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WPRO News and the Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is recommending a three-year delay to the start of a new test that Rhode Island students would have to pass to graduate from high school.
Gist urged the state Board of Education’s Council on Elementary and Secondary Education on Monday to hold public hearings on her plan to delay the testing requirement from 2017 to 2020.
Gist says she has considered numerous objections to the testing requirement by school administrators, teachers, community leaders and students. She also wants to give schools and students enough time to prepare for a new college readiness test adopted this year and to adjust to the new Common Core academic standards.
State officials in 2012 delayed the graduation testing requirement to 2014, then delayed it again to 2017.
