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Nebraska students may be getting even more testing and assessments as a result of two bills wending their way through the Nebraska Legislature.
The Legislature's Education Committee will have a hearing on one of those bills, LB1157, this afternoon.
Grand Island Superintendent Steve Joel believes changes are on the way.
"Right now, we're enjoying a system that has given us maximum flexibility," Joel said. "That flexibility is going to be altered. It's all because of accountability and how it relates to comparability."
One of the biggest changes under LB1157 is that there will be more than double the number of grades that will be tested and reported if the bill becomes law, according to information provided on the Nebraska Council of School Administrators Web site.
Under the current law, the State Board of Education must select three grade levels for assessment and reporting. Currently, those grades are 4, 8 and 11.
LB1157 changes this provision to state that seven grade levels will be designated for assessment and reporting: Grades 3 through 8 and one grade in high school, presumably selected by the State Board of Education, according to information provided by the Nebraska Council of School Administrators.
An even bigger change would be a move away from letting school districts develop their own local assessments or tests for students.
That system makes Nebraska unique among the 50 states when it comes to complying with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Most states have a statewide test for reading and math.
LB653, approved in 2007, mandates that Nebraska move to a statewide assessment in reading for 2009-10 and to a statewide assessment for math by 2010-11.
LB1157 would require the Nebraska Department of Education to contract with experts to review and rate locally developed assessments, identify the criteria for rating the model assessments, and finally, that the experts identify not more than four model assessments, according to the NCSA Web site.
Local school districts would then be required to adopt one of the four model assessments, the NCSA summary said.
LB1157 would eliminate the need to review and identify local assessment instruments. Instead, the legislation would require the State Board to prescribe a statewide reading assessment, developed in collaboration with the Education Service Units and approved by the ESU Coordinating Council, said the NCSA summary of the bill.
The same process would be applied to the statewide assessment in mathematics, which must be implemented beginning in the 2010-11 school year, the NCSA said.
Joel said the NCSA may have an idea how LB1157 is intended to work, as does the bill's sponsor, Education Committee Chairman Ron Raikes of Lincoln.
Still, he thinks the bill and all its ramifications are confusing to many people. Joel said he intends to attend this afternoon's hearing, but is unsure whether he'll testify.
He called LB1157 "one of the big (education) discussions" that the Nebraska Legislature will have this year, so he believes he should be at the hearing.
Northwest Superintendent Bill Mowinkel has read through the bill, but does not plan to attend today's hearing. He said the officials from the Nebraska Council of School Administrators, the Nebraska Department of Education and the State Board of Education apparently are among those who will testify.
A hearing was conducted in January on LB987, which would create a separately appointed commission to implement a statewide assessment system.
PoreB 2/25/08, jrf, chc
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