State lawmakers may be patting themselves on the back for their recent bipartisan work to reduce testing in Colorado schools, but education activists aren’t popping any champagne corks in celebration of those efforts.

“I don’t see much a change for next year,” said Cheri Kiesecker, a Fort Collins mother and an advocate for the overhaul of state student assessment policies.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worked tirelessly last week to reach a late legislative session compromise to reduce and streamline state-mandated assessments in public schools. The result was House Bill 1323, which has been hailed by many lawmakers as big step toward easing the burden on students, parents and teachers who are overwhelmed with tests.

“That’s their language,” said former Jefferson County School board member Paula Noonan. She, along with Kiesecker, is among a vocal and organized group of “moms” who have long-demanded that lawmakers take more action to overhaul the state’s testing system.

“It was itsy bitsy.” Noonan said, referring to the testing reductions that are a part of HB 1323.

So it should come as no surprise that activists such as Kiesecker and Noonan say they will continue to pursue efforts to reduce testing, provide greater protections for parents and schools when students opt out of tests, and protect students’ privacy when testing data is collected.

“Parents are just angry,” Kiesecker said. “We don’t value these tests, yet we’re spending all this money on tests that parents, teachers and districts just don’t want.”

House Bill 1323 accomplished a number of changes to state student-testing policy. Aside from the well-accepted 11th grade ACT test, there will be no state-mandated tests for 11th and 12th grade students.

A companion bill also reduces the frequency of social studies testing.

The bill also eases the burden for 10th grade students, by moving them away from the currently-mandated Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests and toward the less demanding ACT Aspire assessments.

School readiness and READ Act assessments will be streamlined to simplify the testing process. And districts will be able to pilot their own tests, which could ultimately be used in place of state assessments.

Kristina Saccone, a spokeswoman for Colorado Succeeds, a business group that focuses on education reforms, believes the legislation is well balanced. She said the bill maintains high standards and accountability, while also reducing high school testing by 25 percent.

“That’s the biggest cut made by any state in the country this year,” Saccone said.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg is also a fan of the legislation. He said he supports reduced testing and shorter tests for students.

“But it’s important to also to make sure that we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater,” Boasberg said. “It is important that there is some form of common assessment of the progress our kids are making each year, to make sure that all students in the state are held to the same common, high standards.”

But education activists aren’t impressed with the Legislature’s work this year. They dismiss HB 1323 as a half-measure attempt at fixing an enormous problem. They also point to the pile of education bills aimed at dealing with testing issues that failed to pass through the Legislature, which they say is further evidence of lawmakers’ failures.

They included long-shot bills that would have made even bigger cuts to state-mandated tests and efforts to move Colorado away from national Common Core standards.

And a bill that once looked promising, Senate Bill 173, which aimed to address parents’ concerns over how their kids’ testing data is shared and even sold, also died.

“Privacy is a big issue,” Noonan said. “All the data gets shipped somewhere and who knows what happens to it.”

Sen. Chris Holbert, R-Parker, who sponsored SB 173 and HB 1323, said he expects that privacy issues will continue to dominate much of the testing conversation at the Capitol next year. But Holbert believes the federal government can help relieve some privacy concerns on the part of parents by changing a requirement that schools use a single, uniform testing system that collects student data.

“Parents are considered about what data is collected and why government needs this data,” Holbert said. “My hope is the feds will step back and say we need standardized data, one set of data, but my hope is they didn’t mean you have to use the same system.”

Then there’s the opt-out debate. Allowing more freedom for parents to opt their children out of tests – and doing so in a way that holds teachers, districts and the state harmless – will continue to be a pivotal focus for education advocates.

But the more students opt out of tests, the more it puts states like Colorado at risk of violating federal testing policy rules. Right now, through the federal No Child Left Behind program, schools must have a 95 percent participation in annual state tests. Schools that do not meet that requirement risk losing federal funding.

Kiesecker said that charter schools in particular are at risk of shuttering because of the federally-mandated testing participation rate. If a charter school has a large number of students that wish to opt out of testing, school districts can refuse to re-charter, she said.”It creates a big fear and very much uncertainty,” she said.

But others, like Gov. John Hickenlooper, warn that too much opting out doesn’t help students get the help they need.

“I think opting out is like photo radar,” said Hickenlooper. “Nobody is going to vote for photo radar and nobody likes to get a speeding ticket, but it’s a way that we keep our roads safer.”

“If you let the kids, everyone opt out, if there was no consequence… kids wouldn’t have to go through assessments and we’ll lose all that (data),” Hickenlooper went on to say.

Saccone points to a provision in the bill that gives parents the flexibility to opt their children out without consequence. But she believes that testing data helps districts address gaps in student performances and allows parents to see how their children are growing academically.”We still think encouraging parents to opt in to these tests is really important,” she said.

Saccone also said its a misnomer that the state or federal government is to blame for students being over-tested. Under the bill, school districts will be required to provide parents with a complete run-down of testing time, broken down by federal, state and local district requirements.

“These local tests are really the bulk of the testing time and parents, for the first time, will actually be able to see that,” she said.

The reauthorization of No Child Left Behind is currently working its way through Congress. And whatever changes are made at the federal level could end up giving Colorado students, parents and teachers some relief.

But local battles will certainly continue to be fought over testing issues, regardless of what happens in Congress. And as frustration over testing grows, education activists say parents may end up taking matters into their own hands – something that’s happening already.

“The parents could take this thing down by opting their kids out,” Noonan said. “Once the genie got out of the box where parents can say to the state, ‘No, my kid is not going to be a part of this, it could put the whole thing out.”

– Twitter: @VicVela1