When legislators struck a final-hour compromise last week to reduce student testing in Colorado, they laid the foundation for letting school districts experiment with building their own alternatives to state tests.
One Republican lawmaker called it a “pathway out of PARCC.” The multistate testing effort, which began in Colorado this spring, has its share of supporters and critics.
But doubts and questions surround the pilot program, including whether students in participating districts will have to take state tests and endure double-testing while the districts prove their mettle.
House Bill 1323 essentially creates a contest for districts interested in trying to develop a new statewide test, with the losers potentially walking away with nothing and no guarantee any effort that prevails can clear a host of political hurdles.
The language was crafted in part to help rural districts working on an initiative that moves beyond relying on state test scores as the primary measure for holding schools and districts accountable.
However, some players in the rural effort already are distancing themselves from the legislation, saying they are interested in changing how accountability works, not building the next statewide test.
“Why would anyone put themselves out there like that?” said attorney Kathy Gebhardt, who is advising the districts. “It was pretty much created from whole cloth by legislators behind closed doors, which is not the best way for policy to be made.”
The pilot project in the testing legislation would allow districts individually or as a group to create tests or use existing ones as alternatives to state tests.
The idea is to give educators quicker, better feedback to guide instruction — schools wait months to learn state test results now — without compromising school accountability.
State test results are key factors to determining district accreditation ratings, along with graduation and dropout rates. Schools that are struggling are put on improvement plans.
In the first phase, participating districts — there is no limit on how many — would give the alternative tests for two years in at least one grade each in elementary, middle and high school.
The tests still would need to track student progress on state standards, including the contentious Common Core standards in math and English.
The districts also would need to show their results are comparable to state test results — tough, complicated work, experts say.
The state Board of Education would pick two finalists for Phase 2, which would last up to two years and involve giving the alternative tests in grades three through 11.
The board either would recommend one of the finalists as Colorado’s new test or stick with existing PARCC and CMAS tests. Any switch would require legislation.
State Sen. Mike Johnston, a Denver Democrat, argued that for the plan to win needed approval from the federal government, the end result had to be a new single statewide test, not a “thousand flowers blooming.”
Colorado had moved toward seeking more flexibility in tests and accountability before the legislature acted, said Elliott Asp, special assistant to the education commissioner.
In March, state education officials in an application for a new waiver to the No Child Left Behind law notified the U.S. Department of Education of their plans to seek approval for an assessment pilot.
Asp said officials have been working with other states and the Center for Assessment, which helped New Hampshire win federal approval to try local tests.
One key piece of the Colorado legislation— added at the last minute — calls for the state to also ask for a waiver from federal law so students taking pilot tests won’t have to take the state tests, too.
New Hampshire won such an allowance. But that came after the state had been double-testing students to demonstrate the tests were valid and comparable. Colorado may be expected to do the same.
Districts show interest
Colorado districts critical of current tests are showing interest.
Douglas County Superintendent Liz Celania-Fagen said talks are underway about an “assessment summit” with her district, Boulder Valley School District and others to discuss partnering on a pilot.
She said the idea is appealing if it means better measures, quicker feedback and buy-in from teachers and students. She said the district does not want to double-test students.
The rural districts are taking a different path.
Their accountability project originated in the Mancos School District, west of Durango; won backing from the Colorado Association of School Boards; and has grown to 13 districts.
Support for teachers, fair disciplinary policies, extra learning time, attendance rates and health measures all could factor in accountability.
Districts could choose from a menu of criteria to suit their needs — although one must be student growth. Measures potentially would include state and local tests, surveys and audits.
“The system we have today — high-stakes assessment equals accountability — is wrong,” said Mancos superintendent Brian Hanson. “In rural districts, there is much more to the culture of the school, much more to what local communities deem successful, than that one-snapshot, one-size-fits-all test we have come to know the last 17 years.”
Hanson said the districts do not want to develop their own tests, but use existing formative assessments — tests that track students as they learn and give quick feedback — possibly alongside PARCC.
The testing bill awaiting Gov. John Hickenlooper’s signature allows for such testing flexibility. But the rural districts are not convinced it is a good fit or that a federal waiver is needed for what they’ve proposed.
“We are actually saying we want more assessments,” said Dolores County Superintendent Bruce Hankins. “We want them to be meaningful, though. We want more accountability. But we want it to be meaningful.”
Asp said the state education department has not endorsed the rural plan, which is set to be introduced Thursday to the state Board of Education.
Independently, a 30-member work group is studying potential changes to Colorado’s accountability system, Asp said.
Questioning pilot project
Others question whether the pilot project in the testing legislation will draw any takers. Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, sees too many pitfalls.
Among them, he said, is it will be difficult, if not impossible, to test only a portion of students in Phase 1 and still meet requirements that data determine sufficient growth for each student and be disaggregated to reflect how minority and poor students are doing.
“A school district would have to be crazy to take it on,” Welner said. “The legislation could have truly invited pilot innovation, but they loaded this with poison pills.”
Other developments — a Republican in the White House or a rewrite of No Child Left Behind — could allow Colorado more leeway in developing local tests on a grander scale.
Republican state Sen. Chris Holbert of Parker said he wants to talk to the federal government about letting multiple districts work toward using different tests producing solid, timely, comparable data.
He said he was surprised the pilot project — which he hoped would be more expansive — might not appeal to the rural districts.
“Maybe,” Holbert said, “we have our first education bill for 2016.”
Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com or twitter.com/egorski
