Topeka — Some legislators are criticizing a new federal education law because of its testing requirements, and a key lawmaker thinks it could cause the state to lower its standards.
Also, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts expressed concerns about a provision of the law requiring more training of teacher aides. Roberts spoke Wednesday in Olathe to officials from nine school districts.
The new law the No Child Left Behind Act says every student nationwide must test at the satisfactory achievement level by the 2017-18 school year. Failure to meet that goal could cost states federal funds.
Kansas education officials contend the state has some of the toughest testing standards in the nation. Last year, 43.6 percent of the seventh-graders who took the state's math test scored below a satisfactory level.
"This law might cause us to want to lower our standards," said Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
The tests required under the new law won't go into effect until the 2005-06 school year.
Last month, after Congress enacted the new law, Education Commissioner Andy Tompkins expressed concern about its testing requirements and the associated costs.
The federal law requires that students in grades three through eight have their math and reading skills tested each year. Kansas tests students on certain subjects only once in elementary school, once in middle school and once in high school.
Each school also must demonstrate adequate progress each year in student performance on these tests. If a school can't do that after three years, the district must pay for any student to attend another public school and pay for a qualified tutor chosen by the parents.
If progress isn't shown after four years, a state can take over the school.
But Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, said the state doesn't have any legal authority to take over a school in which students are performing poorly. He said the state also doesn't have the authority to comply with many of the requirements of the new federal law.
"We need an idea of the dollars we'd lose if we decided not to do this," he said. State officials have no estimate.
Another part of the law requires teacher aides to have more education than Kansas law specifies. The federal law requires 60 college credit hours; Kansas law requires only a high school diploma.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.