House Democrats take on CSAP tests

Bill would drop some writing, math and science sections
May 1, 2008By Joe Hanel | Herald Denver Bureau
DENVER - Democrats pushed through a major rollback of standardized testing Wednesday, voting for a bill to eliminate all writing tests from the Colorado Student Assessment Program as well as some reading, math and science tests.

The Federal NCLB law requires a lot of tests -- the bill eliminates that tests that aren't required by federal law. That will save us $10 million a year and the bill puts that money back into real education two ways:preventing high school students from dropping out ongoing education for teachers

Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, advanced two bills to cut back the CSAP. House Bill 1357, which the House gave its initial approval, pares back the CSAP to the minimum standard required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. That means eliminating all writing tests, the reading and math tests in grades nine and 10, and the 10th-grade science test.

Solano's other bill, HB 1186, prohibits schools from punishing students who skip the CSAP test. The House gave it final approval Wednesday, sending it to Gov. Bill Ritter for his signature.

But Solano's first bill has put her at odds with the sponsors of Ritter's major education-reform plan, which he calls the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids, or CAP4K.

Which is odd because one of the two key arguments for CAP4K is that are current standards are wrong and have to be rewritten. The CSAPs test how well kids have learned the state standards. If the state standards are wrong, why not (at least) eliminate the CSAPs that aren't required by federal law.

(The second arguement for CAP4K is weird. It's that when kids in Colorado aren't learning, it's because we don't test them enough).

"CAP4K will rebuild the entire house. House Bill 1357 repaints the front door," said Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Genesee, one of the sponsors of the CAP4K bill, Senate Bill 212.

"CAP4K will end CSAP as we know it, but in its place will put relevant, timely assessments," Witwer said.

So we've been slavishly following state standards that turn out to be irrelevant and untimely. How many students, parents, teachers, schools and communities have been harassed, threatened and insulted over their CSAP results? Now we're admitting the CSAPs test the wrong things.

Officials from Ritter's Department of Education testified against Solano's bill at a hearing several weeks ago.

"The governor will have to decide if these two bills can mesh," Solano said.

CSAP's critics say the results aren't useful because grades come in too late to help individual students. The CAP4K bill will tie the new tests to new curriculum standards that will focus on college preparation.

But they'll be developed by the same people who came up with the CSAPs.

But Solano found many allies among fellow Democrats who dislike standardized tests in general when she pushed ahead with HB 1357 on Wednesday.

Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, sang an anti-CSAP song to the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky."

"Don't think about thinking - it's not on the test," Merrifield sang.

Colorado's obsession with testing has robbed the passion from teaching and the love of learning from students, said Merrifield, a retired teacher.Rep. Ray Rose, R-Montrose, led the defense of CSAPs for Republicans.

Critics are wrong when they say schools "teach to the test," Rose said."We teach to children the knowledge they need, and then we test them to see if they've absorbed that information," he said.

Well, not really. The Dept. of Education, which wrote the standards, now says those standards are bad.

Earlier in the morning, the House gave final approval to Solano's other bill, HB 1186.

It prevents schools from punishing students who skip the CSAP. Solano said schools have withheld credits or permission to join school activities.

But schools still will be penalized when students skip, a fact that irritated Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder.

"What this preserves is the true idiocy of the school-accountability system," Pommer said. "The teacher gets penalized, the school gets penalized, but there's no penalty for the individual student."

We would never pass a law saying if you get caught speeding we fine someone else. But our so-called "school accountability" law says students don't have to take the CSAP but, if they don't, we subtract points from the results of the students who did take the test. What sense does that make?

Without the penalty, three Southwest Colorado schools would have had higher scores on last year's School Accountability Reports. Florida Mesa Elementary in Durango and Dolores Middle School would have gone from average to high, and Pleasant View Elementary north of Cortez would have gone from low to average.

Think about that. Under stand a federal law a school can get shut down if it doesn't do well on the CSAPs. There are schools all across the state that have lost points because students, with their parents permission, chose not take the test.

Additional votes on both the CAP4K bill and Solano's CSAP bill are scheduled for today.