Report on the Hays Validity Amendment to SB 616

Thank you to so many people that came to Tallahassee to testify, and who called and emailed members of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging them to pass Senator Alan Hays extremely important amendment to SB 616 requiring independent validity studies for the new Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) and technological load testing before making high stakes decisions.The amendment was withdrawn and replaced by another from Senator Simmons. The discussion of the reading amendment discussed in our last alert was ultimately postponed. Senator Hays is still reviewing options and will work with Senator Simmons who is significantly concerned with validity issues due to their legal consequences. The bill will go to the floor on Wednesday. New information will be out shortly.For those that want more information and documentation, here is a detailed report to understand the context.The video of the hearing is available HERE with discussion of the bill in general starting at about 4:39:00. The discussion of the Hays validity amendment starts at 4:58:55 and the discussion of Senator Simmons' validity amendment starts at 5:43:09.Senator Hays offered that amendment due to grave concerns with lack of validity of the FSA based on the failure of Commissioner Pam Stewart to properly answer excellent questions from Senator David Simmons in hearings regarding the validity of the FSA. There is legal precedent showing that people may not have their lives changed with high stakes educational decisions like third grade retention or teacher evaluations based on an invalid test.The language of the amendment that Senator Hays offered was written out in our last alert and is also available HERE. It required independent verification of psychometric validation of the test and load testing of the technology infrastructure to give the test before any high stakes decision can be made for students, teachers or districts.Here are the key portions of testimony from Stewart (begins at 56:00) Read more

Posted in Testing. Tagged as Beth Overholt, Catherine Baer, Dr. Karen Effrem, Marie Clare Leman, Randy Osborne, SB 616, Senator Alan Hays, Senator Arthenia Joyner, Senator David Simmons, Senator David Simmons, SEnator Don Gaetz., Senator John Legg, validity.

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