<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2013 Gov. John Hickenlooper joined two former governors at the Colorado Capitol on Wednesday to caution against a sweeping reduction in student testing.<\/p>\n
The news conference \u2013 organized by former Govs. Bill Owens, a Republican, and Roy Romer, a Democrat \u2013 comes as the Legislature debates several measures aimed at reducing assessments and increasing flexibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat system is under attack,\u201d Owens said. \u201cOur friends from both the left and the right, for differing reasons, don\u2019t want to test, don\u2019t want to measure, don\u2019t want to have accountability. This is stunning to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only two proposals remain as frontrunners \u2013 House Bill 1323 and Senate Bill 257. The House measure perhaps has the greatest chance, as it closely models recommendations made earlier this year by a task force led by Durango School District 9-R Superintendent Dan Snowberger, which include eliminating several tests in 11th and 12th grades, other than the ACT. The Senate version is a bit more complicated by addressing greater flexibility for local districts. An unresolved issue is ninth-grade assessments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is so nonsensical and illogical to raise the possibility you\u2019re not going to test in ninth grade,\u201d said Romer, who served as the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2000 to 2007.<\/p>\n
Other bills are less likely to pass, or already have been killed, because they would repeal Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, exams, and move the state toward federal minimum standards.<\/p>\n
Hickenlooper is skeptical about another bill that would allow parents to opt their children out of tests without facing penalties. He stopped short of saying he would veto the measure if it lands on his desk, but he expressed serious concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way a testing system works is everyone uses it,\u201d Hickenlooper said, flanked by the two former governors. \u201cIf suddenly large segments of our population \u2026 decide that they\u2019re not going to take the test, you really invalidate the value of that test.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters of the effort say they are answering outcries. Much of the controversy revolves around federal Common Core, including PARCC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI challenge all three governors to show parents where anyone has lost their way, other than the frequency of assessments and the interference that has caused with learning,\u201d said Sen. Chris Holbert, R-Parker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hickenlooper joins Owens, Romer to raise concerns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,13,481,102],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-test-examination"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112956"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}