A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO ELIMINATE THE HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM AND RESTRICT THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION FROM DEVELOPING ANY FURTHER STANDARDIZED TESTs THAT ARE NOT REQUIRED TO FULFiLL the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 or other federal law.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 115C‑12(9a) and G.S. 115C‑12(9b) read as rewritten:
"§ 115C‑12.  Powers and duties of the Board generally.
The general supervision and administration of the free public school system shall be vested in the State Board of Education. The State Board of Education shall establish policy for the system of free public schools, subject to laws enacted by the General Assembly. The powers and duties of the State Board of Education are defined as follows:
…
(9a)	Power to Develop Content Standards. – The Board shall develop a comprehensive plan to revise content standards and the standard course of study in the core academic areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science, history, geography, and civics. The Board shall involve and survey a representative sample of parents, teachers, and the public to help determine academic content standard priorities and usefulness of the content standards. A full review of available and relevant academic content standards that are rigorous, specific, sequenced, clear, focused, and measurable, whenever possible, shall be a part of the process of the development of content standards. The revised content standards developed in the core academic areas shall (i) reflect high expectations for students and an in‑depth mastery of the content; (ii) be clearly grounded in the content of each academic area; (iii) be defined grade‑by‑grade and course‑by‑course; (iv) be understandable to parents and teachers; (v) be developed in full recognition of the time available to teach the core academic areas at each grade level; and (vi) be measurable, whenever possible, in a reliable, valid, and efficient manner for accountability purposes.
		High school course content standards shall include the knowledge and skills necessary to enter the workforce and also shall be aligned with the coursework required for admission to the constituent institutions of The University of North Carolina. The Board shall develop and implement a plan for end‑of‑course tests for those courses identified by the State Board of Education and not inconsistent with G.S. 115C-174.11(d). All end‑of‑course tests shall be aligned with the content standards.
		The Board also shall develop and implement an ongoing process to align State programs and support materials with the revised academic content standards for each core academic area on a regular basis. Alignment shall include revising textbook criteria, support materials, State tests, teacher and school administrator preparation, and ongoing professional development programs to be compatible with content standards. The Board shall develop and make available to teachers and parents support materials, including teacher and parent guides, for academic content standards. The State Board of Education shall work in collaboration with the Board of Governors of The University of North Carolina to ensure that teacher and school administrator degree programs, ongoing professional development and other university activity in the State's public schools align with the State Board's priorities.
(9b)	Power to Develop Exit Exams. – The Board shall develop a plan to implement grade‑level student proficiency benchmarks, student proficiency benchmarks for academic courses designated by the State Board of Education not inconsistent with G.S. 115C-174.11(d), and student proficiency benchmarks for the knowledge and skills necessary to enter the workforce. The State Board may develop student proficiency benchmarks for other courses offered to secondary school students. The student proficiency benchmarks shall be aligned with G.S. 115C‑12(9a) and may contain pertinent components of the school‑based accountability annual performance goals."
SECTION 2.  G.S. 115C‑174.11 reads as rewritten:
"§ 115C‑174.11.  Components of the testing program.
(a)	Assessment Instruments for First and Second Grades. – The State Board of Education shall adopt and provide to the local school administrative units developmentally appropriate individualized assessment instruments consistent with the Basic Education Program for the first and second grades, rather than standardized tests. Local school administrative units may use these assessment instruments provided to them by the State Board for first and second grade students, and shall not use standardized tests.
(b)	Competency Testing Program.
(1)	The State Board of Education shall adopt tests or other measurement devices which may be used to assure that graduates of the public high schools and graduates of nonpublic schools supervised by the State Board of Education pursuant to the provisions of Part 1 of Article 39 of this Chapter possess the skills and knowledge necessary to function independently and successfully in assuming the responsibilities of citizenship.
(2)	The tests shall be administered annually to all ninth grade students in the public schools. Students who fail to attain the required minimum standard for graduation in the ninth grade shall be given remedial instruction and additional opportunities to take the test up to and including the last month of the twelfth grade. Students who fail to pass parts of the test shall be retested on only those parts they fail. Students in the ninth grade who are enrolled in special education programs or who have been officially designated as eligible for participation in such programs may be excluded from the testing programs.
(3)	The State Board of Education may develop and validate alternate means and standards for demonstrating minimum competence. These standards, which must be more difficult than the tests adopted pursuant to subdivision (1) of this subsection, may be passed by students in lieu of the testing requirement of subdivision (2) of this subsection.
(4)	Repealed by Session Laws 1996, Second Extra Session, c. 18, s. 18.14.
(c)	Annual Testing Program.
(1)	The State Board of Education shall adopt a system of annual testing for grades three through 12. These tests shall be designed to measure progress toward reading, communication skills, and mathematics for grades three through eight, and toward competencies designated by the State Board for grades nine through 12. Students who do not pass the tests adopted for eighth grade shall be provided remedial instruction in the ninth grade. This assistance shall be calculated to prepare the students to pass the competency test administered under subsection (b) of this section. 
Baseline measurements administered in May, 12 months prior to the third grade end‑of‑grade test, are not public records as provided in Chapter 132 of the General Statutes.
(2)	If the State Board of Education finds that additional testing in grades three through 12 is desirable to allow comparisons with national indicators of student achievement, that testing shall be conducted with the smallest size sample of students necessary to assure valid comparisons with other states.
(d)	Limitation on Additional Tests. – The State Board of Education shall not require any additional standardized tests beyond those that were administered in the 2002-2003 academic year, unless the administration of the tests is required to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, Public Law 107-110 (115 U.S. Stat. 1425-2094) or any other federal law. Nothing in this subsection shall preclude modification of existing tests or the creation of an end-of-course test for Civics and Economics."
SECTION 3.  This act is effective when it becomes law.