Rep. Murotake emailed all House members today defending HB 1432 and saying that my (widely shared) reading is incorrect.

He says that the bill does not suspend all testing, only tests “associated with the Common Core, including the Smarter Balanced Assessment.”

You be the judge, but it doesn’t really matter.  There is no testing alternative not “associated with the Common Core” that meets the requirements of federal law.

No Child Left Behind requires an annual test aligned with the State’s College and Career Ready Standards.  The Common Core is the New Hampshire standard.

So, as SBOE chair Tom Raffio, NHDOE chief of staff Heather Gage and I and many others have correctly testified, HB 1432 would cost New Hampshire our NCLB waiver and $116 million in federal funding.

(Rep. Murotake’s NECAP proposal is grasping at straws.  His bill would not allow a Common Core aligned NECAP, which, in any case, is not available.  And a non-Common Core version would not meet federal requirements – and is also not available.)

At this point, it is entirely unclear what Rep. Murotake or his bill would have the State of New Hampshire do.  But it is clear that HB 1432 needs to be put out of its misery.