Oklahoma City (April 22, 2009) State Capitol
– Several House Democrats on Wednesday worked to stop SB1111, a bill
that would move oversight of statewide educational testing from one
agency to another. They argue that the measure, which passed the House
58-39, does nothing to solve problems in our state testing system or
benefit children in the classroom.
“This is not going to improve accountability, it’s just going to
shift accountability from one department to another. This bill’s
proponents aren’t making any improvements – they’re just playing the
political version of musical chairs with bureaucratic oversight,” said
Rep. Wes Hilliard, D-Sulphur.
“Anyone who tells you that taking responsibility from one state
agency and shifting it to another is ‘reform’ is more worried about
looking good than doing the right thing.”
The main effect of the bill would be to transfer all duties and
responsibilities of the Oklahoma School Testing Program and
determination of schools’ Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) from the State
Department of Education to a new bureaucracy, which would be called the
Educational Quality and Accountability Office.
In reality, by moving assessment and student data collection out of
the State Department of Education, SB 1111 would separate these
functions from curriculum and instruction and hinder the coordination
of these functions.
“Once again, we’ve got a solution looking for a problem,” stated
Democratic Leader Danny Morgan, D-Prague. “The issue we’re discussing
today is supposedly a huge overhaul in the educational testing system
in Oklahoma. However, there have been no public hearings on this
issue, no task force studies, no input from educators. For a bill
that’s supposed to be about transparency, this process has been less
than transparent.
“Nobody’s been telling me that this bill will fix education in Oklahoma – or even improve test scores,” he added.
Rep. Morgan believes that this legislation will prove much more costly than its supporters claim.
“We’re going to wholesale move a massive bureaucracy that doesn’t
have the staff or the expertise to deal with testing, and the bill’s
proponents telling me that they’re going to make this large-scale
shuffle without costing the state a dime,” Rep. Morgan said. “I see
absolutely no way this is not going to cost money or do more harm than
good to education.”
If implemented, this bill would be very costly to the state, as it
would add another layer of bureaucracy to our already overburdened
schools and would require costly redesign and redeployment of testing
systems.
“My colleagues across the aisle talked a lot about how this bill
will bring about change. I agree that change is good – but change for
its own sake is a waste of time and money,” said Rep. Hilliard. “It
seems that the bill’s proponents are conflating ‘change’ and ‘reform’ –
they are not the same thing.”
Republican Rep. Lee Denney today noted that part of why this bill
was introduced was because, “We don’t want the fox guarding the hen
house” – referring to a phrase in a report recently released by OBEC
(Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition). Rep. Morgan doesn’t
believe this bill does anything to change that.
“SB1111 doesn’t address the notion of ‘the fox guarding the henhouse.’ It just moves the henhouse to a new guard fox,” he noted.
Rep. Morgan filed an amendment that would have addressed the
concerns in the OBEC report by separating the accountability function
from the cut score setting process. However, the Republicans tabled
that amendment before even hearing it.
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