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The most political of the six objectives calls for U.S. students to rank first, worldwide, in math and science. The "moonshot goal," as one White House wag dubbed it, is a rare admission by Bush that America is falling behind its foreign competitors, especially the Japanese. The evidence of failure is abundant. In a recent international survey, American 13-year-olds finished last in math and nearly last in science. Bush stiffened his proposal by requesting, in his 1991 budget, a $100 million increase in the education programs of the National Science Foundation and a $230 million grant to help states improve math and science teaching.
By far the most innovative goal called for students in Grades 4, 8 and 12 to pass nationwide tests in five basic subject areas. Typically, Bush left unanswered the thorny questions of who will design the tests, how they will be carried out and funded, and how results will be reported. But given the controversy surrounding national standards and student testing, the fact that the President embraced the notion at all was remarkable. "To superimpose some norms would be radical," says Chester Finn, chairman of the governing board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (N.A.E.P.), a 20-year-old federal testing program. "To expand it to everyone would be revolutionary."
Many Americans fear that national testing will lead to a national curriculum, inviting education by remote control from Washington and causing schools to turn out carbon-copy students. With its long history of local autonomy, the U.S. is unlikely ever to adopt such a system formally. Still, even traditionalists concede that the U.S. has a de facto common curriculum, driven largely by widely used standardized exams and the homogenized fare dished up by textbook publishers.
To meet Bush's goal, some entity -- probably N.A.E.P. -- will have to set standards for mastery of a given subject and design a test for it. That still leaves room for states and school districts to determine how material is taught. Besides, local control has hardly proved to be a miracle drug for improving educational levels. "Local school districts don't have incentives to work hard," says Lester Thurow, dean of M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management. "I'm not worried about too much authority. I worry about too little."
Even if educators could agree on standards, there would remain the sticky problem of designing national tests. Computer-scored multiple-choice exams are efficient and economical -- typically costing $15 a pupil -- but they also encourage mindless memorization. So-called performance-based exams, using essays, hands-on experiments and the like, are better for promoting reasoning skills but can cost as much as $50 a student, according to N.A.E.P. Chairman Finn. Whatever kinds of tests are eventually chosen, educators are sure to complain that they are being forced to "teach to the test," thus robbing students of real learning and depriving teachers of control.