BILL ANALYSIS Ó Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair SB 1108 (Padilla) - Reclassification of English Learners. Amended: April 19, 2012 Policy Vote: Education 9-0 Urgency: No Mandate: Yes Hearing Date: May 24, 2012 Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED. Bill Summary: SB 1108 requires school districts, county offices of education (COEs), and charter schools, as a condition of the receipt of funds for the administration of the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) for 2013-14, to report the criteria it uses to determine whether or not to reclassify an English learner student to the state Department of Education (CDE) by July 1, 2013. It requires the CDE to review and analyze the reported information, as specified. This bill further requires the CDE report to the Legislature its findings, as well as recommendations for guideline, regulation, and statutory changes related to reclassifying English learners, by January 1, 2014. The CDE is also required to issue an updated report reflecting any changes related to Common Core standards implementation, by January 1, 2017. Fiscal Impact: CDE reports: The proposed amendments reduce the workload associated with completing the required report, and will likely reduce costs to $200,000-$300,000. Background: Existing federal and state law both require that schools with English language learners annually assess these students' English language development until they are redesignated as English proficient. The state assessment tool, the CELDT, must be administered to all students whose primary language is not English within 30 calendar days after they are enrolled in a California public school for the first time, and annually thereafter during a period of time determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) and the State Board of Education (SBE) until they are reclassified as English proficient. During the 2010-2011 school year, the CELDT was administered to 1.57 million students. SB 1108 (Padilla) Page 1 Existing law requires the CDE, with the approval of the SBE, to establish procedures for administering the CELDT and for the reclassifying a pupil from English learner to English proficient. Reclassification procedures developed by the CDE must use multiple criteria, including, but not limited to: 1) an assessment of language proficiency; 2) teacher evaluation, including, but not limited to, a review of the pupil's curriculum mastery; 3) parental opinion and consultation; and 4) comparison of the student's performance in basic skills against an empirically established range of performance in basic skills based upon the performance of English proficient pupils of the same age. (Education Code § 313) Proposed Law: This bill conditions the receipt of CELDT administration funds on a school district, county office of education, and charter school reporting, by July 1, 2013, to the CDE the criteria it uses to determine whether or not to reclassify a pupil as English proficient. The bill further requires the CDE, by January 1, 2014, to review and analyze the criteria, policies, and practices that school districts use to reclassify English learners and recommend to the Legislature and the SBE any guideline, regulatory, or statutory changes it deems necessary. This bill also requires the CDE, by January 1, 2017, to issue an updated report that reflects any changes in analysis and recommendations as a result of the adoption of the Common Core standards. Related Legislation: SB 1109 (Padilla) requires the SPI to develop an English Learner Master Plan to expand support services, as specified, by January 1, 2014. It requires the SPI to report on the plan and provide recommendations for statutory, regulatory, and administrative changes needed to the Legislature and the SBE by July 1, 2014. This bill is also being heard in this Committee on May 14, 2012. Staff Comments: This bill requires a school district, COE, and charter school to report to the CDE the criteria it uses to determine whether or not to reclassify a pupil as English proficient as a condition of receiving of CELDT administration funds. Legislative counsel has identified this as a potential reimbursable state mandate because the activity of assessing English learners is required by state law, with or without funding allocated for this purpose. Thus, if the reporting SB 1108 (Padilla) Page 2 entities did not provide the information, they would still be required to administer the CELDT without funding. It is, however, unlikely that the required entities would not submit their reclassification criteria to the CDE, since it would be a matter of simply printing and submitting the criteria they are already statutorily required to have and that they use each year. This simple task will not likely drive additional costs to the local agencies required to submit the information. Staff notes, however, that the compliance enforcement mechanism is unclear for charter schools to comply. Some independent charter schools do not receive CELDT administration funding, but instead receive the physical materials and paraprofessional support from their charter authorizers (e.g. a school district) to administer the CELDT; in these cases, the authorizer receives CELDT administration funding for all of the schools in its jurisdiction, and allocates both material and intangible resources to its schools. It is not clear what would happen if a charter school that does not receive direct CELDT funding failed to submit its English Learner reclassification criteria to the CDE. This bill requires the CDE, by January 1, 2014, to review and analyze the criteria, policies, and practices that school districts use to reclassify English learners and recommend to the Legislature and SBE any guideline, regulatory, or statutory changes it deems necessary. Further, the CDE, by January 1, 2017, is required to issue an updated report that reflects any changes in analysis and recommendations as a result of the adoption of the Common Core standards. The CDE has indicated it would likely contract out the work required for both reports, and estimates that such a contract would likely cost $450,000-500,000. The bulk of the work and cost would likely be incurred by the first report, which would be a fully new activity and product. Updating recommendations that are already presented in a report would involve considerably less work. To the extent that the CDE makes recommendations to the SBE and the Legislature which call for additional services or resources, there will be cost pressure to implement those recommendations. Proposed Author Amendments: The proposed amendments remove provisions requiring school districts, COEs, and charter schools to report their reclassification criteria to the CDE. Require the CDE, in completing its report, to analyze a sampling of SB 1108 (Padilla) Page 3 districts that represent the geographic, socioeconomic, and demographic diversity of California's school districts. The amendments also specify that the required activities are contingent upon the availability of private or federal funds.