Too much “high stakes testing” junior year? Maybe a little less next year.
A bill passed by the legislature would reduce the tangle of tests juniors contend with by at least one, replacing the controversial “Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium” tests in 11th grade with a test such as SAT or ACT college readiness exams.
“This bill passed both the House and Senate. It has not yet been signed by the governor,” said State Sen. Toni Boucher, whose 26th District includes Ridgefield, Redding, Wilton and New Canaan.
“The question is, will the governor sign it? Will the Department of Education support this? I’m hoping the governor will sign it,” Boucher said.
The bill would replace the Smarter Balanced Consortium or SBAC tests with what Boucher described as “a nationally recognized college readiness assessment” — most likely the SAT or ACT.
The bill would have the state Department of Education decide what test 11th graders take — with the added benefit that the state would pay for the exams, relieving parents of that burden for the official state-administered version of the test, Boucher said.
If students elected, as they often do with SATs, to take the exams more than once in hopes of improving their scores, the parents would have to pay for the additional tests — and the second set of scores wouldn’t be used by the state, they would only be for college admissions purposes.
The bill that passed only concerns the tests given to high school students. Testing with the smarter balanced assessments will continue for students in elementary and middle school.
Under the bill, whatever tests the state decides to give to high school students rather than the SBAC would be in 11th grade, which is a bit of a disappointment to Boucher, who’d like to see the state testing moved back a year to 10th grade.
“The problem is 11th grade. Let’s face it, these kids are taking every test imaginable,” she said.
When the state Department of Education dropped the old Connecticut Mastery Tests and replaced them with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) exams — that are based on the controversial Common Core curriculum — the testing got moved from 10th to 11th grade.
“By 11th grade most students have a heavy test burden. Juniors in high school could potentially be taking the SAT, the ACT and the PSAT and oftentimes a multitude of AP exams,” Boucher said. “This is not a good time to also add the controversial SBAC that recently replaced the Connecticut Mastery Test.”
This is exactly the complaint three Ridgefield High School juniors brought to the Ridgefield Board of Education in February.
“Junior year is arguably the most stressful year of a high school career,” Luke Tannenbaum told the school board. “This is compounded in part by the May testing schedule that includes SAT, subject tests, AP exams, and now the SBAC.”
In addition to being an additional test in 11th grade, the SBAC tests were problematic, according to Boucher, because they test for knowledge from the Common Core curriculum that has only recently been introduced in Connecticut — so many high school kids haven’t been taught from it, or studied it.
“They’re based on a curriculum that is being rolled out, that many of the high school students haven’t been exposed to,” Boucher said.
With the bill passed by both houses of the legislature, it needs only the governor’s signature — or his indifference.
As long as it isn’t vetoed by the governor, or amended in special session of the legislature, a bill will become law.
“All bills passed, if not signed or vetoed by the governor in 30 days, automatically become law,” Boucher said.
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