In the scandal-free state-government news department: Oregon becomes official three-party state; House targets standardized testing and fate of Cover Oregon to be decided by Senate.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
With Gov. John Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes’ scandal dominating the news, it might seem hard to believe that anything else is happening in Salem. But the secretary of state and legislature have stayed busy pursuing other measures.
Secretary of State Kate Brown acknowledged that the Independent Party had enough members to be considered a major party in the state. The party barely met the threshold — by just three members — but its emergence has established Oregon as the only state with three major parties.
The Statesman Journal reported on how the ruling will affect elections in the state:
First, it allows the Independent Party to participate in the May primary election, which is run by the state. Currently, the party runs its own elections during the summer. In the future, it will enjoy the same service from the state that Republican and Democratic parties do, with official ballots sent to members.
Second, it will require the Independent Party to nominate only its own members, rather than following its current system of nominating people who have also been nominated by the Republican or Democratic parties.
A bevy of bills that would change the state’s standardized testing policies are being considered by the House Committee on Education.
The committee heard a presentation defending the tests from the Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Rob Saxton before commenting on the issue.
From the Statesman Journal:
“A ton of people I know and respect are using words to describe it: overwhelming, stressful, demoralizing, children in tears,” [Rep. Carl] Wilson said. “That doesn’t sound like education to me. It sounds like something I don’t recognize.”
Rep. Lew Frederick, vice-chair of the committee, expressed several concerns: “I want to point out that the expectation we’ve heard is we expect to see 60-70 percent of students fail this year. This is not in my view the kind of test I would’ve given as a teacher,” Frederick said.
The bills being considered are described as such by the Oregon Legislative Information service:
HB 2655: Directs the State Board of Education to adopt standards related to students education records and says parents have the right to excuse students from standardized summative assessment
HB 2680: Prohibits use of results of statewide assessment to establish summative ratings of schools or to make summative evaluations of teachers or administrators
HB 2713: Directs the Department of Education to evaluate the use of standardized tests in public schools
HB 2714: Says parents have the right to excuse students from statewide assessment and says districts must provide notice of that right
HB 2715: Prohibits school district employee or volunteer from posting, publishing or making publicly available personally identifiable information in relation to results of performance-based assessment
The process of dismantling Cover Oregon took another step forward Monday when the bill to change the program’s processes was moved from committee to the Senate.
The Statesman Journal reports:
The bill would transfer Cover Oregon’s duties and liabilities to the Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS) and get rid of its board of directors and executive director.
Two of the amendments were proposed by Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, one of which would require DCBS to notify and explain to the Legislature whenever it intends to raise the administrative fee charged to health insurance carriers. Boquist‘s other amendment would require DCBS to appear before the Legislature if it wants to embark on an IT project for the small business health insurance exchange costing more than $1 million.
