Color the state of Maine not impressed with Smarter Balanced. A legislative panel voted to dump the assessment.
Bangor Daily News reports:
On Monday, members of the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee voted unanimously in favor of LD 1276, An Act To Improve Educational Assessments of Maine Students, which seeks to end the state’s membership in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. The Department of Education would issue a request for proposals to provide new tests.
“For more than a year, we have heard stories as to the pitfalls of the test, as well as the errors in it that confuse students and make taking the test a stressful and frustrating event,” said Lois Kilby Chesley, president of the Maine Education Association. She said her organization was “ecstatic” about the vote.
The bill now goes to the House and Senate for votes.
“The committee understood that Smarter Balanced contract wouldn’t be renewed by the governor under any circumstance, and the political turbulence around testing this year is intense,” Rep. Brian Hubbell, D-Bar Harbor, said Monday night in an email explaining the committee’s vote.
The underlying article states that Maine will use the Northwest–which those who are familiar with the Moore decision in Alaska will tell you has Darling Hammond’s fingerprints. See page 32 http://www.naesp.org/sites/default/files/Yeagley_MA14.pdf