Governor's Opposition to SB 1 is "Pathetic"- Sen. Williams
Governor Beshear said today that he will veto Senate Bill 1 if it gets to his desk. SB 1 is the bill that would abolish CATS testing for Kentucky students. It's main sponsor is Senate President David Williams.
At a news conference, Beshear told reporters the bill undermines educational improvement in Kentucky and would mean an end to students getting tested on their critical thinking skills. Williams' bill proposes using a national multiple choice test to measure each child's improvement. On demand writing would no longer be tested.
Reactiing to the governor's opposition to his bill, Williams called Beshear's comments "amateurish" and "pathetic" and said he doesn't believe the governor has even read the bill. Williams defended the move to get rid of the CATS test, saying it isn't measuring students' knowledge of basic skills. Many teachers and school administrators agree with Williams but wonder if a multiple choice, nationally normed test would be any better.
Comments
The governor’s reasoning for vetoing SB 1 contains some real disappointments. He claims in the Courier-Journal’s article, “Beshear vows to veto CATS replacement” that our kids now score above the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). That is absolutely false for both fourth and eighth grade math.
The governor’s claim is also misleading for NAEP reading. In reading, we only score above average because we exclude a higher percentage of our students with learning disabilities than the rest of the nation. That inflates our reading scores.
The latest NAEP report cards have clear cautions about considering exclusion before making any comparisons. How can the governor’s advisors be so uninformed?
In addition, the 2007 NAEP scores are not hard to find, so it is particularly disturbing that Kentucky’s governor labors under such clearly erroneous conceptions.
Of course, once the governor learns he has been fed such obviously incorrect information, his vows to veto may vanish even faster than his credibility concerning Kentucky’s actual NAEP performance.
Posted by: Richard Innes | March 7, 2008 9:31 AM