Proposed bill would reduce testing impact in Georgia schools

Parents and educators in Georgia have been calling for a decreased focus on testing, and a bill proposed in the state Senate would do just that.

Senate Bill 364, authored by Sen. Lindsey Tippins (R-Marietta), among others, would reduce the number of tests taken by students across the state from 32 to 24 while also decreasing the role of tests in teacher and administrator evaluations.

"I wholeheartedly support Senator Lindsey Tippins' bill, SB 364, because it reflects many of the issues I've felt all along are burdensome to student learning and the recruitment and retention of our best teachers," state Superintendent Richard Woods wrote in an email Thursday.

Under the current system, students take Georgia Milestones assessments in all core content areas from the third grade on. If this bill passes, it would eliminate science and social studies exams in the third, fourth, sixth and seventh grades. Additionally, the weight of student test scores would be reduced from 50 to 30 percent in teacher evaluations. Further, students would need to be in class for 80 percent of class days to count towards a teacher's evaluation, instead of the current 65 percent.

"This would allow the evaluation system to become more of a coaching tool instead of a 'gotcha' tool," Woods wrote. "We conducted a survey of more than 53,000 Georgia teachers, and an overwhelming percentage selected 'number of state-mandated tests' and the 'method for evaluating teachers' as the main reasons why 44 percent of newly hired teachers leave the profession within five years."

The Georgia legislative session is expected to run through late March.

For more on this story check back with macon.com or pick up Friday's Telegraph.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 10:49 AM with the headline "Proposed bill would reduce testing impact in Georgia schools ."