In a close 7-6 vote today, the House Education Committee passed House Bill 2915.  This bill delays, once again, the requirement that students pass a math and science test to graduate from high school.

WTIA testified and advocated against this bill.  We were almost successful in keeping this bill in committee but Committee Chair Dave Quall of Mt. Vernon twisted just enough arms of his fellow Democrats to get the bill out of committee.  Kudos to Rep. Marcie Maxwell of Renton for standing up for principle instead of politics and voting against the bill.  Appreciation is also warranted for the 5 Republicans on the committee who all voted against this unnecessary bill.  They are Reps. Skip Priest, Bruce Dammeier, Susan Fagan, Mike Hope and Norm Johnson.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2915&year=2009 Here is the link to the bill page on the legislature’s website.  The “House Bill Analysis 2010” gives a good background on the bill and what the bill does.

In last year’s session the legislature pushed the deadline to pass a math test to graduate from high school from 2012 to 2013 and for science from 2014 to 2015.  Now the Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn wants to push it back again two more years for each subject.  With no plan to be ready when the deadlines do arrive.  This is simply unacceptable and continues the educational mediocrity that has become the hallmark of our state, sadly.  What is more disappointing is the lack of fortitude shown by legislators over this issue.

The bill now goes to the House Rules Committee.  The members of this committee can be found here:  http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/RUL/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx  If you believe as WTIA does that this is another unnecessary delay that only hurts our students, please call the office of the Rules Committee members and ask them to vote against HB 2915.  WTIA will continue to work against passage of this bill.

Over in the state Senate, a “companion” bill, SB 6553 that is the twin of HB 2915 is scheduled for a public hearing tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at 8 a.m.