| By Ryan Quinn, Education Reporter for the Gazette-Mail
This month Congress passed a bill reducing federal education regulations and the West Virginia Board of Education voted to alter the state's current K-12 standards and greatly reduce standardized testing, and more big changes could be coming to Mountain State education.
But a new commission's discussions on one possible area of change â standardized testing â won't be open to the media or the wider public.
The Every Student Succeeds Act, which President Barack Obama recently signed after both houses of Congress passed it with wide bipartisan margins, will give the state more flexibility in how it holds its schools and school systems accountable.
And State Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano has formed a commission to study and suggest changes to what's currently a big part of West Virginia's accountability system: end-of-year standardized testing.
State education officials say the meetings of the 25-member commission won't be public. Deputy State Schools Superintendent Cindy Daniel said the group has about 25 to 30 members â including parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, local school board members, lawmakers and representatives from higher education and the governor's office â but state Department of Education spokeswoman Kristin Anderson said the members' names will only be released when the group makes its final recommendations, likely this spring.
"It's really a working session and there's nothing to report out at this point," Anderson said.
Just like its unpopular predecessor, No Child Left Behind, the new federal law requires that the state give annual standardized tests to practically all students in reading and math for grades three through eight and one grade in high school. But West Virginia currently goes beyond the requirement by testing grades nine, 10 and 11 in high school.
In a change from No Child Left Behind, the Every Student Succeeds Act will allow the use of the ACT or SAT in place of West Virginia's standardized test in high school, which is currently a Common Core standards-aligned exam called Smarter Balanced.
Kanawha County school board member Ryan White, who is also on the commission studying testing, said it seemed like there was a consensus among the committee at its first meeting this month that the state should get rid of Smarter Balanced in general and nix standardized tests in ninth and 10th grades.
"The consensus is Smarter Balanced doesn't really measure what kids are supposed to be learning," White told fellow Kanawha school board members during a meeting last week ...
READ REST OF STORY: State, federal changes leave questions about future By Ryan Quinn, Education Reporter for the Gazette-Mail
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