Introduction

In 1965, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). With this law, the federal government stepped into what had traditionally been a policy area reserved to the states: education. The law was created as part of Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” and one element of the law was to provide federal funding for the education of low income students.

Over time, Congress reauthorized and amended the original ESEA to attach certain strings to those federal dollars. By 2001, the watchwords in education were measurement and accountability. That year, Congress passed a new version of ESEA called, “No Child Left Behind.” Among other things, it instituted a system of federally mandated, annual standardized tests paired with an accountability system that measured each state’s ability to educate all of its students. Subsequent developments in education reform built on this emphasis on testing. New academic standards were adopted throughout much of the country and teacher evaluations were increasingly tied to student test scores.

However, a growing opposition to standardized testing prompted some state and federal leaders to imply that funding could be withheld from schools or states that don’t comply with federal testing mandates. It was in this context that the Senate drafted an updated version of ESEA, which was signed into law in 2015 by President Barack Obama as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The new legislation replaced NCLB, and while it still requires states to measure student performance, it “extended more flexibility to States in education” (U.S. Department of Education).

Considering this historical background, students will analyze multiple perspectives on the issue and address the question: Should Congress continue to require annual standardized tests for all students?

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Objectives and Outcomes

• Students will understand vocabulary related to education policy, including: standards, disaggregated data, accountability, devolution, and block grants.
  
• Students will be able to summarize and evaluate competing positions on the necessity of annual standardized tests.
  
• Students will practice the dispositions of effective citizens by participating in a deliberation on what Congress should do regarding education reform and testing.

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