Citing concerns over the potential loss of federal funding and the enforcement of attendance laws, Gov. Bill Ritter this morning vetoed a bill that would have removed scoring penalties for students who do not take annual assessment tests.
“I believe this bill could not only unintentionally encourage noncompliance with federal education laws — which in an extreme case could have significant financial consequences — but also has the potential to confound districts’ obligations to enforce state and local compulsory attendance laws,” Ritter wrote in his veto message.
House Bill 1186 would have removed negative scores given to students who don’t take the annual CSAP tests either because they are sick, on vacation or their parents are opposed.
Last year, 46 schools in Colorado dropped down a notch on the School Accountability Reports because of negative scores received for students whose parents opted them out of the test, according to the bill sponsor. The reports rate schools low to excellent based on test scores.
Critics of the legislation feared it would result in administrators discouraging low-scoring kids from coming to school during CSAP week.
Ritter pointed out that the federal No Child Left Behind act can impose financial penalties on states in which fewer than 95 percent of students take assessment tests.
The governor also vetoed two other measures today:
“I believe that the additional requirements for electrical apprentices contained in (HB 1170) will be unduly burdensome, particularly for independent and rural contractors,” Ritter said in his veto.
And lawmakers failed to provide a funding source for the program created in HB 1150, the governor noted.
