The West Virginia Board of Education voted Wednesday to pass a resolution strongly opposing a bill - up for amendments and a possible final vote in the Legislature Thursday - that would require schools to stop administering the current statewide Smarter Balanced end-of-year test.
In an abnormal move, the resolution was adopted through an item that didn't appear on the state school board's publicly posted agenda. It was added during the meeting through a motion board member Lloyd Jackson made and other board members agreed to.
Jackson presented it as an "emergency amendment, due to circumstances of imminent substantial harm" to the board, the education department, their employees, teachers, students and others.
When the Legislature was pushing a bill last year to repeal West Virginia's math and English standards, the board also called an emergency meeting to pass a resolution opposing it.
Wednesday's resolution says House Bill 4014 attempts to "usurp authority traditionally and appropriately exercised" by the state school board, including the authority over which tests are "appropriate to measure the success of students."
It also criticizes the legislation's apparent intent to require the state, without specifically saying so in the bill, to force adoption of ACT Aspire tests for most grades and the traditional ACT for high school juniors. It says the bill "rigs the system" to limit the choice for Smarter Balanced's replacement to only ACT's offerings, and says at least two ACT lobbyists have been involved with HB 4014's consideration.
Delegate Roy Cooper, R-Summers, previously said he believed every member of the House Education Committee had talks with ACT representatives.
"Never in the history of public education in West Virginia has the State Board effectively been limited by the legislature to selection of a vendor in such an important area of our education and accountability system," the resolution states.
Only board member Tom Campbell, a former delegate, voted against the resolution, saying he believes the Legislature has the right to do what it's doing and that he agrees with the amended version of the bill.
New board member Scott Rotruck wasn't in attendance for the vote.
"We have the Legislature making some suggestions, some constructive things that I think we should be discussing, but instead we stonewall," Campbell said.
"I am voting no," Campbell said angrily. "I am voting hell no."
Campbell said he sees the resolution as picking a fight with the Legislature, which he noted the state board depends on for funding. Fellow board member Bill White said he doesn't want to pick unnecessary fights with lawmakers.
"This happens to be one of the fights that I want to pick," White said.
The Senate Education Committee voted Monday to pass an amended version of the bill to the full Senate.
Unlike the version that already passed the House, Senate Education's amended version would no longer include a block on the K-12 science education standards that are set to take effect next school year, and it would remove a provision requiring the state school board to adopt the standards change recommendations of a panel of "subject matter experts" chosen by Senate President Bill Cole and House Speaker Tim Armstead.
Cole, R-Mercer, and Armstead, R-Kanawha, have expressed opposition to the Common Core national standards blueprint that the state's math and English standards greatly resemble, but science standards aren't a part of. Throughout the session, there has been little discussion of which specific math and English standards, if any, lawmakers object to.
The full Senate could refuse to adopt Senate Education's version. And even if that version is adopted, the bill would still require the state to dump Smarter Balanced, which was first given to students across West Virginia last school year.
Eighteen states used Smarter Balanced exams last school year, according to Luci Willits, deputy executive director of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium of states. She said this allowed for state-to-state comparability, with limitations regarding some states' individual choices in how to give the test.
But she said other states have dropped out of Smarter Balanced testing for this year, and that number could further decrease because of continuing opposition to the Common Core math and English language standards, which the test is aligned with.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.