Students, parents, teachers, and school administrators are fed up with the senseless overtesting driven by past bad decisions by Colorado legislators and education policymakers. We have introduced a bill in the Colorado House of Representatives (to be heard today) that will fix what is wrong with education testing and standards.

Our approach is based on two key principles: (1) Colorado should determine its standards and tests – stop “outsourcing” these critical issues to organizations outside Colorado; and (2) local school districts and charter schools must control curriculum and have a bigger say with regards to assessments their students take.

First, some background: In 2010, Colorado bound itself to “national” Common Core academic standards and to tests developed by a regional testing consortium called the “Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers” or PARCC. At the time, Colorado school budgets were under great stress from the 2008 recession, and submitting to this combination of standards and assessments was a condition to compete for additional federal funding (called “Race to the Top”).

We believe these decisions were ill advised. Much of the frustration felt today by students, parents and teachers in Colorado is rooted in the fact that Colorado gave away authority over standards and assessments but remains responsible for the resulting challenges and problems. It is inescapable that when you are responsible for something over which you have no authority, you will become frustrated.

Colorado should not have relinquished its authority to decide academic standards in math and language arts. Colorado should not have abdicated authority over the development and application of the tests to evaluate student progress on those standards. Backing into a regional consortium and the PARCC assessment has limited our ability to correct what is wrong with student assessments.

So where should we go from here?

First, the Lundeen/Carver bill (HB15-1125) reduces student testing. Excessive testing deprives students of valuable learning time and distracts teachers from instructional focus. It also encourages “teaching to the test.”

Second, our bill repeals the mandate that all Colorado schools use the PARCC consortium test. Instead, we direct the State Board of Education to work with local school districts and charter schools to identify a menu of assessments that test achievement and can be reliably compared. It also provides the option for a local district and charter schools to develop their own test provided the test can be proven to be comparable.

Third, we take back authority to determine our academic standards within Colorado – not automatically accept Common Core standards issued by an organization outside Colorado. We trust Colorado and local educators and parents to set standards with rigor and excellence.

The approach we advocate would reduce testing while promoting comparability of test results among students. It would improve the standards we ask our students to achieve. And it presents the added benefit of returning the education policy conversation to the people and elected officials of Colorado.

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Terri Carver is a member of the Colorado House of Representatives, representing District 20. Paul Lundeen is a member of the Colorado House of Representatives, representing District 19.

Terri Carver