Wednesday, April 1, 2015

S.B. 215 and H.B. 1323

We wrote last week how Senate Bill 215 ignored much of the task force report and made only cosmetic changes to Colorado's standardized testing system.

The good news is Senate Bill 215 was pulled from committee. The bad news is, House Bill 1323 was introduced and does virtually the same thing. The recent bill also legalizes parental opt-out: we wrote last week why such a measure misunderstands the opt-out movement.

Neither of these bills are awful; they also aren't solutions to Colorado's current failed standardized testing system.

House Bill 1323 would renew the task force on standardized testing for another year, even though the bill (like the rest of the Colorado legislature) does not implement the recommendations the task force already made.

Furthermore the bill does not address several issues of parent, student, and teacher concern, including:

  • privatization of testing and education
  • finances devoted to standardized testing
  • students' data privacy
  • over-testing in grades 3-10
  • the continued reliance on standardized testing for school and teacher performance assessment

A solution to Colorado's standardized testing failures needs to be actual reform, not surface level changes that only affect a minority of Colorado students. House Bill  1323 falls short.

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