A bill that would end the use of a Common Core-aligned assessment test in schools made it out of a state Senate committee Wednesday after being amended.
Senate Committee on Education member Blake Johnson, R-Corning, made the first motion to pass House Bill 1241, which would discontinue use of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers after June 30, but failed to get a second.
Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, filed an amendment to the bill about 1 p.m., which removes the requirement for the state Board of Education to stop using the PARCC exam by June 30.
The amendment adds that the board cannot enter into a contract with a public school assessment provider for more than one year, and also says that the state board should take into consideration any recommendations made by the Governor's Council on Common Core before entering into any assessment contracts for the 2016-17 school year.
The committee passed the bill as amended, and it will now head to the full Senate.
The House earlier this month approved the bill, on an 86-1 vote.
Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, the bill's sponsor, said he thought this was one of the more contentious issues of the legislative session.
Several educators expressed concern about getting rid of the test, as this is the first year it is being administered in Arkansas.
"Until the [Governor's Council on Common Core] meets, this is the best test to give because it matches our current curriculum," University of Central Arkansas professor Linda Griffith said.
The test aligns with Common Core, a common set of math and literacy standards that have been adopted by most states.
Karen Lamoreaux, a mother and a member of the group Arkansans for Education Freedom, spoke in favor of the bill and said that PARCC exam scores from New York have been discouraging with a 70 percent failure rate in math.
Several who spoke against the bill expressed concerns that the PARCC exam would widen the poverty gap because poorer students who don't have access to computers at home won't be able to use the technology to take the assessment.
Last week was the first week for the PARCC exam to be given in the state, and senators heard conflicting reports about how the rollout has gone.
Lowery said parents in his district have said their students who have 4.0 grade point averages come home frustrated because they couldn't answer questions in the allotted time or that the technology used to take the test didn't work properly.
But Debbie Jones, assistant commission of learning services for the Arkansas Department of Education, told the committee that the department has been surprised at the positive feedback received from schools about the test.
She said there has been some negative feedback about technology, but in one instance a school's Internet service provider was at fault in a technological malfunction.
Schools did have the option to request a paper test, Jones said, and 15 schools in the state chose to use those.
Jones said the state Department of Education did have a plan to get paper tests to any schools who had technology problems and they haven't had to do that yet.
About 224,000 of 400,000 students in Arkansas have completed the PARCC exam so far, Jones said.
See Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full coverage.