There is one 2014 bill still alive that can protect some aspects of our students’ privacy, SB 343, but it must be altered. Senator Sam Cataldo has submitted an amendment that would explicitly exclude dispositional questions from the Common Core aligned Smarter Balanced Assessments. Dispositional questions ask students about their values, beliefs, and attitudes. Dispositions were included in SB 48 (2013) when originally proposed, but was struck from the final bill. It is critical that we remain true to the legislative intent of keeping dispositional questions out of these tests. The Smarter Balanced Assessment becomes mandatory in 2015. Sen. Cataldo’s amendment reads as follows:
193-C: Areas of Assessment. The academic areas to be assessed shall include, but not be limited to: reading and language arts, mathematics, science, history, geography, civics, and economics. The assessment shall be directly related to the assessment of student knowledge and skills and not psychological data including assessment of non-cognitive skills or attributes, psychological resources, mindsets, learning strategies, attitudes, dispositions, or social skills.
The House Education Committee will have a work session on SB 343 on Thursday, April 17th at 10:00am in Legislative Office Building (LOB) room 207. Please join us in urging the subcommittee to consider this amendment.
Please contact the House Education Committee about this proposal and protecting our children from these inappropriate questions. They cannot be objectively scored and are not relevant to testing subject-matter knowledge and skill. Calls are most effective, but emails are certainly helpful. The entire committee can be contacted by using this email: HouseEducationCommittee@le
