Bill Would Pull Arkansas Out Of Common Core Test

The sponsor of a bill that would end Arkansas’ participation in an end-of-the-year Common Core exam plans to run his bill in committee on Tuesday.

House Bill 1241 by Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, would pull Arkansas out of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) by June 30.

This spring is the first year that most students in PARCC states are taking the test, but the number of states is dwindling. Originally a consortium of 24 states, now only nine states plus the District of Columbia are participating. None border Arkansas now that Louisiana and Mississippi have pulled out.

He originally had intended on running the bill three weeks ago and hoped to transition Arkansas to another test this year, but that idea proved unworkable. He said he considered having the state ask for a waiver from the federal government’s No Child Left Behind testing guidelines and having no test, but that might have meant the loss of federal funds.

The bill is currently being amended to include the June 30 date and to include language provided by the Arkansas Department of Education that would allow ADE to work with Pearson, the maker of the test, to finalize this year’s exam.

The bill also would ban the Department of Education and the State Board of Education from providing any data to the federal Department of Education without parental consent. Lowery said he is considering filing another bill that would limit the information the state Department of Education can collect.

Lowery said he is not opposed to the Common Core itself. His problem is with the PARCC test, which he said no longer can meet its stated purpose of comparing states with each other because so few states are participating. A test comparing Arkansas students to others is an “appropriate goal,” but there are better alternatives, Lowery said.

“I take school administrators and teachers at their word when they say Common Core standards may be something that’s been developed nationally, but they have been able to use local control to develop curricula at the local level to enable them to meet the standards,” he said. “That has not been the case with PARCC.”

Lowery said he is hearing reports that the test is confusing and the software is glitchy. Too much time has been spent preparing the students for the testing platform, he said.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson in February announced he was appointing a 16-member Governor’s Council on Common Core Review to consider the standards and make recommendations later in the year. Lt. Governor Tim Griffin will chair the commission. Lowery said he avoided discussions about terminating Common Core in crafting the bill.

“What I wanted to do was provide that task force with a clean slate that does not include the PARCC test,” Lowery said. “I think that the rollout of PARCC has been sufficiently poor enough that it should not be reconsidered for future years.”