House panel OKs bill tossing Core-tied test

Legislation to stop Arkansas students from having to take a Common Core-aligned assessment test next year passed through the House Education Committee on Tuesday.

House Bill 1241, by Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, would prohibit the state from administering the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC exam, after June 30. The bill, which now heads to the House floor, also stops the Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas Board of Education from releasing any student data to the federal government without written consent of that student's parents.

"This bill is not to delay the use; it is actually to terminate the use of [the exam]," Lowery said, adding that the bill had been delayed because of ongoing conversations with state and federal education officials.

"One of the other things that was actually looked at was the possibility of being able to get a waiver from the federal department of education to suspend assessment for the current testing cycle just because of some of the reports that we've been receiving about the implementation of the PARCC test. All of those efforts proved fruitless, so the bill you have is much more streamlined."

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam, which is scheduled to be used for the first time this year in an online format by Arkansas' school districts, was tested in paper form last year.

The exams are based on a common set of math and literacy standards that have been adopted by most of the 50 states since 2010, called Common Core. A consortium of about a dozen states, including Arkansas, is developing and administering exams based on that curriculum.

Beginning this month and going through early May, more than 5 million students nationwide in grades three through 11 are expected to take Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers performance-based and end-of-year tests. Well over half of those students -- including a majority of Arkansas test-takers -- will take the tests using desktop and laptop computers.

HB1241 passed by a voice vote Tuesday.

Lowery's original bill, filed in early February, called for the formation of a task force to decide what standardized tests the state should use and whether an Arkansas-specific test could be developed. It also called for the state to revert back to the previous Benchmark Exams used before Arkansas signed a contract to begin using the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests.

Since its introduction, HB1241 was amended to delete the task force and the request to revert to an old test.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced last month that he planned to form a task force to study Common Core in general. Almost 760 people submitted applications to be on the task force and review the standards. Hutchinson has said he plans to name those task force members in the next week or so.

Several opponents of the legislation in its previous form also noted that Arkansas is one of a handful of states applying for a waiver to delay the portion of the federal No Child Left Behind law that ties teacher and principal evaluations to test scores. Not taking an assessment test this year or reverting to the Benchmark exams -- which no longer align with Arkansas standards -- would endanger that waiver request.

Opponents of the bill argued that HB1241 would limit the governor's task force by prohibiting the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exams from being used in the future.

Metro on 03/04/2015

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