Oregon Legislature passes bill to suspend graduation testing requirement
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon lawmakers have passed a bill that will suspend the Essential Skills graduation requirement for students for the next three years.
Senate Bill 744also directs the state Department of Education to use the suspension to evaluate how Oregon assesses student knowledge in their pursuit of a diploma. Among other things, education leaders are tasked with comparing diploma requirements in different states, making recommendations for state requirements to reduce disparities, and determining whether requirements for diplomas have been applied inequitably to different student populations.
"With SB 744, Oregon can ensure high school diplomas are rigorous, relevant, and truly reflect what every student needs to thrive in the 21st century," Foundations for a Better Oregon said in a statement supporting the bill. "An inclusive and equitable review of graduation and proficiency requirements, when guided by data and grounded in a commitment to every student’s success, will promote shared accountability and foster a more just Oregon."
Supporters also say testing on essential skills has historically hurt those with poor test-taking skills who would otherwise graduate.
The Essential Skills graduation requirement was suspended during the pandemic as a way to assist students who went through a year of distance learning. Now, supporters of the bill want to take the suspension beyond the pandemic.
"The testing that we've been doing in the past doesn't tell us what we want to know," said Sen. Lew Frederick, D-Portland. "We have been relying on tests that have been, frankly, very flawed and relying too much on them so that we aren't really helping the students or the teachers or the community."
Frederick tells KATU it isn't fair for students who have suffered or fell behind during distance learning to approach graduation with an already flawed system.
"The approach that we've taken in the recent past is that we are going to test students as much as possible and that's supposed to help us understand what we're doing, but the tests don't do that," said Frederick.
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The bill received pushback from Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature.
"The approach for Senate Bill 744 is to, in fact, lower our expectations for our kids," said Oregon House Minority Leader Christine Drazan. "This is the wrong time to do that, when we have had this year of social isolation and lost learning. It's the wrong thing to do in this moment."
Drazan says she would have supported a bill that narrowed in on testing requirements alone.
"If we're talking about strictly testing, I don't think that we always necessarily need testing, but what we excluded from the bill was the range of essential skills that kids could show they have met through a variety of options," said Drazan. "If it had just been a testing bill, then I would have been supportive of it, but what we were doing was taking a list of essential skills and saying we're not going to hold our kids to these standards anymore."
The bill awaits the signature of Gov. Kate Brown.