DIEGNAN ENTERS PARCC EXAM FRAY WITH BILL FORMALIZING OPT-OUT PROCEDURES
Grassroots opposition to online testing continues to grow, while administration soldiers on with preparations for next month’s rollout
- State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex)
As the debate rages in public over New Jersey’s new student testing, state legislators are entering the fray with several new bills that could limit the exams and how they are used.
State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly’s education committee, yesterday introduced a bill to provide a process for students to sit out the upcoming PARCC exams, including a timeline for families to give a 14-day notice to their districts and a requirement that schools provide someplace supervised for opt-outs during testing.
In addition, Diegnan said he planned a second bill that would delay the use of the new tests as a measurement of school, staff, or students for as much as three years. The details are still being worked out, but he said that while the tests would still be administered, they would not yet have any consequences associated with them.
“I’m just wondering if we want to take a time-out, and reflect on where we are and where we should be,” Diegnan said yesterday. “The distrust that is out there I find to be really distressing.”
Meanwhile, another bill sponsored by state Assemblyman David Rible (R-Monmouth) passed unanimously in the Assembly that would put new safeguards on the use and disclosure of student data.
The long-term prospects of the bills are far from certain, and the Christie administration hasn’t much hedged so far in proceeding as planned with Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), starting next month, while districts continue to prepare for the exams.
But leaders of the New Jersey Education Association, the teachers union that has started a public campaign against the testing, continue to press for what they call a “testing bill of rights” out of the Legislature.
Yesterday, its chief lobbyist said she saw it would come in a package of bills, including Diegnan’s and Rible’s.
“It’s not going to be just one bill,” said Ginger Gold Schnitzer, the NJEA’s Diegnan Enters PARCC Exam Fray with Bill Formalizing Opt-Out Procedures - NJ Spotlight: