House committee breaks with the Senate on bill to reduce Tennessee’s testing system

Members of the House Education Committee Wednesday morning (Photo by Jordan Adams)

Last week State Senator Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun, announced a compromise had been reached with the Tennessee House to advance legislation to study Tennessee’s testing and teacher accountability system, instead of changing it as the House bill would have done. 

The details of that compromise appear to still be in question.  

Representative Mark Cochran, R-Englewood, announced Wednesday morning in the House Education Committee that he plans to amend his legislation without including the key compromise components Lowe announced. Instead, Cochran’s legislation would remove all end-of-course (EOC) assessments high school students take but science and instead require them to take a postsecondary readiness assessments like the ACT in math and English Language arts each year in grades 9-11. Students would continue to take the science EOC under the legislation as the ACT test is phasing that subject out. 

The move would reduce the state’s existing assessment system where high school students take EOC assessments in English I and II; Algebra I, II, and Geometry or Integrated Math I, II, and III; along with U.S. History and Biology.  Studies have found Tennessee’s assessment system has played a valuable role in helping improve student performance and polling has found strong support from parents. 

Cochran left open the door to aligning his bill with the Senate plan in the future but said the proposed changes to the state’s testing system have been requested by educators. 

 “The bill here looks very different than it does in the Senate.  The Senate’s is more of a study bill where this one is more substantive. I don’t know the Senate’s desire to move toward our version so essentially in (Government Operations Committee) we may have to move to the version that looks more like theirs,” said Cochran. “These are real issues that have been brought to us by counselors, by directors of schools, by teachers, people on the front lines who again aren’t opposed to testing but you know, let’s focus on the correct material.” 

Cochran’s legislation would also allow high school students with a career and technical education (CTE) focus to substitute three CTE courses for chemistry, world language, and algebra II and it would align teacher evaluations to the new testing requirements. 

The House Education Committee advanced the bill on a 15 to 3 vote with Representatives Charlie Baum, R-Murfreesboro; Jody Barrett, R-Dickson; and committee chair Mark White, R-Memphis opposing it. None of them spoke against the legislation but last week White made his case for why the EOCs are too important to remove. 

“The end-of-course is really a final exam,” said White in a House subcommittee meeting. “My concern if you remove the end-of-course test, or the final exam, there’s really no other way we know that the student is achieving that information. The ACT is a great test, but it’s not based upon Tennessee standards. So, if we quit testing based upon Tennessee standards, what does that mean?” 

The Senate version of the bill is scheduled for a floor vote tomorrow.