Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Teachers and students are overburdened by the amount of time the state requires them to spend on standardized testing.That’s the message Senate Education Committee members heard on Monday from Colorado parents, teachers, superintendents, and school board members who testified in favor of Senate Bill 68, which would create a review committee to recommend cuts to testing time for students in grades 3-8.After the three-hour hearing, the Senate Education Committee voted 4-3 to approve the bill. The bill will now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee. If approved, the bill will need to pass the full Senate and then House before it heads to the governor’s desk.Kelly Jones-Wagy, a parent in Jeffco Public Schools and teacher in Cherry Creek School District, applauded lawmakers for approving the bill. She believes students, including her own, spend far too much time on state testing. The bill isn’t about ending school accountability but instead “lowering the amount of hours,” she said.“The more time we take students out of classes,” Jones-Wagy said, “the more time we take them away from their teachers.”State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat and a sponsor of the bill, said he filed the bill over concerns from superintendents about the average time students spend on standardized tests. The state estimates students in grades 3-8 spend about eight to 11 hours a year on required Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS, math and reading assessments. Meanwhile, high school students spend about three and a half hours on the PSAT and SAT.The legislation, which has bipartisan support, was also sponsored by state Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat, and Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican.This marks a second attempt by Kolker to get the state to address this issue. He filed a bill in 2023 that called for a similar review. The bill didn’t pass, and lawmakers approved House Bill 1241 to create a comprehensive review of the state’s school accountability system.The 1241 task force review yielded 30 recommendations, including a call to modernize the state’s CMAS exams. The recommendations included offering the standardized test in Spanish as well as English, returning test results to teachers faster, and breaking CMAS into smaller sections. Lawmakers filed a bill last year to start the implementation of the recommendations. Some of that work is still underway, and another report on the state’s accountability system is expected in November.But the group’s recommendations didn’t address the time students spent on exams.Some lawmakers who voted against Senate Bill 68 bill, however, said they felt it was duplicative of the 1241 review.A Colorado Department of Education official also testified that they believe the bill would be redundant. And a group of education advocates have mounted opposition to the bill, including FaithBridge, Ready Colorado, and the Colorado Children’s Campaign.DSST: Cole Middle School teacher Tim Nelson, a TeachPlus Colorado policy fellow who opposed the bill, said the CMAS test helps him guide instruction by honing in on what students should know. TeachPlus is a national nonprofit that trains teachers to advocate for policy change.“Using that information, I redesigned lessons and planned new units of study to create more opportunities to practice,” Nelson said.Supporters who testified in support of the bill included the Colorado Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers Colorado, the Colorado Association of School Boards, and the Colorado Association of School Executives.Superintendents who testified in favor of the bill said parents have the ability to opt out of the grades 3-8 tests, but more parents might opt in if the amount of time spent on test taking was reduced.And Harrison School District 2 Superintendent Wendy Birhanzel, who is also president of CASE, said the bill wouldn’t stop the state from administering tests or keep teachers from using them to inform instructions. She said tests are an important part of helping students learn.“However, we must also be mindful of balance,” Birhanzel said.Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.
