| Passed by the House March 2, 2011 Yeas 97 FRANK CHOPP ________________________________________ Speaker of the House of Representatives Passed by the Senate April 5, 2011 Yeas 49 BRAD OWEN ________________________________________ President of the Senate | I, Barbara Baker, Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives of the State of Washington, do hereby certify that the attached is SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1519 as passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate on the dates hereon set forth. BARBARA BAKER ________________________________________ Chief Clerk | |
| Approved April 14, 2011, 10:49 a.m. CHRISTINE GREGOIRE ________________________________________ Governor of the State of Washington | April 14, 2011 Secretary of State State of Washington |
| State of Washington | 62nd Legislature | 2011 Regular Session |
READ FIRST TIME 02/23/11.
AN ACT Relating to school assessments for students with cognitive disabilities; adding a new section to chapter 28A.655 RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1 The legislature finds that:
(1) One of the difficult issues facing states and school districts
throughout the country is the meaningful inclusion of students with
significant cognitive challenges in their current state assessment and
accountability systems.
(2) Assessment and accountability systems provide valuable
information to parents and educators, and all students deserve a system
that encourages them to meaningfully access and make progress in the
general education curriculum. Nevertheless, assessing the academic
knowledge and skills of students with unique and significant cognitive
disabilities can be challenging concerning the student's access to and
progress in the general education curriculum. Furthermore, the
development of meaningful assessment portfolios in the current system
can be extremely time-consuming for both teachers and students, provide
limited information for parents, and include questionable test and
measurement practices.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2 A new section is added to chapter 28A.655
RCW to read as follows:
The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall
continue to actively collaborate with teachers and directors of special
education programs in the development and implementation of a process
to transition from the current portfolio system of assessment of
students with significant cognitive challenges to a performance task-based alternative assessment system based on state standards. Before
such time as a new assessment becomes available, and within existing
resources, the office of the superintendent of public instruction shall
coordinate efforts to: Align academic goals in a student's
individualized education program with the current statewide assessment
system by identifying detailed statewide alternate achievement
benchmarks for use by teachers in the current portfolio system; develop
a transparent and reliable scoring process; efficiently use technology;
and develop a sensible approval process to shorten the time involved in
developing and collecting current assessment data for students with
significant cognitive disabilities.