The subcommittee on K-12 Issues met today on discuss HB 2443.
House Bill 2443 would establish academic standards and assessment methods. The bill would as taken up by the committee, would make standards on county levels flexible in that they can take away some standards and replace them with more intensive standards in another area.
The committee came to the conclusion that having separate counties having separate standards is a bad idea.
Delegate Thompson (D-Wayne) said, “I don’t think that each county should have a totally different set of standards. I understand having some flexibility between counties but it has to be consistent.
Council said under current law, West Virginia has to have a state wide set of standards, however these standards can be added upon at a county level, just not taken away from.
Delegate Westfall (R-Jackson) asked, “If we want to add certain standards to certain counties, can we do it?”
Council said that only the counties could do that and that the state would not be involved.
The committee came to the conclusion that there must be a statewide standard for West Virginia. If they want to add standards that is fine but they can’t take away from the standards to incorporate those extra requirements.
The bill was reported back to the full committee on Education with the recommendation that the extra standards can be adopted but a closer look be taken at the subtraction and altering the flexibility of standards.
