Oregon Senate Passes Crucial Testing Law, HB 2680

Bill establishes educator work group to take on assessments

Photo by Bonnie King

(SALEM, Ore.) - This morning the Senate passed HB 2680, which will soon move to the Governor’s desk for signing. The following statement can be attributed to Oregon Education Association President Hanna Vaandering:

"Today the Oregon Senate took one of the most important steps in moving us down a new path toward a better system of assessment.

"By passing HB2680 the legislature validated our role as educators in the assessment process, allowing us to learn from the Smarter Balanced test and evaluate—in an objective way—whether or not it’s a valid measure of student learning.

"This is part of our professional practice as educators, and we take it seriously because we believe the purpose of assessments are to guide instruction and improve student success.

"We are also excited that this legislation establishes a work group that will engage educators, and help us to create a system of assessment which will put the love of learning back in our public schools.

"A system which does not waste crucial learning time and, instead, and perhaps most importantly, views our students as we do: human beings with feelings and hopes and dreams, whose minds are growing and developing, and who have very special, individual and unique learning needs.

"Our students are not widgets—we know that, their parents know that and we’re happy today to see that our representatives in the legislature understand that as well."

Source: Oregon Education Association