In the midst of all the budget talk, I’d like to shift gears and share some information about a bill currently in the legislature that would eliminate state mandated End of Instruction exams (EOIs).
Under current Oklahoma law, high school students must pass four out of seven EOIs to graduate from high school, regardless if they successfully earned passing grades in the required courses. This means if a student has acceptable grades in his or her coursework, they could still not be allowed to graduate if they don’t pass a series of high-stakes, comprehensive state mandated tests before graduation. Senate Bill 1170 would eliminate these tests, thus allowing each school district to certify mastery of curriculum requirements in graduating high school students.
We’ve heard the same message from parents, teachers, administrators and even students – too many required tests take away valuable learning time in the classroom and cost the state a lot of money. Teachers don’t have time to focus on course curriculum because they spend a significant amount of time readying students for end of instruction exams. Students lose out on instruction time because their teachers are focused on test preparation. By eliminating the high-stakes EOI testing procedure, it allows for greater control on the local level in determining what practices are used to measure academic mastery for students.
The bill states the State Board of Education would work with Higher Ed and CareerTech to develop a list of approved assessments that would align with the Every Student Succeeds Act. Examples of such assessments might be the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, the ACT or the SAT. The state would cover the cost of the exam to ensure students have mastered the curriculum requirements. This would save parents money because they’re the ones who are currently paying for the ACT or SAT tests for their child. By using a nationally developed test, this approach would also save the state money because we won’t need to spend those dollars to develop separate tests to be used in Oklahoma schools.
SB 1170 had overwhelming bipartisan support and passed in the Senate last week unanimously with little discussion. It seems to be the logical answer to the stifling EOI mandate that will ensure valuable classroom time is spent learning, not testing just to test.
As always, I welcome your comments and concerns about state government. Please feel free to contact me by writing to Senator Charles Wyrick at the State Capitol, Room 523, Oklahoma City, OK, 73105, call me at (405) 521-5561 or email me at wyrick@oksenate.gov. Wyrick calls for reduced testing for school Graduation
The post Wyrick calls for reduced testing for school Graduation appeared first on Grand Lake Business Journal.com.