Teachers all over South Carolina have told us that we need to replace the PACT test with a more diagnostic test that gives them results quicker and lets their teaching efforts truly reflect the needs of their students.

Our teachers have also asked us to align our state's testing with the No Child Left Behind legislation all other states use.

The South Carolina House of Representatives is committed to replacing the PACT test and fixing these problems.

State Superintendent of Education, Jim Rex, told us the Department of Education put together a plan that would fix our state's test while keeping our high standards in place. Those standards come from the 1998 Education Accountability Act (EAA).

Unfortunately, the plan the Education Department put together watered down the Accountability Act. Their plan was littered with feel-good terms and provisions that dismantled educational accountability in our state.

Many of us worked incredibly hard to put these high standards in place back in 1998, and we are beginning to see the benefits of these efforts.

Our students now frequently score in the top 30 states on national achievement tests, a vast improvement from past efforts. We have seen our students' performance steadily rise over the years when compared to other states.

These gains have not come easy. They have been the result of parents and teachers working hard with clear goals in mind as outlined in the EAA. We cannot retreat from this effort. Every few years, some group tries to water down the requirements of the Act to artificially make our students' scores look better. Each time we have defeated that attempt.

This latest attempt has several provisions that would water down the EAA. Here are just a few:

The Accountability Act created a report card for our schools. The purpose is to make sure parents know how their children's schools are doing academically. The Department of Education wants to remove some of these ratings from the report card and tuck them away on a website, making it harder for parents to find out how their children's schools are performing.

Today, our schools receive a performance rating on the report card based on the percentage of students who pass the end-of-year testing. The Education Department wants to change this objective measure of a school's performance to an undefined new measure that could mean anything - a subjective and easily manipulated measure.

Currently, our schools are rated on the report cards we send to parents as: Excellent, Good, Average, Below Average, or Unsatisfactory. The Department of Education wants to change these ratings to Academic Distinction, Academic Recognition, Academic Progress, Academic Review and Academic Priority.

A parent instantly understands what Good or Average means, but no one except bureaucrats will understand what Academic Recognition or Academic Progress means.

In the process of reorganizing our state's priorities in education, Superintendent Rex's plan does away with U.S. History tests at the end of the year, a subject that is particularly important. South Carolina's Social Studies teachers recently asked the General Assembly to keep the Department of Education from throwing U.S. History overboard by delivering boxes of tea to legislators - I am certain that most adults understand their historical reference to the Boston Tea Party, but without testing, we may never know if your children will.

Superintendent Rex and the Department of Education were premature in their promotion of their plan. Before a bill was even filed, they sent out several press releases touting their "reform" efforts and claiming a majority of House members were signed on in support.

The reality is, most House members do not support watering down accountability in our education system. That is probably why none of the 170 members of the General Assembly have introduced the Department of Education's plan.

In fact, several House members recently introduced a bill that calls for the replacement of the PACT test, and brings the testing reforms our teachers need, while keeping our high standards in place.

It is important that the General Assembly be responsive to parents and teachers. They are the people who know what is best for the children of our state. By focusing on what parents and teachers tell us is needed, we have improved the quality of education in our state. Our teachers have stepped up to the plate and are working harder than ever to help their students succeed.

Those same parents and teachers have told us we need to change the PACT test, but none have asked us to lower academic standards at the same time.