With debates about the appropriate role for the federal government in public education increasingly polarized, the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, insisted on Monday that the administration would not back away from annual testing for students and performance evaluations of teachers based in part on the results of the tests.

In a speech on Monday to outline the administration’s priorities for a revision of No Child Left Behind, the signature Bush-era education law, Mr. Duncan said that “parents, teachers and students have both the right and the absolute need to know how much progress all students are making each year towards college- and career-readiness.”

Annual testing has become a point of contention in the often-bitter discussions about how best to improve public education.

In July, the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, called for an end to mandated yearly testing, and a growing number of parents and educators have been pushing back against what they see as excessive testing and test preparation.