Fresh from transporting his daughter from a private high school to a private university, President Clinton promised Sunday to veto any Republican education plan that does not include national testing in the public schools. How the younger Clinton was admitted into prestigious Stanford University without one of her dad’s tests is not clear.

The hoped-for gain from these tests is equally unclear. The nation knows where its students stand in international measures. States know how their students fare compared with those in other states. Maine school districts know how they stack up against other districts. Towns know which of their schools have been successful in statewide testing and which have not. Parents know, or should know, how well their kids are doing. In classrooms across the state this month, students are sizing up their new classmates to identify the class Einstein.

Who, besides the members of certain bureaucracies in Washington, is being left out of the information loop?

The president wants testing standards for fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. The House rejected the idea last week when it voted down spending bills for Education, Labor and Health and Human Services departments. The Senate approved an alternative version that includes block grants to states. Testing contains political advantages to both sides: supporting it gives Democrats proof that they are serious about improving education; opposing it gives Republicans an opportunity to rail against the takeover by the federal government.

What is missing is the evidence that further testing — and, remember, students already are tested early and often — will increase what students know or can do. The president talks about global competition and dismal U.S. schools as if “A Nation at Risk” was released just last week. School districts, states and, for that matter, the U.S. Department of Education, have been working in the almost 15 years since that report was issued, and have succeeded in some areas. It is the rare school that is not constantly looking for ways to improve teaching and learning methods.

What occurs outside the school, where students, spend the majority of their time, has a far greater impact on classroom performance than the president’s plan acknowledges. There are no easy answers in facing this, but it is deceptive to suggest that another test helps cure these problems.