Amended HB 508 Clears House Education Committee

This from Jim Warren at the Herald-Leader:

House Committee adopts student testing bill

FRANKFORT — A bill that would replace Kentucky's student testing system but retain some of its key principles sailed out of the House Education Committee on a unanimous vote late Tuesday.

House Bill 508 not only would create a new testing system, starting in the 2011-2012 school year, but calls for creation of new curriculum standards that would be used for the test...

...[The bill's lead sponsor, Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond] said after Tuesday's vote that the House Education Committee probably will place the "substance" of HB 508 in the Senate's testing bill as a committee substitute later this week.

The Senate measure, Senate Bill 1, also would abolish CATS. But it seeks to replace open-response questions with more multiple-choice exams that its backers say would save time and money. SB 1 already has passed the Senate.

If an amended version of SB 1 clears the House, a committee of lawmakers from both chambers would probably negotiate a compromise bill later this month...

...the House committee approved several technical changes to HB 508, plus a longer amendment offered by state Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, aimed at strengthening writing.

HB 508 would retain writing portfolios for instruction purposes but take them out of the state accountability assessment program. Richards said he feared that could lead to writing being de-emphasized. His amendment calls for various changes to help improve how writing is taught...

Prichard Launches Campaign for HB 508

House Bill 508 – the new assessment bill under consideration right now in the House Education Committee – needs your support. This bill answers concerns about CATS with substantive, constructive steps forward, and it avoids the elements of Senate Bill 1 that could take Kentucky education backward. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity to strengthen Kentucky education.

That's the opening salvo in the Prichard Committee's call to action for its members and friends who are aksed to contact the House Education Committee in support.

HB 508 begins with content standards revisions to get us the lean, globally competitive focus we need. The new test of those standards will allow Kentucky students to exhibit their problem-solving and communication skills while also showing how well Kentucky's kids match up against others in the nation...

An element that makes the bill especially strong is a requirement that what students learn in high school is what they need to know to succeed in college. These "alignment requirements" mean that the state's Council on Postsecondary Education must affirm that the new standards match college readiness requirements and monitor results of efforts to lower remediation rates.

In addition, the state agency that oversees teacher preparation – the Education Professional Standards Board – must ensure that teacher preparation programs at colleges and universities equip teachers to meet the standards.

A fast, responsible timetable calls for the new tests and program reviews to start in 2011-12, with CATS ending after the 2010-11 school year.

That's the good part of the bill.

Some areas, such as the arts and writing portfolios, will no longer be part of a school's accountability test scores. But the bill requires that schools continue to emphasize those areas and that "program reviews" of these programs require both the districts and the state to check quality regularly.

And that was the bad news. But the committee offers some assurance.

The bill's sponsor has stressed that writing will still be taught and that student portfolios will continue to follow them from year to year to track progress. HB 508 also calls for the program review results to be discussed during principals' annual evaluations.

Given that the weight of public sentiment in recent years has even gotten Democratic Governor Steve Beshear calling for a review of KERA, it's awful hard to predict that no bill will come out of the General Assembly this time around. If that's the case, maybe the Coureir-Journal said it about right. House Bill 508 isn't good - but it's better than Senate Bill 1.

To their credit, the Prichard Committee statement deals directly with HB 508's greatest weaknesses:

We are quite concerned about the writing portfolio and the effect of removing student scores from accountability. Will the program review standards be rigorous? Will the state put its weight behind compliance? Will monitoring be funded by the legislature? We're looking for ways to improve the legislation and will pay very close attention to implementation if the bill passes.

That's some consolation.

Wanna add your voice? Prichard tells you how:

Please contact members of the House Education Committee today. Click here to e-mail a letter or call the Legislative toll free message line at 800-372-7181.

Tell members of the Committee to VOTE YES on HB 508.

Members of the Committee include: Rep. Linda Belcher; Rep. John "Bam" Carney; Rep. Hubert Collins; Rep. Leslie Combs; Rep. Jim DeCesare; Rep. Ted Edmonds; Rep. C. B. Embry; Rep. Bill Farmer; Rep. Tim Firkins; Rep. Jim Glenn; Rep. Derrick Graham; Rep. Jeff Greer; Rep. Jimmy Higdon; Rep. Reginald Meeks; Rep. Charles Miller; Rep. Harry Moberly; Rep. Rick Nelson; Rep. Marie Rader; Rep. Jody Richards; Rep. Tom Riner; Rep. Carl Rollins; Rep. Charles Siler; Rep. Dottie Sims; Rep. Kent Stevens; Rep. Wilson Stone; Rep. David Watkins; Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington; Rep. Addia Wuchner.

SOURCE: Prichard Committee release

C-J Chooses the Lesser of Two Evils

This from the Courier-Journal:

Better, not good

If the General Assembly is determined to steamroll ahead with a major change in education policy, even though there's too little time left to do the job right, House Bill 508 is the better vehicle to use.

A comparison and contrast by a Prichard Committee expert suggests ... the bill pushed by Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, is preferable to Senate Bill 1, which is covered with the handprints of those who long have opposed the historic Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990...

...The Moberly bill tries to ensure that higher education experts are involved in setting standards to promote college readiness, and that teacher training programs are producing graduates who can meet high standards. But there's no real assurance these things will materialize.

There's also no assurance that funding will be available to turn all the rosy rhetoric into real educational progress.

Most important, there's no way to be sure this bill avoids the withering erosion to which KERA has been subjected over the years.

But it's by far the better of the two alternatives at hand.

C-J points to HB 508's

• systematic and inclusive approach to the content
• that it allows enough time to revise current standards
• mandates the use of testing that gets at problem-solving and communication skills
• emphasizes so-called "criterion-referenced" testing
• offers some attention to writing portfolios
• promises a "review" of programs in arts and humanities, and in practical living and vocational studies
• Opens the way to adopting end-of-course exams

C-J finds the removal of writing portfolios from the accountability system in both HB 508 and SB 1 tragic, "most likely eliminating any effective classroom emphasis on them," and they seem to share my skepticism of the program review.

They also object to "using the old-fashioned and unsophisticated multiple-choice-only approach" utilizing "norm-referenced testing," which narrows accountability and "places the student in relationship to other test-takers."

House plan to reform CATS unveiled

This from the Herald-Leader:

FRANKFORT — A House bill to revamp Kentucky's controversial CATS student testing system got its first public airing late Thursday before the House Education Committee.

House Bill 508's many provisions include: replacing the CATS system, but not until after the 2010-2011 school year; revising all state academic standards in a phased process starting next year; and aligning core content at all levels, as well as aligning high school academic core content with college requirements.

While the current testing program would continue through 2011, writing portfolios would be removed from accountability this year. Portfolios would be retained, however, as instructional tools from primary through 12th grade.

The measure is the House's response to Senate Bill 1, which would rework CATS by eliminating open-response questions and taking out portfolios. The Senate has already passed SB 1.

Most of the Education Committee session was devoted to a detailed explanation of HB 508 by its lead sponsor, state Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond.

Moberly said he would have preferred to leave CATS unchanged through 2014, when all Kentucky students are supposed to achieve proficiency status. But he said there had been "such a hue and cry" over CATS that he thought change was necessary...

Over at the Prichard blog, Susan has a workup of the bill and opines that HB 508 is a strong step forward. Notice Ben Oldham's argument for a blended assessment in the comments section.

I maintain an almost complete lack of faith in program reviews as an effective solution to the Writing Portfolio + Arts & Humanities problem. I seriously doubt the muscularity of the approach and predict that, if adopted, within five years program reviews will be abandoned as useless.

I hope the House will find some middle ground during negotiations.