Reps again push for waiving assessment testing

Two state legislators have reintroduced a bill that would cancel end-of-year state testing for the 2020-2021 school year due to the coronavirus pandemic and the complications it has caused.
Representatives Lisa Sobecki, D – Toledo, and Jeff Crossman, D – Parma, reintroduced House Bill 686 that would exempt public and chartered non-public schools from administering the state achievement assessments for the 2020-21 school year.
In its original form, the bill also prohibited the state department of education from publishing and issuing ratings for overall grades, components, and individual measures on the state report cards and submitting preliminary data for report cards for school districts and buildings for the school year.
“Although HB 686 never received a hearing during the last General Assembly, we continued to hear from school administrators, teachers, and parents about the importance of canceling state testing again due to the ongoing pandemic,” said Rep. Sobecki. “We are still hearing from constituents today that we should not have state testing this spring, so we decided to reintroduce our bill.”
Sobecki and Crossman plan to meet with Speaker of the House Bob Cupp to discuss the bill. As of last Wednesday the bill hadn’t been assigned to a committee.
“We know there is broad and bipartisan support for this legislation, which is why Rep. Sobecki and I have continued to press this issue,” said Rep. Crossman. “We have reached out to the speaker’s office multiple times, both during the last General Assembly and this one, to meet with Speaker Cupp to discuss the importance of this legislation, and we will continue to do so. Forcing state mandated tests under the current pandemic conditions makes no sense at this point.”
Jim Witt, superintendent of Lake schools, said he supports the bill.
“I am in full support of dropping achievement tests. Kids have been through so much in the last 11 months and adding another stressor into their lives is just not good for kids,” he said. “Achievement tests are also costly - I think somewhere in the vicinity of $1 billion per year. At a time when state funding to schools continues to be cut due to a lack of resources, this would be an area where a cost savings could be recognized as well. I commend Ms. Sobecki and her colleague for their efforts.”
A spokesman for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators said the organization hasn’t yet taken a position on the bill.
Michael Ferguson, superintendent of Genoa schools, also favors waiving the state testing.
“I don't believe there is any value in testing students in a year where state-wide they have been on a variety of learning platforms: hybrid, virtual or full-time in person. Some will have been involved in all three before the year is out. Attendance has been fractured due to isolations and quarantines,” he said “We have had individual students on quarantine as many as five times already with half the year remaining. State assessments will not account for all these interruptions in the learning process. Our own internal assessments are a better way to gauge the growth of our students. They can take into account all the challenges our students have endured, they are less stressful on teachers and students and they are far more accurate.”