Delaware voted Thursday night to not roll out the Smarter Balanced Assessment... The vote was 13 against, and 8 for.... It wasn't close; 62% voted not to go forward... The legislation called for replacing the State test, one that was hammered out among all parties including the teachers union. with the Smarter Balanced Assessment...
Out of 50 states, only ten including Delaware were left taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment.... At 8:31 Thursday night... that count went down to nine....
Spectators had just witnessed a miracle. No one had seen it coming... the Delaware House which is run by an iron fist of the Markell administration had passed this bill 30 to 9... But 4 Senate democrats under pleas of their constituents joined the minority of 9 Republicans to ditch this horrible test.
The Markell administration jumped into action with a full court press... 45 minutes later a motion to rescind and to re-vote was made in the chamber and seconded.... This second vote then came up 12-8 in favor of this bill... It passed... The time stamp was exactly 63 minutes later... The number of states taking the Smarter Balanced Assessments was back up to 10......
How did this happen? We are beginning to hear.... The Republican tweeted that the Markell administration told them the Smarter Balanced Test would be the accountable test in Spring, whether or not, the necessary bill passed at all.....
Is that even constitutional that a program can go forward even though the law allowing it was defeated in the legislature. Imagine the uproar if republicans rescinded Obamacare (they will too, if Democrats don't swamp the polls everywhere this November) and Obama said, too bad, we're doing Obamacare anyway... That the best description of what happened in Delaware...
Being an all blue state, legislators were not in the practice of contradicting their one party apparatus... 3 Democrats caved not to embarrass the party, and the lone Republican flip-flopper, got some really good political deals that will keep him from having a democratic challenger in his district for a long, long time...
And about this time next year you will hear how only 30% of Delaware's children scored proficient on this test... Not because they are not well educated but because not even 30% of professional adults who have taken the test, can pass it... And if this is what they are putting out to sell teachers, parents and politicians, what they give our kids in secret is beyond imagination.. Who knows how many mistake
It is impossible to trust the results of this test; it is so tarnished already...
Had this test not been rescinded, the state could have put its old test back in circulation
Practice tests are here... if you want to take them...
Delaware's children will suffer; the bill passed both houses and will be signed. But this should give every single parent in every other state hope... For Delaware was the first state to jump into Common Core. We have diligently tried to work together through all the thorns and bristles. All parties were committed to make it work... Our teachers union head, who some now call a traitor, was actively working with the governor to keep teachers in line and in favor....
Then parents started noticing that their children stopped caring... Concerned, they discovered it was this new curriculum and something called rigor that was causing mass waves of children to become disaffected with school... They began organizing and fighting back...
If a state where Common Core has been worshiped these past 2 years, can get 61% of one house to vote against changing the test to the Common Core test, then there is plenty of hope in states where Common Core is not so well liked....
Parents of children are driving this fight... It is disorganized, loose, and unstructured... But it is passionate... So passionate that for one single hour and 3 minutes, the number of states taking the Smart Balanced Assessment count held at 9.....