By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 19, 1997; Page A08

The campaign that congressional Republicans are leading against President Clinton's plan to give students national tests is jeopardizing another priority on his education agenda, the $2.7 billion he wants to spend helping children learn to read.

In a move that has infuriated the White House, Rep. William F. Goodling (R-Pa.), the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, has halted legislative work on Clinton's reading plan in an attempt to gain more leverage to stop national testing.

Clinton has vowed to veto any bill that delays or abolishes the tests, which have not yet been created but will be voluntary for states to adopt. The House voted last month to ban the tests from ever being used. The Senate has approved a modified version of Clinton's plan. The two sides will meet soon to resolve their differences on the subject, which is also dividing educators nationwide.

Until now, Clinton's reading plan had not been part of that contentious debate.

The president had even won general support for the idea from Republican leaders in the budget agreement he reached with Congress earlier this year. Clinton wants to devote much of the reading initiative to training an army of 1 million volunteer tutors, including college work-study students and AmeriCorps members, who would work with schools to help children become efficient readers by the time they start fourth grade.

But many Republicans are skeptical of that idea. Instead, they want to use much of the money to train teachers better in reading. A compromise had been in the works.

Not now. Goodling says he is angry that Clinton is still forging ahead with plans to develop the national tests despite the adamant objections of Republicans and many Democrats in the House. The White House, meanwhile, is upset that he has taken a separate education initiative hostage for what they call purely political reasons.

"There's no positive agenda there," said Michael Cohen, a White House education policy aide. "All of it is to stop whatever we're trying to do."

Clinton proposed his reading plan in response to growing evidence that the nation's students, especially those from poor communities, are having a hard time mastering the vital subject. Even as student scores in math and science appear to be inching upward across the country, recent results in reading suggest stagnation or slight decline.

That's a central reason why Clinton also wants students to begin taking rigorous national tests in reading while they are in fourth grade. He contends the tests would set a higher standard for what students should learn and thus compel schools to work harder. Clinton also wants eighth-graders to take a national test in math.

Both tests would be unprecedented for schools, which rely now on state or local exams to assess what students know. The educators and business leaders who support Clinton's idea say those tests are often too weak.

But congressional opposition to national testing remains strong. Many conservative Republicans insist the plan will give the federal government a dangerously large role in schools, and many liberal Democrats worry it could stigmatize poor students who are stuck in schools without the resources to prepare for the tests.

Goodling, for example, has not budged from his stance that the tests should be scrapped, even though Clinton has vowed to veto a huge, $286 billion appropriations bill moving through Congress if his tests are not part of the package.

Earlier this month, Goodling, who was once a school superintendent in Pennsylvania, called national tests "huge folly."

"Americans should not be misled into thinking that more testing will lead to better students," he said. "The president's plan is a waste of taxpayers' money and will not do anything but increase federal involvement in our schools."

Another ardent critic of the tests, Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), is trying to rally more of his colleagues against the tests by likening them to Clinton's disastrous attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system during his first term. "The more people learn about testing, the less they like it," Ashcroft said recently.

When the issue last came up for a vote in the Senate, 87 of the 100 lawmakers there supported the tests, as long as they would be managed by an independent board – not the Education Department. The White House has been battling to preserve that margin, which appears to be shrinking. Ashcroft has persuaded 35 senators to sign a letter saying that they support the ban on national testing approved by the House.

Goodling's decision to suspend work on Clinton's reading initiative poses yet another serious threat to the president's education agenda, and it has apparently caught his aides by surprise. "It makes no sense," Cohen said. "Reading was one of the issues where both sides were working pretty well to combine their interests."