The Standards of Quality subcommittee of the House Education Committee met at 7:30 this morning and took action on several bills of interest. The subcommittee voted to recommend reporting HB 1312 (Habeeb) that would allow school boards to elect to participate in additional SOL testing prior to March 1 and allow any student who does not pass the test in that additional testing period to retake the test during a subsequent testing period. The subcommittee recommended reporting HB 1350 (Albo) with an amendment that would prohibit a student who fails the non-calculator portion of the end of course mathematics SOL test in the ninth grade from taking the calculator portion of the test. We expect this bill to come back to the subcommittee for further work. The subcommittee recommended on a 4-3 vote that HB 1827 (Lingamfelter) be reported. The bill creates the Citizens Standards of Learning Review Board that will review the SOLs and recommend changes to the Board of Education. The subcommittee recommended reporting HB 2199 (Filler-Corn) that directs the BOE to pass regulations to increase the number of students and grade levels that are eligible for an expedited retake of an end of course SOL test.
