ATLANTA (AP) - A bill that would cut five mandatory standardized tests for Georgia public school students is moving ahead, although some longtime education leaders say Georgia is giving up other goals in seeking to decrease testing time.
Gov. Brian Kemp and state Superintendent Richard Woods are among those pushing Senate Bill 367, which passed the Senate Education and Youth Committee Monday on a unanimous vote. The measure moves to the full Senate for more debate.
“This puts testing in the proper role and strikes the right balance, ensuring accountability and ensuring high expectations for our students but also allowing our teachers to teach,” the Republican Woods told committee members Monday.
The measure would drop four of eight end-of-course exams in high school. Economics would be one of the now-required tests to go, and the state Board of Education would decide the others - possibly geometry, physical science and American literature.
The federal government requires high school students take at least one test in math, science and English/language arts. The current American history test is not required by the federal government, but Georgia would keep it. All eight courses would still be required for graduation.
The law also would require the state to cut test questions that allow Georgia to compare with students in other states, in an effort to shorten the length of the Georgia Milestones standardized tests.
Woods said Georgia can see how its students stack up from ACT and SAT college test scores, as well as from a small sample of Georgia students who take the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But state Sen. Lindsey Tippins said Monday that those are not enough to tell how students, especially those in lower grades, are doing. Tippins, a Marietta Republican, had insisted on national comparisons in earlier legislation when he led the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
“We need a very good measure of student achievement,” Tippins told Woods.
Gwinnett County Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks, longtime leader of the state’s largest school district, said his district might consider adding national yardstick tests in elementary and middle school.
Others, though, expressed no qualms, with all witnesses - including Wilbanks - saying they support the bill
“We test our kids to death,” said Charlotte Booker, president of the Georgia Association of Educators. The 26,000-member teachers group is a chapter of the National Education Association.
Cutting the number of high school tests would raise the stakes even more on the remaining tests, putting all the weight on them as the state calculates academic ratings for schools and districts.
“You’re basically putting the accountability in high schools in far fewer students’ hands,” said Robert Costley, executive director of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders, a group of school administrators.
The proposed legislation also would let the state Board of Education drop the high school exams from being considered in course grades. Now, the board requires that a test count for one-fifth of a student’s overall course grade.
For younger students, the plan would drop a fifth grade social studies test not required by the federal government but would hang onto an optional eighth grade test in Georgia history.
The measure would require students be tested in the last five weeks of the school year, trying to push back state testing, on the belief that the move would provide more instructional time for teachers. Tippins said he feared districts were ignoring an earlier law requiring them to test as late as possible and said he thought Georgia could do better than five weeks.
The plan would let the state conduct an inventory of tests given by local districts, typically used to benchmark progress toward meeting state standards, in an effort to eliminate redundant tests and suggest the most effective tests. State officials are discussing a voluntary benchmark test that the state would pay for, but it’s not mandated in the proposal.
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