By Stan Karp

Stock up on number 2 pencils. That may be the only sure advice to follow in the wake of new federal education legislation signed by President Bush earlier this year. More standardized tests are on the way, and they carry "high stakes"-and high hurdles -with them.

Perhaps even more significant is how the legislation could reshape the federal government's historic role as a promoter of access and equity in public education in the service of a conservative agenda that comes wrapped in rhetorical concern for the poor and people of color, but which may ultimately hurt poor schools most.

Essentially, the legislation codifies at the national level policies that have already wreaked havoc at the state level: punitive high stakes testing, the use of bureaucratic monitoring as the engine of school reform, and "accountability" schemes that set up schools to fail and then use that failure to justify disinvestment and privatization. It's George W. Bush's dubious "Texas miracle" gone national. (For a detailed discussion of Bush's Texas education record, see Rethinking Schools Fall, 2001, and Summer, 2000.)

MANDATED TESTS

Federally mandated annual testing is the cornerstone of the comprehensive, bipartisan bill that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a consolidation of the major K-12 federal education programs including the Title I program that reaches 47,000 high-poverty schools. The tests are central to a greatly expanded and revised role for the federal government in local schools and districts.