BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 409 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 18, 2011 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Felipe Fuentes, Chair AB 409 (Alejo) - As Amended: March 14, 2011 Policy Committee: Education Vote:7-3 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill authorizes the State Department of Education (SDE) to make a standards-aligned primary language assessment available to school districts and charter schools to assess their non-English language learner (ELL) pupils who are enrolled in a dual language immersion (DLI) program and requires a district or charter school that chooses this option to administer the assessment at its own expense. FISCAL EFFECT 1)Minor GF/98 cost pressure, likely less than $75,000, to authorize school districts to assess their non-ELL pupils who are enrolled in DLI programs, as specified. This bill requires school districts to pay for the administration of this assessment at their own expense. According to SDE, it allocated approximately $101,000 GF/98 to school districts for the administration of the primary language assessment to ELL pupils in 2010. 2)The 2010 Budget Act allocated a total of $53.6 million for the Standardized Testing and Reporting program, which includes the standards-aligned primary language assessment. Of this amount, $42.2 million are GF/98 funds and $11.4 are federal Title VI funds, which can be used for purpose related to implementing standards and assessments. AB 409 Page 2 3)The 2010 Budget Act allocated $168.2 million in federal Title III funding for the purpose of ensuring ELL pupils, including immigrant children and youths, attain English proficiency and meet the same challenging academic content standards that other students are expected to meet. According to SDE, 119 (53%) DLI programs used federal Title III to operate these programs. It is likely these programs would utilize their Title III funds to assess non-ELL pupils utilizing the primary language standards-based assessment, as specified. COMMENTS 1)Background . SB 1448 (Alpert), Chapter 233, Statutes of 2004, and SB 755 (Poochigian), Chapter 676, Statutes of 2005, authorized the SDE to develop and adopt a standards-aligned primary language assessment in reading language arts and mathematics for ELL pupils to replace the existing primary language assessment (Aprenda 3) on a grade by grade basis until July 1, 2011. For example, if a reading language arts standards-aligned primary language test is developed for grade 2, Aprenda 3 would be eliminated only for grade 2 in that subject. The Spanish California Standards Test (CST) was developed for this purpose. To date, there are Spanish CSTs available for ELL pupils enrolled in grades 2-11 in ELA and for ELL pupils enrolled in grades 2-7 in mathematics. Also, Spanish CSTs are available for ELL pupils enrolled in algebra I and geometry. Statute authorizes an ELL pupil to take a primary language CST. The pupil, however, is required to take this assessment in addition to all CSTs in English for specified subjects (i.e., ELA, mathematics, history/social science, and science). According to SDE, 43,194 ELL pupils took the Spanish CSTs in English language arts and 36,346 ELL pupils took the Spanish CST for mathematics in 2010. 2)Purpose . Current law only authorizes ELL pupils enrolled in school less than 12 months or who receive primary language instruction, as specified, to take the standards-aligned primary language assessment. However, there are approximately AB 409 Page 3 50,000 California students enrolled in dual language immersion programs. A dual language immersion program integrates ELL and native English speaking students to develop bilingualism and biliteracy in English and another language. This prohibition limits the information available to school districts, the state, and parents regarding the effectiveness of dual language immersion programs for native English speaking students. According to the author, "Schools are prohibited by law from using the Spanish CST on the non-ELL pupil subset of the student population. Dual immersion schools are therefore unable accurately measure the proficiency of their English Only or fluent English proficient students. This puts these schools at a disadvantage because they cannot compare the data between ELL and non-ELL pupils. As a result, they lack the information needed to accurately measure student progress in grade level content standards and make academic improvements in instruction." 3)DLI program information . According to the SDE, 224 DLI programs were operating in 101 school districts in California in 2008. Of these programs, 203 (90%) provided instruction in Spanish. 4)Amendments . While it is important to ensure English-only speaking pupils enrolled in DLI programs have access to a primary language CST, some educators argue redesignated fluent-English proficient (RFEP) pupils should also be authorized to take this assessment. A pupil is designated RFEP because he or she was recently reclassified as fluent in English. ELL advocates and parents argue it is important to be able to assess an RFEP pupil's academic content knowledge and an English-only CST may not provide an accurate picture, particularly if the pupil was recently reclassified. The author may wish to consider amending this measure to authorize school districts to administer the primary language CST to RFEP pupils. AB 409 Page 4 5)Related legislation . AB 250 (Brownley), pending in this committee, contains language similar to this measure. The main purpose of AB 250 is to implement the Common Core Standards in English and mathematics; as such it does contain language to reauthorize the state's assessment system, including the primary language CSTs. 6)Previous legislation . AB 252 (Coto), similar to this measure, was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007 with the following message: "English-speaking pupils who have voluntarily enrolled in dual language immersion programs are currently required to take the California Standards Test in English. Therefore, another assessment is not needed to measure their mastery of state-adopted academic content standards in another language. Furthermore, I am concerned that this bill creates significant General Fund cost pressures for the state to develop standards-aligned primary language tests in other languages. Given the state's current fiscal climate it is not prudent for me to enact this measure." Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916) 319-2081