I wrote back in January that there would have to be a statutory change in Iowa before the Iowa Department of Education could implement the assessments from the Smarter Balanced Assessments Consortium.
Well that took one step forward last night when it was approved on a voice vote no less in the Iowa House. It was an amendment to an amendment to the original education bill (House File 215) and wasn’t filed until Monday. Nobody saw it coming.
Here’s the pertinent language:
…for the school year beginning July 1, 2014, and each succeeding school year, the rules shall provide that all students enrolled in school districts in grades three through eleven shall, within forty-five days of the end of the school year, be administered an assessment that at a minimum assesses the indicators identified in this paragraph “b;” is aligned with the Iowa common core standards in both content and rigor; is developed by a consortium in which the state of Iowa is a participant… (emphasis mine)
Iowa is a governing member of SBAC. Nobody seems to want to claim ownership of this particular language however. Hmm… I wonder why?
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