We recently spent the day with about 100 educators discussing education policy issues with legislators from around the state. It was clear from those discussions that legislators were fed up with the testing blowback they are hearing from parents, educators and students.

As a response to this crisis, the Ohio department of Education had put forward some modest proposals to reign in over-testing. Proposals that the Governor echoed when he introduced his budget. The Senate Education Committee chair, Sen Lehner formed a Senate Advisory Committee on Testing to analyze the problems and come up with some solutions.

We had expected legislators to wait until the Senate Advisory Committee on Testing had produced a report before any further major changes were proposed. However that appears not to be the case with PARCC itself, the poster child of over-testing, being the target.

In the Ohio House's substitute budget bill, there is this amendment

Prohibits GRF appropriations from being used to purchase an assessment developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) for use as the state elementary and secondary achievement assessments.

Requires the state elementary and secondary achievement assessments to be "nationally normed, standardized assessments."

Prohibits federal Race to the Top program funds from being used for any purpose related to the state elementary and secondary achievement assessments.

Things are about to get very interesting in the high-stakes world of high-stakes testing.