PARCC practice tests in the Sheridan School District (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post).
A request for waivers from federal rules on testing and accountability is closer to being re-written after a new testing law changed plans for the state’s testing system.
On Wednesday, staff from the Colorado Department of Education will to the state Board of Education during their regular monthly meeting.
The revisions include compromise wording that has a chance of being approved based on feedback from U.S. Department of Education officials.
Among the revisions made based on the :
• Teachers and parents will not be held accountable for test opt-outs, but school districts could still be plummet
• Instead of using the 9th grade state test to meet the requirement that high school students are tested at least once, proposing to test 10th graders
• Asking for approval to let English learners test in their native language for five years, instead of the current three
• Waiver request will not ask for local tests to replace state tests, as part of HB 1323’s plan to pilot new local assessments. Those districts would be required to test students using both the local and state exams to prove they are comparable.
“We asked the U.S. Department about that and the U.S. Department of Education was very clear students need to take both,” said Alyssa Pearson, Interim Associate Commissioner for the Colorado Department of Education.
All of the above, are still requests that are subject to federal approval.
State officials still have to work through two issues.
The state department will seek feedback from educators about waivers for English learners. The department learned they could ask for a waiver to let immigrant students skip the test during their first year in the country, or a waiver to keep their scores from counting for school or district accountability measures for their first two years — but not both.
Officials also have to figure out if a that mandates that test scores count for 50 percent of annual teacher evaluations, doesn’t violate other federal laws.
Colorado was . The waiver was up for renewal this year.
