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The federal government has denied Montana’s request to pause standardized testing for public school students for the 2020-2021 year due to challenges from the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter sent this week, a U.S. Department of Education official wrote that Montana hadn’t shown how waiving federal testing standards would boost student achievement.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen requested the waiver in February, writing the pandemic would make testing difficult in some schools and subsequently produce flawed data.
The move was supported by state Republican elected leaders, the Montana American Indian Caucus and Montana Federation of Public Employees.
HELENA, Mont. - After two months of waiting and three calls discussing Montana s Feb. 5 proposal of using local assessments to replace the federally mandated statewide test, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Programs at the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) Ian Rosenblum sent a letter denying Montana s request.
According to a release, the state s plan for local testing included 30 days of public comment and was supported by Governor Greg Gianforte, the Montana American Indian Caucus, the Board of Public Education, Representative Matt Rosendale, Senator Steve Daines and the Montana Federation of Public Employees. In Montana, we work for our students and families, State Superintendent Elsie Arntzen said. Statewide mandated testing from the federal government misses the mark of putting our Montana students first. Montana is not alone in the pursuit of maximum flexibility and providing opportunities to assess at the local level. Our proposal was to use local assessments f
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, through his lieutenant governor s testimony Thursday, put his support behind a bill to establish the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Montana.
Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras, a former University of Montana adjunct law professor and past candidate for the Montana Supreme Court, told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday that Senate Bill 215Â had the support of the first Republican governor in the last 16 years.
The bill has drawn some of the sharpest criticism from the LGBTQ community since it surfaced in the Senate, where it narrowly passed last month.Â
Thursday was the first public support Gianforte, a deeply religious conservative, lent to the bill.
On Thursday, Montana s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte put his support behind a bill supporters say would protect religious freedom. Opponents say it would allow for discrimination of LGBTQ Montanans.
Shawn Reagor, an organizer with the Montana Human Rights Network, told lawmakers that he knows the consequences of discrimination: he was once fired from a job for being part of the LGBTQ community.
“I beg you not to let the religious freedom that we all hold dear to be twisted into a weapon to cause such harm, Reagor said.
Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras
Bill sponsor Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act aims to protect against discrimination of religious people by government entities by giving them their fair day in court. The Senate already endorsed Senate Bill 215 by a narrow two-vote margin.
KAREN ASPEVIG STEVENSON
In 2017, Sen. Steve Daines introduced a bill that would have stripped protection from nearly 500,000 acres of public lands, and he did it without gathering input from the public. Had it passed, it would have been the biggest rollback of protected public lands in Montana history â a radical bill to say the least, one that a mere 8% of Montanans favor, according to the 2020 University of Montana Public Land Survey.
With a face that wasnât exactly straight, Daines nonetheless said in an interview he gave last year to Montana PBS: âI probably have the best record of protecting public lands than anybody whoâs served from Montana in Washington, D.C., in a long, long time.â