March 25, 2016 03:09 PM UTC

Derailing Ed Reform With Colorado Senate Republicans

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• by: Colorado Pols

Chalkbeat Colorado’s Todd Engdahl reports on another odd development in the GOP-controlled Senate Education Committee, where a bipartisan bill to alleviate high-stakes testing pressure on high school freshmen in Colorado went off the rails yesterday:

A bill that would ban mandatory state language arts and math tests in ninth grade cleared the Senate Education Committee Thursday. But the panel added seemingly extraneous amendments that are likely to reduce the bill’s already slim chances of passing the full legislature.

The original version of the bill merely would have banned ninth grade testing and was sponsored by conservative Republican Sen. Vicki Marble of Fort Collins, along with liberal Democratic Sen. Mike Merrifield of Colorado Springs and two committee Republicans. All the sponsors were dissatisfied with last session’s compromise testing law, which retained ninth grade exams.

But from there, bipartisan consensus came apart as bizarre GOP amendments piled on–in particular:

Rural districts that chose not to give the ninth grade tests would be allowed to hire non-licensed teachers… [Pols emphasis]

That’s right–Republicans actually passed an amendment to this bill allowing unlicensed teachers to be hired in rural school districts.

“I’m baffled by the amendment,” said Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora.

“I see absolute no connection,” said Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood. “This completely changes the direction of the bill.”

Hill offered no detailed rationale for the changes, either during discussion or during a brief hallway interview after the hearing…

It’s anybody’s guess what Sen. Owen Hill was trying to achieve with this amendment, but the rest of the Senate Education Committee including top-tier Democratic target Sen. Laura Waters Woods all jumped on board. Earlier in this same hearing, a bill for tax credits to offset private school tuition passed on a party-line vote. Perhaps this bill to eliminate ninth grade testing was a little too bipartisan, and Hill needed to spike it?

Whatever the reason, you had Senate Republicans yesterday, including their most vulnerable incumbent, voting for private school vouchers–and then voting to let unlicensed teachers into rural schools. The grand scheme at work here had better be good, because on any normal day we’d call these highly toxic votes.