House Bill 50’s Wild Ride In The House Passes With New Amendment, Back To The Senate….

After a crazy failure for House Bill 50, the legislation was reconsidered with the originally failed House Amendment #2, which passed the second time around, and then the whole bill passed.  Now it goes back to the Senate.  Trust me, I’m confused, but maybe this will help.  Timeline time:

House Bill 50 timeline:

3/12/15: Introduced by Rep. John Kowalko and Senator Dave Lawson

4/22/15: House Education Committee releases bill from committee, brings it to full House Vote

5/7/15: House Amendment #1 added by Rep. Sean Matthews removing “state assessment” and changing it to just “Smarter Balanced Assessment”, passes House

6/11/15: Senate Education Committee releases bill from committee for full Senate vote

6/17/15: Senator David Sokola adds Senate Amendment #1, changing “Smarter Balanced Assessment” to all “state assessments and district-wide assessments”, passes Senate

6/17/15: Senator Bryan Townsend adds Senate Amendment #2, allowing high school juniors to opt-out of the assessment, passes Senate

6/17/15: Senate passes House Bill 50, but because two amendments were added, it goes back to the House

6/23/15: Rep. Jeff Spiegelman introduces House Amendment #2 which takes away Townsend’s Senate Amendment #2, fails to get enough votes

6/23/15: House Bill 50 fails 2nd House vote, bill is dead

6/23/15: Rep. Spiegelman asks for reconsideration of vote on House Bill 50 under Delaware House of Representatives House Rule #41, House passes motion

6/23/15: House passes House Amendment #2

6/23/15: House passes House Bill 50 again

Now it goes back to the Senate.  Whether it will be heard by next Tuesday or if it extends it until January when the 148th General Assembly is back in session is unknown.  But what I do know is this.  I blame all of this on three people: Rep. Earl Jaques, Senator David Sokola, and Senator Bryan Townsend.  They have played games with this bill and do not care about parents.  And from what I’m hearing Senator Colin Bonini had quite the chuckle after the bill originally failed in the House today.  These are legislators who really don’t care about parents or their rights.  I resisted Spiegelman’s amendment at first cause I just wanted it to pass, but he is absolutely right.  He brought up a point I didn’t think of: what if the junior wants to opt out but the parents don’t want him to?  That would set up some very thorny issues for all involved: student, parent, teacher, school, district, and even the state.  So thank you for your wisdom on this one Rep. Spiegelman!

Our no votes on the 2nd House vote today are as follows: Dukes, Gray, Heffernan, Jaques and Q. Johnson.  Not voting were Barbieri and Bolden.  So all the no votes or absents are the same from the original House vote last month, except for the additions of Gray, Heffernan and Q. Johnson.  What made them flip?

For the 2nd vote on the House Amendment, only Dukes voted no and Barbieri and Bolden didn’t vote.  Three reps had left so there were three absent.

If I were any Delaware parent (I am), I would be absolutely livid at the games being played with this bill.  Shame on Jaques, Sokola and Townsend for not caring enough about parents to even ask them about their bill-killing plans prior to their attempted hijackings.  If I were Townsend, I might want to reconsider that run for Congress.  You ticked off A LOT of voters tonight.

Listen To Governor Markell Say He Will Veto House Bill 50, Kowalko Response On WDEL Coming NOW!

WDEL has put up a podcast of the arrogant and condescending comments made by Governor Jack Markell today in an interview with Rick Jensen.

The part about his Alan Jackson email address begins at the 7:00 mark, his remarks about opt-out and common core begin at 12:16, and his BIG remark about the veto starts at 18:03 with the “Yeah”

To hear the report by WDEL’s Amy Cherry on it, you can listen here: http://wdel.com/story.php?id=67882 but note the part where Markell clearly says the word “yeah” in the podcast does not appear on her report.  In my estimation, his yeah is confirmation he would veto the bill.

Meanwhile, Delaware State Rep. John Kowalko is on WDEL with Allan Loudell, right at this very moment.

Who Stands For Parents In Delaware? Fall-Out From House Education Committee Meeting

Yesterday, by a vote of 8-6, the Delaware House Education Committee released House Bill 50 which would allow parent opt-out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment to become a part of state law if passed.  I have received the exact votes from the members of the committee:

Yes: Kim Williams, Sean Matthews, Edward Osienski, Charles Potter, Michael Ramone, Sean Lynn, Kevin Hensley, and Harvey Kenton

No: Earl Jaques, Deborah Heffernan, Michael Barbieri, and Stephanie Bolden

Absent: Joseph Miro and Timothy Dukes (was at meeting but must have left early)

The following organizations were NOT IN SUPPORT of House Bill 50 and parent opt-out:

Delaware Department of Education, Delaware State Board of Education, Delaware Business Roundtable, Delaware Chamber of Commerce, Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, First State Montessori Charter School, One Parent, A special education teacher in Milford School District, four legislators, Brandywine Superintendent Dr. Mark Holodick

The following organizations SUPPORT House Bill 50 and parent opt-out:

Delaware PTA, Delaware State Educators Association (DSEA), Delaware Parents & Teachers for Public Education, Several Parents, Several Teachers, eight legislators, Exceptional Delaware, Delaware Parents & Teachers for Public Education

The following school district boards in Delaware have passed resolutions similar to House Bill 50 in the respect they will honor parent opt-out and will not penalize the opted out student: Capital, Christina, Red Clay Consolidated

Our work needs to focus on the entire Delaware House of Representatives and the Speaker of the House Pete Schwartzkopf.