This from the Courier-Journal:FRANKFORT — The Senate Education Committee heard testimony today from both supporters and opponents of a bill that would replace Kentucky’s student-testing system with nationally standardized tests.
There was no action taken on Senate Bill 1, which would eliminate the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, or CATS — the linchpin of the 18-year-old Kentucky Education Reform Act. The bill would also eliminate multiple-choice testing from CATS in the areas of arts and humanities, and would no longer judge schools based on student-writing portfolios.
Supporters who spoke in favor of the bill included David Adkisson, president and chief executive officer of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, who said he is concerned over the lack of alignment of CATS with the expectations for postsecondary-level study...
...Opponents of the bill included Bob Sexton, president of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, a school advocacy group based in Lexington, who said he doesn’t believe the bill will help improve student achievement.
The meeting was contentious at times, particularly when some of those who spoke in opposition of the bill were asked to make their comments brief, while those who supported it were not...
...Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D- Louisville, said afterward that he was disappointed with the way the meeting was handled.“There is no question that this was an orchestrated meeting,” he said.“I have never seen a committee meeting where members were prohibited from asking questions during or following testimony, except of course, if you happen to be the Senate floor leader.”
Shaughnessy also questioned why Draud and Mountjoy were not asked to testify.“If they had been invited they would have been here, and the reason why they were not invited is because the Republicans don’t want to hear what they have to say,” he said.
Draud said in a telephone interview this afternoon that he would have testified if he had been asked.“I had an entire document prepared and sent it to all the legislators and educators in the state so that they would be familiar with all of the issues,” Draud said.
C-J audio: Tim Shaughnessy airs his frustrations with the committee and David Williams responds.
1 comment:
As one of those present at the Senate Education Committee meeting on Thursday, I can confirm that the Herald-Leader article is mistaken when it claims only opponents of SB 1 were asked to limit their comments.
In fact, an announcement was made before anyone spoke that due to time constraints and the number of people who had signed up to speak, that commenters were ALL asked to limit their presentations to five minutes.
At one point several opponents of SB 1 were asked to limit comments, but that was accompanied with a reminder that those speakers needed to stay on topic, which was SB 1. The speakers had started to ramble, and this committee chair reminder was entirely appropriate.
In fact, after checking my timed recording of the meeting, it turns out the longest speech by far by any individual was from Brent McKim, JCTA, who was an opponent of the bill.
Richard
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