WEST virginia Legislature
2017 regular session
By
[
to the Committee on Education then Finance.
A BILL to amend the Code
of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated
§18-1A-1, §18-1A-2, §18-1A-3, §18-1A-4 and §18-1A-5, all relating to academic
content standards in public schools; discontinuing and prohibiting the use of
Common Core academic content standards; adopting alternative academic content
standards; discontinuing the use of Common Core based assessments; establishing
a committee and process for developing alternate statewide assessments of
student progress; prohibiting the state board or any public school from sharing
student data without parental consent; and prohibiting acceptance of federal
funding if such funding is conditioned upon sharing student data without
parental consent.
Be it enacted by the
Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West
Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new article,
designated §18-1A-1, §18-1A-2, §18-1A-3, §18-1A-4 and §18-1A-5, all to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 1A. West Virginia Educational Restoration act.
§18-1A-1. Public school curricular standards and
assessments.
Short
Title.--This section shall be known and may be cited as the “West Virginia
Educational Restoration Act.”
§18-1A-2.
Definitions.
For purposes of this section:
(1)
“Common Core” means the Common Core state standards adopted by the West
Virginia State Board of Education on May 12, 2010, and also referred to as the
West Virginia Next Generation Standards;
any Common Core state standards developed by the Common Core State Standards
Initiative and adopted by the West Virginia State Board of Education; the Next
Generation Science Standards; the West Virginia College and Career-Readiness
Standards filed with the Secretary of State on December 18, 2015; and any other
curricular standards based on or aligned with the Common Core State Standards
Initiative or Next Generation Science Standards.
(2)
“Assessments” means the Smarter Balanced Assessments or any other student
assessments intended to measure student achievement in Common Core standards,
or other approved standards.
§18-1A-3. Academic
content standards for schools.
(a)
Effective July 1, 2017, the State Board of Education is prohibited from
implementing Common Core academic content standards.
(b)
Effective July 1, 2017, the State Board of Education shall adopt and implement
the following academic standards for public schools:
(1) For
academic content standards for mathematics, in grades K-12, the board shall
adopt and implement the Mathematics Content Standards for California Public
Schools, adopted by the California State Board of Education in December, 1997,
and the Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools, adopted by the
California State Board of Education in March, 2005.
(2) For
academic content standards in English Language Arts, the board shall adopt and
implement the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, implemented by the
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as the mandatory
curriculum frameworks for English language arts in the year 2001, and any
associated educational frameworks or supplementation.
(c) The
standards developed pursuant to this section shall remain in place for a
minimum of five academic years after the date of implementation.
(d)
Effective immediately, any proposed changes to academic content standards for
public schools shall comply with section two, article two-h, chapter eighteen
of the code, which, in part, requires a sixty-day written comment period and at
least four public hearings in various locations in the state.
§18-1A-4. Development
of student assessments.
(a)
Effective July 1, 2017, the Smarter Balanced Assessment or any other assessment
based on the Common Core standards may not be used in West Virginia public
schools.
(b) Beginning on July 1, 2017, the
State Board of Education shall establish a Student Assessment Development
Committee to develop appropriate statewide assessments to measure student
progress and college and career-readiness, at each grade level from K-12, in the
following subjects:
(1) English Language Arts;
(2) Mathematics;
(3) Science; and
(4) Social Studies.
(c) The Student Assessment
Development Committee will be comprised of the following members:
(1) One representative, who
is an academic content specialist, from each four-year public institution of
higher education in this state.
(2) One educator from each
public school district in this state.
Each teacher serving on the committee will have the following
qualifications:
(A) The teacher must
currently hold a classroom teaching position; and
(B) The teacher must have
at least ten years of experience.
(3) Two teachers from the
three school districts in the state with the largest student population. Each teacher serving on the committee as a
representative from the largest school districts must have the following
qualifications:
(A) The teacher must
currently hold a classroom teaching position; and
(B) The teacher must have
at least ten years of experience.
(d) Before the end of the
2017-2018 academic year, the committee shall finalize and promulgate student
assessments required by this section. At
the end of each academic year beginning after July 1, 2017, a public school is
required to administer the assessments developed pursuant to this section.
§18-1A-5. Protection
of student data and information.
(a) The
State Board of Education, and any public school in this state, is prohibited
from allowing access, releasing, or sharing any student’s personally
identifiable information, student level data, or student directory information
without prior written affirmative consent of the student’s parent or guardian.
(b) The
State Board of Education, and any public school in this state, is prohibited
from accepting federal funding if such funding is conditioned upon release of
any student’s personally identifiable information, student level data, or
student directory information without prior written affirmative consent of the
student’s parent or guardian.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is
to discontinue and prohibit the use of Common Core academic content standards;
to adopt alternative academic content standards; to discontinue the use of
common core based assessments; to establish a committee and process for
developing alternate statewide assessments of student progress; to prohibit the
state board or any public school from sharing student data without parental
consent; and to prohibit acceptance of federal funding if such funding is
conditioned upon sharing student data without parental consent.
Strike-throughs indicate language
that would be stricken from a heading or the present law, and underscoring
indicates new language that would be added.