Bill Text: DE HB55 | 2015-2016 | 148th General Assembly | Draft

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Bill Title: An Act To Amend Volume 79, Chapter 290 Of The Laws Of Delaware Relating To Education.

Sponsorship: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 14-8)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-01-19 - Stricken [HB55 Detail]

Download: Delaware-2015-HB55-Draft.html

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SPONSOR:	Rep. Lynn & Rep. K. Williams & Sen. Townsend
	Reps. Jaques, Miro, Matthews, Bennett, Osienski, Heffernan, Baumbach, Paradee, Keeley, Bolden, Potter, Briggs King, Dukes, Kenton, Spiegelman, Yearick; Sens. Sokola, Lopez

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

148th GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HOUSE BILL NO. 55

AN ACT TO AMEND VOLUME 79, CHAPTER 290 OF THE LAWS OF DELAWARE RELATING TO EDUCATION.

WHEREAS, the State Board of Education adopted the Common Core Standards in 2010; and

WHEREAS, House Bill No. 334 provided for the transition of the statewide student assessment system, the Delaware Comprehensive Student Assessment ("DCAS"), to the Smarter Balanced Assessment System ("Smarter"), by specifically, removing references to multiple assessments; and

WHEREAS, Smarter is the third assessment in five years, and is the first the test fully aligned to the Common Core Standards; and

WHEREAS, the Delaware Department of Education ("DOE"), after moving from the DSTP to DCAS as the State test, committed in June 2012 to using at least two years' worth of State testing data to set valid and reliable student growth targets that would fairly assess educators in tested grades and subjects, but currently refuses to do the same as the State moves from DCAS to Smarter; and

WHEREAS, Delaware has yet to develop a valid classroom level growth model for use with the Smarter, and DOE-contracted vendors have indicated that using a statistical target growth model for schools would not be valid at the classroom level; and

WHEREAS, it is in the best interest of educators, principals, students, and their families to continue using multiple years of data from the same test to determine student growth expectations; and

WHEREAS, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has indicated that it expects Smarter to be statistically normed and validated no sooner than after the second administration of the test in Spring 2015-2016; and

WHEREAS, Delaware encountered problems and delays with the introduction of Smarter's system and its supports with interim assessments only available for district use starting in January, teacher training for security, the administration of the interims, and the hand scoring of extended response items delayed to February, and little to no time for interim assessment use before the Summative testing window opened in March; and

WHEREAS, the U.S. Department of Education "USDOE") identified within the Delaware Year One, Year Two, and Year Three Race to the Top reports challenges that Delaware had with Common Core implementation including: provision of supports for LEA's to implement the Common Core Standards; a delay in producing needed instructional and curriculum materials; inconsistent Local Education Association implementation compounded by the lack of a clear metric of implementation progress; and a need to further engage parents and key stakeholders in the roll out and implementation of Common Core Standards and Smarter; and

WHEREAS, there is a substantial lack of confidence by the Delaware School Board Association, the Delaware Parent-Teacher Association, the Governor's Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens, the Delaware Association of School Administrators, and the Delaware State Education Association,in Smarter's scoring, scaling and modeling, and the aforementioned stakeholders further believe that the methodologies governingstudent growth data use have yet to be developed and refined and should, therefore, not be used to included student growth data as a significant contributing factor in high stakes decision making; and

WHEREAS, the Delaware State Education Association conducted a scientifically reliable poll administered by nationally recognized polling firm to assess support by Math and English Language Arts teachers for the Common Core Standards, with the poll results indicating that over 77% of Math and English Language Arts teachers felt the standards gave students the critical thinking and problem solving capability to succeed in the 21^st century: and

WHEREAS, that same poll results indicated that Math and Science Teachers did not believe the Common Core Ground for Common Core adequately prepared them for Smarter, and cite a continuing need for high quality professional development and time to create Common Core aligned lesson and materials; and

WHEREAS, the Governor's Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens questions if teachers have been given adequate training on how students with disabilities can adequately acquaint themselves with this new more rigorous assessment and be expected to succeed; and

WHEREAS, Delaware students need more time to become familiar with Smarter, since only 20% of Delaware's student population that was eligible for testing participated in a pilot test in only one content area assessment as part of Smarter field test; and

WHEREAS, the Smarter Balanced Consortium ruled that results of this pilot test failed to provide reliable data which could be used to establish valid growth goals; and

WHEREAS, high-stakes decisions involving teacher/principal evaluation based on assessments of the Common Core Standards before the standardshave been fully and properly implemented and before students have had sufficient opportunity to experience the new test is unwise and not in the best interest of Delaware students, teachers and principals, Delaware schools,and the general public; and

WHEREAS, the USDOE affirmed that DOE, in its ESEA Waiver Renewal Application, may propose a delay for an additional year before incorporating student growth scores as part of teacher/principal evaluations for use in making personnel decisions, delaying such action until school year 2016-2017; and

WHEREAS, DOE develops and submits the ESEA Waiver, which sets education policy for the next three years, compelling the General Assembly to state its position on whether or not to use the results of the Smarter Balanced assessment to make personnel decisions in the 2016-2017 school year;

NOW, THEREFORE;

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE:

Section 1.Amend �365, Chapter 290, Volume 79 of the Laws of Delaware by making deletions as shown by strike through and insertions as shown by underline as follows:

Section 365. The provisions of 14 Del. C. §154 and §155 c.1, and any implementing regulations in 14 DE Admin Code that the Delaware Department of Education determines to be inconsistent with the Department's ESEA Flexibility Request as approved by the U.S. Department of Education shall not be applicable to Delaware Public Schools and School Districts during the flexibility waiver period, and the department is authorized to promulgate interim regulations consistent with said application and approval which shall be effective during the flexibility waiver period.However, notwithstanding the foregoing, the department shall apply in its ESEA Waiver Renewal Application for a delay of an additional year before incorporating student growth scores as part of teacher/principal evaluations for use in making personnel decisions, thereby delaying such action until the school year 2016-2017.

SYNOPSIS

This bill requires that the State Department of Education include in its ESEA Waiver Renewal Application a request to the U.S. Department of Education an additional year before incorporating the Smarter Balanced Assessment into its evaluations of teachers and principals for personnel decisions.The first time the Smarter Balanced Assessments could factor into such evaluations would be the 2016-2017 school year.