After the West Virginia House Education Committee adjourned Friday following Republican and Democrat members meeting separately on a bill that was initially intended to repeal Common Core standards, the committee quickly passed a bipartisan version Saturday morning that wouldn't repeal the state's K-12 education standards.
But the bill, which now heads to the floor of the full House of Delegates, would end the state's current Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced standardized test; newly require a “standardized, curriculum-based, achievement college entrance examination” be given to all high school juniors; and allow parents or guardians to opt out their children from standardized testing. The bill would ban disciplining or lowering the grades of students who opt out.
Committee member Roy Cooper, R-Summers, said the bill sets up the state to switch from Smarter Balanced to tests developed by ACT. West Virginia currently isn't one of the states that gives all its students the ACT free of charge. He said he believes every member of the committee has had talks with ACT representatives, and he said he didn't know whether the bill could also allow the state to adopt SAT-developed tests.
The original version of House Bill 4014 would've repealed the state's math and English language arts standards, which greatly resemble Common Core, and a different version discussed for about six hours in the committee over two days would've also blocked the state's planned implementation next school year of new sciences standards that aren't Common Core-based. Delegates questioned the implications of the math and English language arts standards repeal, including the part of the bill requiring the state to revert to its pre-Common Core standards before having new ones ready for the 2017-18 school year.
The bill then disappeared from the committee's agenda from Friday of last week to Friday of this week, when committee Chairman Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson, said the committee planned to take up a new version that addressed members' concerns.
Delegate Dave Perry, D-Fayette and the committee's minority leader, said Republican committee members had caucus meetings for hours Friday afternoon and into the evening, and then voted to adjourn Friday evening over the objections of Democrats. He said Friday he opposed every version of this year's repeal legislation and wanted to see the bill voted either up or down.
But on Saturday, it took House Education about six minutes to pass six amendments to the new committee substitute version and pass the new version. In voice votes, there were no nays, including on Perry's own motion to end discussion on the bill to move immediately to a vote.
Perry said Democrats met with Espinosa before the meeting to share their concerns, and the approval of the amendments -- including the addition of the testing opt out provision and a provision that would limit time on year-end standardized testing to no more than 2 percent of a student's instructional time -- changed his mind.
Perry said he also appreciated an approved amendment that removed language he said “bashed the state Department of Education.”
Part of the large removed portion of the “legislative authority, intent, and findings” section said: “Despite their transformative nature, the state [Board of Education] adopted and implemented the Common Core State Standards without adequately articulating to parents and the general public what were the changes in curriculum and instructional strategies required by the new standards, why the changes were made, and how parents could help their children succeed, all leading to confusion, lack of confidence and mistrust in the state's public schools. The state board's belated outreach in the summer and fall of 2015 in light of rising controversy failed to regain the trust of parents and the general public.”
Another amendment removed the bill's requirement to return science standardized testing to grades 3 through 11.
The state education department, in partnership with West Virginia University, launched a review of the state's Common Core-based standards last year that led to revised standards that are set to be introduced next school year. Controversy persisted over the revised standards' continued extensive similarities to Common Core.
Cooper and Espinosa, who in January noted concerns that the state's upcoming new standards are too similar to Common Core, say the new bill would put into law the education department's argument that the Common Core standards have been repealed. Cooper said that in the Friday Republican caucus meetings, Espinosa and House Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, asked members to try to work together to pass a bill out that “codified” the repeal.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.