Listen: A Mom Explains Why Florida Testing Policy Needs To Change
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Parents and students protest outside then-Gov. Jeb Bush's Miami office in this 2003 photo.
At yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting, Orlando mom Andrea Rediske scolded members for state and federal rules requiring standardized testing.
Rediske’s son, Ethan, recently became a national story because Andrea Rediske was forced to submit a testing waiver as her dying son was in a morphine coma.
Tuesday, she sought support for the Ethan Rediske Act, or HB 895, which would exempt students from state standardized tests if parents, special educators and school superintendents could prove a medical need to skip the test.
“This incident caused anguish to my family,” Rediske told the board, “and shows a stunning lack of compassion and even common sense on the part of the Department of Education.
“You may ask yourselves: ‘If this is such a problem why isn’t there more public outcry from the parents of disabled children?’ I am here to tell you why. Parents of severely disabled children are exhausted. We spend our lives keeping these children alive.”
Click the link to listen to Rediske.
You can read the full bill after the jump:
