If anything is clear in the murky debate about national education testing, it's that Congress doesn't want the Clinton administration to continue in the course it's been on: constructing tests of fuzzy math and whole language with the help of committees and contractors picked by the Education Department from the heart of the public school establishment.
In recent weeks, the Senate voted 87-13 to reassign the testing venture to an independent board, while the House voted 295-120 to call a halt to the whole thing. You might suppose the White House -- which says salvaging this ill- begun venture is its top priority and is threatening vetoes if Congress kills it -- would at least put its contractors on hold while it seeks to work with Congress. But no.
Last week, Georgetown's posh Four Seasons Hotel hosted a two-day meeting of test developers and several dozen "advisers" convened by the Council for Basic Education, which stands to earn a tidy sum for its part in the $ 13 million contract now in force. When nervous participants asked the Education Department if maybe the meeting ought not be deferred until Congress makes up its mind, Deputy Secretary Marshall Smith (who picked all these folks) said: Nothing doing.
Smith's Folly, as some Hilldwellers term the testing scheme, continues at flank speed. "They're sticking their fingers in our eyes," complains a House staffer. Someone as deft at education politics as William Jefferson Clinton might be expected to know better. But the administration is getting cocky. Congress is scared to fight back. The contractors are getting paid. The hotel welcomes the business. And we foot the bill.