Speaker Bosma issued the following statement in response to Governor Pence’s actions concerning ISTEP+ and an Executive Order:
“I strongly support the Governor’s announcement to issue an Executive Order and immediately funding an outside consultant to solve the problems concerning the drastic increase in the ISTEP+ test. The decision to greatly multiply testing time in 2015 was the Superintendent’s decision alone, and legislators and even the State Board of Education were not consulted or informed of this before the public announcement of the extended test time.
It has become apparent that the Department of Education needs assistance resolving this issue and outside counsel in reducing the ridiculous amount of time our students are scheduled to spend testing this year.
The General Assembly has had the constitutional responsibility to oversee education in our state since 1816. We want to work in concert with the Superintendent and the DOE to provide the leadership they need to ensure that ISTEP+ is restored to a reasonable length, while preserving its statistical validity and our A-F accountability system.â€
