BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 753
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB 753 (Padilla)
As Amended August 26, 2011
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE :39-0
EDUCATION 10-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Brownley, Norby, Ammiano, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Harkey, |
| |Buchanan, Butler, Carter, | |Blumenfield, Bradford, |
| |Eng, Beth Gaines, Wagner, | |Charles Calderon, Campos, |
| |Williams | |Davis, Donnelly, Gatto, |
| | | |Hall, Hill, Lara, |
| | | |Mitchell, Nielsen, Norby, |
| | | |Solorio, Wagner |
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SUMMARY : Makes changes related to the timing and administration
of the required English language development (ELD) assessments.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires, commencing with the 2013-14 school year, that the
annual ELD assessment of English learners (ELs), using the
test specified for that purpose, be conducted annually during
a testing window that begins with the day upon which 55% of
the instructional year is completed and ends on July 1 of that
same calendar year.
2)Requires a school district to determine if the pupil is an EL
by conducting an assessment of a pupil at the pupil's initial
enrollment, using the current or prior year's test, as
specified, for the grade in which the pupil is being enrolled;
also, requires a school district to assess ELD of a pupil no
more than one time per school year.
3)Prohibits a pupil in any of grades 3 to 9, inclusive, from
being required to retake portions of the ELD assessment for
which he or she has previously achieved the advanced
proficiency level within each appropriate grade span, and
prohibits a pupil in grades 10 to 12, inclusive from being
required to retake the portions of the ELD assessment for
which he or she has previously achieved the early advanced or
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advanced levels.
4)Specifies the provisions in 3) shall not become effective
until the existing ELD assessment contract expires, and shall
not be implemented unless and until the California Department
of Education (CDE) receives written documentation from the
United States Department of Education (USDOE) that
implementation is permitted by federal law.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires each school district that has one or more pupils who
are ELs to assess each pupil's ELD, using a test acquired or
developed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI)
with the approval of the State Board of Education (SBE), in
order to determine the level of proficiency upon initial
enrollment, and annually, thereafter, until the pupil is
redesignated as English proficient; federal law extends this
requirement to all ELs.
2)Requires the assessment to include, but not be limited to, an
assessment of achievement of these pupils in grades 2-12,
inclusive, in English listening, speaking, reading, and
writing skills, and pupils in kindergarten and grade 1 in
English listening, speaking, and until July 1, 2012, early
literacy skills; also requires the ELD assessment, among other
specifications, to be aligned with the English language
development standards and be age and developmentally
appropriate for pupils.
3)Requires the SPI and the SBE to establish procedures for
conducting the ELD assessments, including determining the
period of time within which the annual ELD testing is required
to be conducted.
4)Requires the CDE to develop reclassification procedures that
utilize multiple criteria in determining whether to reclassify
a pupil as proficient in English, including, but not be
limited to, the following:
a) Assessment of language proficiency.
b) Teacher evaluation.
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c) Parental opinion and consultation.
d) Comparison of the pupil's performance in basic skills
that demonstrates whether the pupil is sufficiently
proficient in English to participate effectively in a
curriculum designed for native English speaking pupils of
the same age.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill requires a school district to only assess a
pupil once a school year. There would be no additional General
Fund/Proposition 98 costs to complete this requirement. To the
extent this provision violates federal law, the state may lose a
portion of federal Title I funds ($1.6 billion) and federal
Title III funds ($175 million).
COMMENTS : Nearly one quarter of the student population in
California's public schools are classified as ELs, and closer to
one half of the state's pupils come from homes where English is
not the primary language. Current law requires schools to
assess the English proficiency of all pupils whose primary
language is not English, using an ELD test acquired or developed
by the SPI with the approval of the SBE; the California English
Language Development Test (CELDT) was developed and is required
as the assessment to be used for this purpose. The ELD test is
used for three purposes: 1) to identify new students who are
English learners in kindergarten through grade twelve; 2) to
determine the level of English-language proficiency; and, 3) to
annually assess ELs progress in learning English until they are
reclassified. ELs in grades 2-12 are administered the ELD test,
which assesses those pupils in four domains: speaking,
listening, reading and writing. Title III of the federal
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the current version of
which is known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), also
places similar ELD testing requirements on states. This bill
makes two proposals related to the administration of the ELD
assessment.
