ELC Refutes Claims That Tests Will Bankrupt States, Exposes Inflated Cost Estimate; AccountabilityWorks Releases Study

2/27/2002

From: Theodor Rebarber of AccountabilityWorks, 202-261-2610 or Brian Jones of ELC, 202-261-2603

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 -- A new cost study released today by the Washington, D.C.-based Accountability Works (AW) found that new testing requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) are affordable, given the new federal funds provided for this purpose.

The new study findings were previewed last week to state testing directors, testing industry representatives, practitioners, and state school chiefs from around the nation gathered in Austin, Texas, for a testing summit hosted by the Education Leaders Council (ELC).

The capacity of states to implement this key provision of the legislation will be critical given the central role of test-based accountability in the new act. A previous analysis by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), asserting that new testing requirements in the NCLB would cost states as much as $7 billion, was found to be misleading.

"This cost study reveals what opponents of meaningful assessment and education reform don't want you to know -- namely, that new testing requirements will not bankrupt states and school districts around the nation and are, in fact, affordable," said ELC CEO Lisa Graham Keegan.

The AW study found that the annual cost increases for the 50 states and District of Columbia to comply with NCLB testing requirements is projected to be between $312 million and $388 million, while the federal appropriation is nearly $360 million in FY 02 and is expected to increase in future years. AW found that the average state is projected to face annual cost increases between $6.1 million and $7.6 million and receive $7.1 million in federal funds for this purpose.

NCLB requires that all children be tested in reading and math in grades 3-8, plus once in high school, and that children be tested in science at least once in the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Prior law had required only that children be tested in reading and math at least once at elementary, middle, and high school levels. NASBE argued in a cost analysis last fall that new requirements for testing children in grades 3-8 annually would be cost prohibitive, and urged policymakers to reconsider the requirement.

AW President Theodor Rebarber disputed that conclusion. "Cost should not be an obstacle for the great majority of states in implementing the new testing requirements so long as they use reasonably efficient practices," he said. "The widely cited study by NASBE, which suggested a large disparity between federal resources and requirements contained significant flaws."

The AW study revealed that the NASBE cost estimates, which received considerable attention during the Congressional debate on the NCLB, used misleading figures and comparisons to inflate the estimated cost of testing requirements and magnify the difference between federal resources and state costs.

AW pointed out several practices in the NASBE study it found particularly egregious.

-- First, AW revealed that NASBE had inappropriately compared the annual amounts to be appropriated by Congress for testing with the total costs states will face over the life of NCLB. -- Second, NASBE used per student estimates to calculate test development costs despite the fact that such costs are largely fixed regardless of the number of students to be assessed. -- Finally, NASBE used excessively high assumptions for scoring and test administration (NASBE estimated annual costs to be $25-$50 per student when states typically pay vendors $5-$15 per student.)

"Now that this study has exposed the Big Lie about the costs of annual testing, I hope testing opponents will let us know of their real opposition to annual testing instead of simply pointing to the claim that they are too expensive," said ELC Board Chairman William C. Moloney, who is also Colorado's Commissioner of Education.

The Education Leaders Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of practicing education reformers, whose leadership includes 10 state education chiefs representing more than 30 percent of the nation's K-12 students. AccountabilityWorks is a recently established, non-profit policy research and consulting organization dedicated to assisting states and districts in implementing high-performance educational accountability systems.

The AW report is available on-line at http://www.educationleaders.org, or may be obtained by contacting Tom W. McFarlane at 202-261-2632.