The West Virginia Senate Education Committee took up HB 4014 and made it weaker. It’s *just* like the House bill which I already had some concerns about the House version.
The Senate version:
- Does not delay the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards.
- It will throw the review of the science standards in with the review of the Common Core Math and ELA standards.
- It does remove West Virginia from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
It appears that it does keep the rest of the assessment language which includes:
- Rescinds the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the CCSSO and NGA
- Prohibits the State Board of Ed from adopting or using Common Core aligned tests
- Orders the State Board of Ed to review their state summative testing scheme
- Grants parents the ability to opt their child out of testing
- Prohibits the ‘discipline, punishment, or grade reduction’ of any student who opts out
- Testing can’t take more than 2% of a student’s yearly instruction time (HT: A.P. Dillon)
So there is a silver lining.