Last week's action by the Arkansas Board of Education to keep a controversial testing regimen for the public schools came off as an in-your-face reaction to Gov. Asa Hutchinson's decision to switch to different tests.
Hutchinson had announced rather matter-of-factly a few days earlier that Arkansas would change its provider of standardized tests to ACT and ACT Aspire.
Then came the Thursday meeting of the Board of Education and a strong reminder that, while he may be governor, that board is still responsible for such decisions.
And they're not ready to make the switch.
The board voted 7-1 to reject the switch to ACT and 7-1 to contract again to use online tests from PARCC, which stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
Board members clearly had questions about how a quick switch would serve the state's goals of consistency and stability in its testing system as well as questions about whether other vendors should have been considered before the governor named ACT as the next provider.
They are good questions and deserved examination. Remember, the impact of these decisions reach to every school child, teacher and administrator in the public schools.
Arkansas taxpayers invest mightily in these schools and need to see the progress the tests are supposed to show.
The whole point is to determine whether the schools are providing students what they need to know to compete. Tests measure that knowledge. If the tests keep changing, how accurately can progress really be measured?
Notably, the nine-member Board of Education is made up of appointees chosen by former Gov. Mike Beebe. Terms of two members will expire this month and a third has announced he will leave the board because of a job change, so Hutchinson will be adding his own appointees soon.
But the lone vote in support of Hutchinson's recommendations last week came from one of the board members he will replace, so there's no guarantee a later revote would reflect a change of heart from the board.
PARCC has only been in use in Arkansas for one year, although it took several years for schools to get ready to administer the tests. PARCC followed the Benchmark tests that Arkansas schools formerly used to measure student progress.
In its short life here, PARCC did prove controversial with some people, including most state lawmakers. They voted in the regular session earlier this year to end the tests in Arkansas schools but did allow one more year.
Nevertheless, Gov. Hutchinson decided to ask the Board of Education to terminate its contract with PARCC immediately and enter negotiations with ACT Inc. of Iowa for the ACT Aspire tests for grades three through eight and 10 and for the ACT college entrance exam, which would be given to every 11th grader at no cost to the students.
He was following recommendations of the Governor's Council on Common Core Review, which is led by Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin.
Griffin and the review panel have been hosting listening sessions around the state taking feedback on Common Core and PARCC. The group does not include representation from the Board of Education, which may be part of the problem here.
Whatever the reason, we have a Board of Education at odds with the governor, this review panel and some irritated lawmakers over how students should be tested.
Incidentally, those lawmakers are the latest to be stirring more controversy.
Even though the bill the Legislature passed would clearly allow another year of PARCC testing, some legislators are gearing up to block any contract extension.
At least, they're counting votes to see if they can block it.
A contract for administering the PARCC tests will have to go through the Arkansas Legislative Council and other legislative review. So lawmakers could make some trouble for PARCC's continuation.
PARCC is, of course, all tangled up in the ongoing review of the Common Core standards and what may or may not happen to them.
There was some suggestion that a quick kill to the PARCC tests might be some kind of bone for those who want to get rid of Common Core.
Maybe so. Maybe not.
Still, the Board of Education did right to slow down the switch.
Commentary on 06/17/2015