{"id":113803,"date":"2015-03-19T19:30:02","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T01:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/high-school-students-advise-lawmakers-on-standardized-tests\/"},"modified":"2015-03-19T19:30:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T01:30:02","slug":"high-school-students-advise-lawmakers-on-standardized-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/high-school-students-advise-lawmakers-on-standardized-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"High school students advise lawmakers on standardized tests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango High School senior Logan Graham, second from left, joined other students on the Colorado Youth Advisory Council in describing, from the viewpoint of a student, what it is like to deal with a maze of student assessment tests. The Legislature is looking at easing the testing burden on students.<\/span>Peter Marcus\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Durango High School senior Logan Graham believes people underestimate the interest young people have in the legislative process.<\/p>\n

He joined with other members of the Colorado Youth Advisory Council, or COYAC, on Monday at the state Capitol to outline legislative priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents and youth care more about these issues than a lot of people realize, and I think a lot of youth are a little disappointed in how polarized politics has become,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

In addition to addressing issues around water supply, public safety and mental health, the students were in a unique position to comment on testing standards.<\/p>\n

The Legislature just last week introduced a measure that aims to ease requirements. But the issue is plagued by partisan talk about federal Common Core standards, including PARCC testing.<\/p>\n

Students, however, were able to take politics out of the subject, instead viewing the issue through the lens of simply being a student trying to navigate the winding maze of assessments in the state.<\/p>\n

COYAC students presented policy recommendations directly to lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Several lawmakers were interested in how testing has changed since the implementation of PARCC. Students tried to steer the conversation back to overall assessment requirements.<\/p>\n

In addition to the testing issue, students also suggested that lawmakers should attach a \u201cfuture note\u201d to water bills. The concept is similar to a fiscal note, which looks at the long-term financial impact of legislation on the state. A \u201cfuture note\u201d would look at the long-term impact of water legislation on the state.<\/p>\n

On the subject of public safety and mental health, students recommended that lawmakers develop an online suicide-prevention chat service. Because rural students are not always able to make it to a face-to-face meeting with a counselor, having an online chat system could be beneficial, they said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, who established COYAC through legislation in 2008, said it is critical to hear the needs of Colorado\u2019s future leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe deeply in the importance of getting young people involved in the issues and policies that affect our state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango senior offers unique insight on standardized tests<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,592,13,70,93],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-durango-high-school","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-news-lead","tag-students"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113803","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=113803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113803"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}