Hopefully California Is Clearing the Way for Some Sanity Here

Bob Plain:

“We need to change the outcome of the test,” Mancuso wrote, “not the tests.”

The truth is that Rhode Island needs to change both the outcome AND the test – this is demonstrable by the fact that Rhode Island is changing the test, next year.

I can’t think of any reason not to hold off on implementing this very controversial state mandate until at least the state’s preferred test is in place – other than that it would put federal funding in jeopardy. In other words, the NECAP graduation requirement isn’t about testing or math. It’s about budgets.

We'll have to watch how the feds respond to California's decision to skip a year of high stakes testing as part of their Common Core transition. Also, I'm not even sure it is really about budgets as much as just the optics of "losing" our Race prize money. Most schools would no more miss the absence of their remaining share of the RttT money than they can currently detect it's presence.