Timing of the administration of the ELD assessment: Current law
requires annual ELD testing to be conducted during a period
determined by the SPI and SBE; the annual testing window for the
CELDT is currently from July 1 to October 31. This bill
proposes to specify in statute and change that testing window
for the annual administration of the ELD test to commence with
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the day upon which 55% of the instructional year is completed
and end on July 1 of that same calendar year. This approach to
setting a testing window is fairly standard and sound from a
policy perspective, in that it ensures that testing of pupils
occurs after approximately the same amount of instructional time
in the year has elapsed, independent of any variations in school
calendars across schools and districts. The approach is also
used in other California testing programs, including the
Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program. For a school
district offering 180 days of instruction, this proposal would
lead to a testing window opening on the 99th day of instruction;
for most school calendars this would mean testing would occur
sometime between early February and the end of June. The
primary argument in support of this proposal is that spring
testing would ensure that test results are returned in time to
provide input into decisions about pupils that are made prior to
the beginning of the next school year in the fall; though that
is also true of testing administered in the previous fall (as
under current law), fall testing would provide results that are
potentially stale in that they would not reflect any gains made
by the student in the school year in which he or she were
tested. Thus the move to spring ELD testing would provide
better information on student progress and benefit students
through improved placement and instructional decisions.
There are three issues, however, that the bill potentially
raises:
1)Spring ELD testing increases the possibility of pupil testing
fatigue, since several other tests, that are part of the state
testing program, are administered in the spring.
2)There may be technical psychometric issues that arise from
moving the testing window; for example, the scores or score
scale, as well as the resulting standard setting that ties
those scores to a reported outcome level, for the ELD
assessment may be sensitive to the time the test is
administered. This may also be an issue due to the
lengthening of the testing window to include nearly the entire
2nd half of the school year.
3)Enactment of this proposal may potentially create a conflict
with federal requirement for annual testing of EL pupils under
NCLB that would require clean-up legislation; the Chair of the
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Assembly Committee on Education has asked the SPI and SBE to
clarify this requirement with the USDOE. The preliminary
response received by the SPI from USDOE is that there would be
a conflict; this has the potential to jeopardize the state's
Title I and Title III NCLB grant funding, which amounts to
over $1.7 billion.
Exempting ELs from retaking parts of the ELD assessment: This
bill prohibits a pupil in any of grades 3 to 9, inclusive, from
being required to retake portions of the ELD assessment for
which he or she has previously tested as early advanced or
advanced within each appropriate grade span and prohibits pupils
in grades 10-12, inclusive from retaking the portions of the
assessment for which she or she has achieved the early advanced
or advanced level.
An argument can be made that not assessing ELs in all domains
every year can result in loss of data and information that can
be used for instruction purposes. The level of language
proficiency at one grade level in any domain may not necessarily
indicate the same level in the next or any subsequent grade
level within a CELDT grade span. While the test is the same
throughout each grade span, the scale score ranges and cut
points for each of the proficiency levels vary by grade level,
as the language demands increase grade level after grade level
and the expectations are for ELs to make continuous growth in
language skills year to year. On the other hand, some may argue
that ELs are overly tested and requiring them to retake portions
of the assessment in which the pupil has reached the highest
level is duplicative and time consuming. Proponents would argue
that the time could be better spent on instruction.
These provisions of the bill are in conflict with federal law
requirements. Federal law requires states to annually assess
all Title III-served limited English proficient pupils in each
of the four language domains of speaking, listening, reading and
writing. Additionally, Title I also requires an annual English
language proficiency assessment in four language domains for all
limited English proficient pupils. Some states have asked the
USDOE whether they could exempt some of their students from
annual English language proficiency test in any domain in which
the student scored proficient and "bank" scores until the
student is proficient in all domains. The USDOE notes that both
Title I and Title III require the annual assessment in all four
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domains and that "banking" of scores is not an appropriate
practice. A notice of final interpretations in the Federal
Registry states that the banking of the proficient scores of LEP
Ýlimited English proficient] students in particular domains, in
any given year, including banking of scores within grade spans,
is not permitted. The notice further states, "A proficient
score at one grade level does not mean a student will be
proficient in a subsequent grade level in the same language
domain, since language demands increase as a student advances in
school."
This bill specifies that these provisions shall not be
implemented until CDE receives documentation from the USDOE that
implementation is permitted by federal law.
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Aviña and Gerald Shelton / ED.
/ (916) 319-2087
FN: 0002283