In his State of the Union message in January, President Clinton
made clear that educational reforms would be a cornerstone of
his 2nd term in office. At the heart of President Clinton’s push
to raise standards is a National Testing Initiative — which,
simply put, is a plan to give tests to all 4th and 8th graders.

Yesterday at the White House, President Clinton held a
roundtable with educators and corporate executives, where he
announced that California had become the fourth state to
support the tests. Clinton also collected the endorsement of
some 240 high-tech business executives for his plan to
administer reading tests to all fourth graders and math tests
for all eighth graders.

GUESTS:

MONTY NEILL, associate director of the National
Center for Fair and Open Testing. FAIRTEST, as the group is
known, is a testing reform advocacy group based in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.

MARY BERGAN, the president of the California
Federation of Teachers, which represents 45,000 teachers and
education support personnel at all levels of public education in
California. She is also the vice president of the American
Federation of Teachers, which represents 950,000 school
personnel nationwide.