Some Question Inconsistencies in Clinton Testing Proposal

By Millicent Lawton

When President Clinton proposed in a speech to the nation's governors and corporate leaders that states require students to pass a test to move to the next grade or to graduate from high school, he raised a few eyebrows.

Mr. Clinton spoke at last month's education summit in Palisades, N.Y., which focused on how to establish higher academic standards and better assessments to measure students' progress toward those goals, as well as how to better use technology to improve education. Forty governors and 49 corporate leaders attended. (See Education Week, April 3, 1996.)

In his speech, the president said that in order to have meaningful standards, every state must mandate a test for students to make the transition from, for example, elementary to middle school or from middle school to high school, or to receive...