It has been a long time since a State Board meeting was so contentious that it was painful to watch, but we had one yesterday. State Board member Martha Zoller tried several times to change the tone and get the meeting back on track. We appreciated her efforts. While disagreements between the State Superintendent/Department of Education and a few members of the State Board are often bubbling beneath the surface, this month those disagreements were obvious and heated. While the main fight centered around testing, it is clear that there are issues beyond testing that need to be worked out between the Board and Department. Budget Committee After a much longer than expected executive session, the first item on the Budget Committee agenda started the wrangling. In what seemed to be a relatively benign item, the committee was asked to approve an additional $10 million in funding to administer the Georgia Milestones for the fall semester. According to the Department, the increase in funding is required because the budget anticipated approval of the waiver from the US Department of Education which would have allowed the state to forego the assessments this year. Since we do have to give them, money has to be allocated. Right off the bat it became a fight over funding for the new formative assessment, DRC BEACON. The sticking point was the $1.5 million set aside for BEACON vs the amount of funding and resources that are being provided to the innovative assessment pilots currently under development. Several members of the Board pointed out that more was being spent on BEACON than was spent on the pilots, while the Department noted that because the DOE and Board will eventually have to choose between the pilots, they are staying out of it to prevent a conflict of interest. As is often the case in a budget, there are competing interests here. The innovative assessment pilots are federally approved but received no federal funding. These pilots are ultimately to lead to a replacement for Milestones. In an unusual move, the federal Department approved multiple pilots for Georgia but the state has to choose one eventually to move foreward. At the same time, the state -- through legislation and otherwise -- has increased the emphasis on formative assessments. Formative assessments are given periodically and designed to see where students are as opposed to summative assessments, given at the end of the year or course and designed around finding out how students did. The accountability system is built around summative assessments. BEACON is part of that shift toward including more formative assessments. Ultimately, this item was pulled for a separate vote, while the other 15 items of the committee's agenda were added to the consent agenda. Rules Committee Following the fireworks of the Budget Committee, the Rules Committee provided a brief reprieve but also foreshadowed the discussion to come. Of note, the approval of the much discussed Health Education Standards were pulled from the agenda. Little explanation was given. The Rules Committee did move forward the Workforce Ready Career Pathway, as well as the Language Assistance Program for English Language Learners, both of which were held out for a separate vote. Also pulled for a separate vote was State Superintendent Richard Woods' proposal to have the Milestones End of Course tests count only as .01% of a student's grade for the 2020-2021 school year, as opposed to the current 20%. Board Member Mike Royal objected to the item being placed on the consent agenda, but agreed to hold further discussion until the full Board meeting. Full Board Meeting - VIDEO LINK At times Thursday afternoon, it was hard to tell where they were in the agenda because of the constant discussion around testing. It really came to a head during the Superintendent's report given by Dr. Allison Timberlake and Chief of Staff Matt Jones. Dr. Timberlake provided an update of the assessment program for the 2020-2021 school year, and the innovative assessment pilot. When the Chief of Staff began his update on Governor Kemp's assessment task force, tempers in the room began to flair. Several board members questioned why they were just hearing about this task force, while Superintendent Woods pushed back noting that the task force was the Governor's. This discussion quickly became a discussion about the Superintendent's end of course grade weight proposal from the Rules Committee. Board Member Helen Rice voiced her concern that they did not have enough notice on the proposal, while the Superintendent noted they had over a week to look over his suggestion. To save everyone reading time, I won't go into each and every argument made by each side. Ultimately it boiled down to the Superintendent and a handful of Board Members (notably, all appointed for the first time by Governor Kemp) making the point that the Board supported an assessment waiver for the 2020-2021 school year, and when that was denied the work around was the make the tests count for so little that they would be inconsequential. The other side was a group of Board members who argued that the test should still count for this year, and by removing its importance, the students would not take it seriously and that there should still be a level of accountability. For those unfamiliar with the assessment system, here is a little background on the issue. The end of course tests were created in the A+ Education Reform Act of 2000. They were intended to replace the graduation tests over time. Since assessment results were often used to claim educators were not doing a good job, there was concern that students would not take them seriously. They weren't used to determine graduation or anything else. The first year, the score was put on the transcript then became a weighted part of the student's final grade. It was set at 20%. Over 15 years later, here we are. The State Superintendent recommended amending the State Board rule so that this year the End of Course tests would count for .01% instead of 20% of the student's grade. Their grade would solely be based on their class work. Since these are high school courses, there is an impact on the GPA which impacts class rank and scholarships. No other Milestones assessment impacts the student's grade. At the end of it all, those in opposition to the Superintendent's proposal offered a solution of their own. Instead of the tests counting .01% or 20%, the test would count for 10% of a student's grade for this school year. A vote was held on both proposals, with the .01% proposal failing, and the 10% proposal passing. Almost everyone who voted "yes" on one proposal voted "no" on the other and vice versa. The discussion over this issue lasted for hours. There were pointed comments, snapping at one another, crying, and overall a general disagreement with the process. It was not all confined to the meeting, as the Superintendent was quick to release a statement condemning the actions of the board using language that mirrored his response to Secretary Betsy DeVos when the waiver was initially denied. It is important to note that the vote on this issue was to POST the potential change in the rule, and that there will be a lot more discussion on this issue before it is all said and done. State rulemaking requires a 30 day public comment period before the rule is adopted, so the public has a chance to weigh in on this issue. Check here for the instructions. The deadline is November 12th. As for the rest of the meeting, all the items on the agenda were passed by the board, including the testing budget item pulled for a separate vote. The next meeting of the State Board will be November 19th. |