The Senate is considering a bill that would allow for students to retake standardized tests.
Schools call them expedited retakes. Supporters call them a way for students to succeed at high-stakes testing. Here's Senator Stella Pekarksy, a Democrat who is a former chairwoman of the Fairfax County School Board.
"For whatever reason – testing anxiety, learning disabilities, English barriers – sometimes children get very close to passing these tests even though they will have done very well in the class, they know the material," Pekarksy says. "For whatever reason tests are barriers to them."
She voted in favor of a bill introduced by a House Republican that would allow for expedited retakes for Standards of Learning tests. But the bill had opposition from Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg, a Democrat from Henrico who is also a high school civics teacher.
"We talk a lot about teacher morale in this place. If you want to talk about something that brings down teacher morale, it's this because what they see is you passing a bill for low standards that's going to have them in the spring on endless loop during their planning period drilling kids that know they can take this test over and over and over," VanValkenburg says.
Senators are expected to decide the fate of this bill on the Senate floor this week.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
