Reps. Sak, Brown, Minore, Law, Zelenko, Anderson, Woodward, Gillard, Tobocman, Daniels, Wojno, Bieda, Condino, Dennis, Farrah, Shaffer, Cheeks, Hager, Kolb, Murphy, O'Neil, Stallworth, Adamini, DeRossett, Elkins, Farhat, Jamnick, Lipsey, Paletko, Rivet and Sheltrown offered the following resolution:

            House Resolution No. 116.

            A resolution urging the Michigan Department of Education to continue to work to reach a suitable compromise with those school districts whose MEAP tests were recently lost.       

            Whereas, In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) which, in part, requires states to implement statewide accountability systems covering all public schools and students.  School districts and schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress toward statewide proficiency standards will be subject to mandatory improvement, corrective action, and restructuring measures.  Parents of children attending schools that repeatedly fail to meet these standards may transfer their children to better performing public schools, including charter schools.  The act also ensures that parents be provided with annual  student performance report cards that show which schools in their communities are succeeding and which are not.  This public information not only helps to enhance student achievement, but provides an incentive for failing schools to improve; and

            Whereas, The NCLBA requires Michigan to report annually to the United States Secretary of Education on its progress toward implementing the law.  This report includes information about student performance on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) and schools in need of improvement; and

            Whereas, Michigan has had to postpone its determination of adequate yearly progress status of schools because the state contracted with a company that failed to live up to its obligations to make MEAP scores available on a timely basis.  Although elementary and middle school students took the assessment test in January, the results were almost three months late.  Moreover, the company lost more than 1,500 MEAP tests for school districts located in Grand Rapids and other communities.  As a result, Michigan not only faces the likelihood of being penalized by the federal government for failing to meet reporting deadlines, but school districts with missing test results, albeit through no fault of their own, face the possibility of being classified as failing to meet adequate yearly progress as defined by the NCLBA; now, therefore, be it

            Resolved by the House of Representatives, That we urge the Michigan Department of Education to continue to work to reach a suitable compromise with those school districts whose MEAP tests were recently lost; and be it further

            Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the Michigan Department of Education.