolitical, separated clearly from other
programs and policies of the Department of Education." It also adds that the
official press statement or release announcing NAEP results shall be issued by
the National Center for Education Statistics, rather than by any other part of
the Department of Education. Commissioner Forgione has told the Board that he
supports these changes. We welcome that, though, of course, we are disappointed
that he will be leaving his post soon. We hope that whoever is appointed as the
new Commissioner will support the Board's policy and follow it too. Our view is
that NAEP information absolutely has to be viewed as not political. Otherwise,
it loses its value. NAEP releases should place the facts before the American
public and not become political events. EXCLUSION OF STUDENTS FROM NAEP SAMPLES
The second issue we are discussing today is the exclusion of students from the
state NAEP samples. Commissioner Forgione has made an initial report on this,
based on a study by Educational Testing Service. I know he has shared the report
with the subcommittee and will be discussing it with you today. However, the
issues involved and dilemmas we face go well beyond the National Assessment
program. They are part of something much larger going on in American society and
affect all testing programs and the efforts in many states and school districts
to have high student performance standards and accountability. Briefly, the
movement for high standards, which is coupled with standardized tests to show
whether students have met them, is occurring at the same time as efforts to
expand services for disabled students and to test them under non-standard
conditions with accommodations. Throughout the country, in many state testing
programs and college admissions tests, the most common of these accommodations
is additional time. Other modifications include testing in small groups, reading
questions or directions aloud, giving word lists or dictionaries to the
students, or providing them with a scribe to record their answers. One important
factor in these developments is IDEA--the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, passed by the Congress with overwhelming majorities in
May 1997. The law provides specifically that students with disabilities are to
be "included in state and district-wide assessment programs with appropriate
accommodations." Another provision states that the individualized education plan
(or IEP), which is required for each disabled student, must include a statement
of any "modifications in the administration of state or district-wide
assessments of student achievement that are needed in order for the child to
participate" in the assessment. The NAEP inclusion policy, which was changed
somewhat for the 1998 assessments, says that NAEP should follow each child's
special education plan. And if the plan for a particular child calls for
accommodations that NAEP doesn't offer, then the student should be excused from
taking the assessment. Of course, these individualized education plans are
affected not only by federal law but also by each state's own laws and policies
related to its own educational accountability program. And all the laws and
policies are open to interpretation by the counselors and teachers who deal with
particular children in the thousands of schools where testing takes place.
According to a number of surveys and studies, there are significant differences
between states and even among districts and schools in the same state about
which children are classified as disabled and which conditions merit certain
accommodations. There also are concerns that results from tests taken with
accommodations may not be comparable to results under standard testing
procedures. Around the country the variations are particularly great for the
category of specific learning disabilities, such as attention deficit disorder.
And the learning disabled group is growing rapidly. It now makes up almost half
of 5.5 million disabled children in American schools. Inevitably, NAEP is
affected by these larger patterns and trends. In dealing with inclusion and
exclusion issues, the Governing Board has tried to act carefully and
responsibly. I think the materials on Board deliberations and decisions will
show that. But the changes going on in the states, as reflected in state
programs and laws, and the impact of the IDEA law, do have an impact on the
National Assessment. These changes do have a bearing on NAEP reports over time
and on comparisons among the states. NAEP has conducted extensive research on
the impact of different inclusion rules and on allowing different
accommodations. There was a major research study as part of the 1996 mathematics
and science assessments. Unfortunately, the full report on this study has not
yet been issued by NCES. However, based on a preliminary report, made by NCES
and ETS, that the proposed new exclusion rules for NAEP would have no
significant impact on results, the Board agreed to adopt them for the 1998
reading assessment. In order to maintain a trend, we did not allow any
accommodations in the official reporting samples. However, we did approve having
a second sample for research purposes--with a limited number of low-cost
accommodations allowed. For the 1998 writing and civics assessments, which are
new exams, the Board approved using the new inclusion rules along with limited
accommodations. The Board also approved some changes in the rules for excluding
students with limited English proficiency. However, as the Commissioner's report
indicates, the increase in exclusions for these students was small and occurred
in only a few states. The texts of the old and the new NAEP inclusion rules have
been submitted to the subcommittee already. We have also submitted the
preliminary summary of the research on the 1996 NAEP assessment on which the
Board relied. Over the next few months we will be looking carefully at the 1998
writing assessment, which includes state-by-state results, to make sure that
variations in the rate of exclusions and accommodations are clearly reported
when these results are made public in late September. We will also be
considering policies for the assessments in mathematics and science, scheduled
for the year 2000. In these assessments it will be very important to preserve
the trends, which in 8th grade math go back to the first state-level NAEP in
1990. Quite frankly, no matter what rules NAEP sets, there has always been some
variation in exclusion rates between the different states and in particular
states over time. Of course, this has some impact on the reliability of
comparisons, though, overall, we remain convinced that the National Assessment
is valid and reliable within the quite narrow margins of error of the survey
methodology used. NAEP strives hard for fairness and consistency. With the
different changes going on in different states and from IDEA, that job is
becoming more difficult. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
I will be happy to try to answer any questions you may have.
LOAD-DATE: June 2, 1999 
