Door #3 with two years hold harmless with an important asterisk

Thus the Board of Ed just adopted:

• the Commissioner's recommendation ("door #3" for 2017)
• with an amendment to the hold harmless provision extending it to 2017 
• *with regards to test scores

Here's the motion and amendment, as it was approved 8-3 pic.twitter.com/jYET0PC6lc

— Amelia Pak-Harvey (@AmeliaPakHarvey) November 17, 2015

*This is important because a) the amendement "with regards to test scores" applies to both 2016 & 2017, and b) this means that the Commissioner CAN STILL DECLARE DISTRICTS AND SCHOOLS LEVEL FOUR AND FIVE. Those were never solely determined by test scores (Level 3 is the bottom 20% of schools on MCAS scores; Level 4 and 5 are declared from those schools and districts at the discretion of the Commissioner.)

UPDATE: DESE's press release has "with regards to test scores" applying only to the second year. We'll see if they stay with that.

The recommendation was adopted 8-3; the amendment was adopted 7-4. And as noted by Alain Jehlen, the three no votes on the adoption of MCAS 2.0 were the student rep, the parent rep, amd the teacher rep.