BILL ANALYSIS
AB 476
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 1, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 476 (Torlakson) - As Introduced: February 24, 2009
SUBJECT : The Standardized Testing and Reporting Program
SUMMARY : Eliminates testing under the Standardized Testing and
Reporting (STAR) Program in grade 2, and requires a one-time
independent evaluation of that program. Specifically, this
bill :
1)Eliminates the requirement to administer STAR tests to pupils
in grade 2.
2)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), on or
before July 1, 2010, to contract for an independent evaluation
of the STAR Program that:
a) Includes, but is not limited to, STAR's alignment to
statewide content standards and the tests' content
validity, pupil performance, compliance with testing
standards, usefulness as a diagnostic or evaluative tool,
and feasibility with respect to testing in new grade levels
or content areas.
b) Separately considers pupil subgroups and any
differential impacts STAR tests may have on those
subgroups.
c) Makes recommendations for improvements and revisions in
the program.
d) Is completed and reported to the SPI by October 1, 2010,
and presented by the SPI to the Legislature and State Board
of Education (SBE) by January 1, 2011.
EXISTING LAW
1)Requires each charter school, school district, and county
office of education to administer designated achievement tests
to each pupil in grades 2 through 11, inclusive, as part of
the STAR Program until July 1, 2011.
AB 476
Page 2
2)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the
State Board of Education to undertake activities in support of
STAR testing in grades 2 through 11, inclusive, as part of the
STAR Program until July 1, 2011.
3)Makes all grade 2 requirements under the STAR Program
inoperative July 1, 2011.
4)Repeals statute authorizing the STAR Program, the state's
content and performance standards, and other related elements
as of January 1, 2012.
FISCAL EFFECT : Estimates in previous years suggest that a
General Fund (Proposition 98) savings in excess of two million
($2,000,000) will be generated by the elimination STAR testing
in grade 2. Contracting for the independent evaluator will
create unknown state costs.
COMMENTS : California's state assessment program is comprised of
three major testing components, the STAR Program, the California
English Language Development Test (CELDT), and a high school
exit examination (the California High School Exit Examination,
CAHSEE, is currently the designated high school exit
examination). The program also includes a number of smaller,
more specialized assessments.
The STAR Program, initially authorized in 1997, requires testing
of students in English language arts, mathematics, science and
history/social science at specified grade levels. In 2003, the
California Standards Tests (CST) replaced a nationally published
"off the shelf" test as the primary battery of STAR tests; the
CST include only questions written specifically for California's
content standards. Today, the STAR Program includes the CSTs,
the California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA)
administered to students with significant cognitive
disabilities, the California Modified Assessment (CMA)
administered to students whose disabilities preclude them from
achieving grade-level proficiency on an assessment of the
California content standards with or without testing
accommodations, and a national norm-referenced test in Spanish
that is administered to Spanish speaking English learners who
have been in school in the U.S. less than 12 months or who are
receiving instruction in Spanish. Neither the high school exit
exam nor the CELDT are components of the STAR Program; each is
separately authorized in statute. Results for STAR tests are
AB 476
Page 3
reported for the individual pupil, but no accountability
attaches to these individual results; the state and federal
accountability systems are primarily based on the aggregated
STAR test scores from all pupils in a school or school district.
The following table summarizes testing requirements under
California's STAR Program.
---------------------------------------------------------------
| | Assessment | Grade Level Tested |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
|STAR |English Language Arts | 2-11 |
|Program |(Reading) | |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |English Language Arts | 2-11 |
| |(Reading) CAPA | |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |English Language Arts | 3-11 |
| |(Reading) CMA | |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |Mathematics |2-8 and EOC in grades |
| | | 9-11 |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |Mathematics CAPA | 2-11 |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |Mathematics CMA | 3-11 |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |Science | 5, 8, and EOC in |
| | | grades 9-11 |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |History-Social Science | 8-11 |
|-----------+----------------------------+----------------------|
| |Primary Language Assessment |2 -11 |
| |(Spanish) | |
---------------------------------------------------------------
EOC = End-of-course exam
Many elements of the STAR Program are used by California to meet
the assessment and accountability requirements of the federal No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). NCLB requires each state
to administer a standards-aligned achievement test in reading
and mathematics to all students in grades 3-8 and grade 10; it
also requires science testing in grades 5, 8, and 10. Testing
of grade 2 students is not necessary to meet any of these
federal requirements. According to information provided by the
AB 476
Page 4
Education Commission of the States, as of 2005 only seven other
states tested grade 2 students in any of the content areas
tested in the STAR Program.
This bill has two components, the elimination of STAR grade 2
testing, and the addition of an independent evaluation of the
STAR Program.
Grade 2 testing: Grade 2 testing in the STAR Program was a
controversial issue in 1997 in SB 376 (Alpert), that initially
authorized the program, and in the subsequent reauthorization.
The reauthorization of the STAR Program in 2004, as implemented
by SB 1448 (Alpert), represented a negotiated compromise that
pivoted on the eventual elimination of grade 2 testing. This
elimination was to be accomplished over a three year period with
the grade 2 testing requirement becoming inoperative on July 1,
2007. AB 1353 (Huff), held in Assembly Education in 2007,
proposed to extend this sunset date by three years; later that
year, a four year extension of that date was made in budget
trailer language in SB 80 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal
Review), Chapter 174, Statutes of 2007. Current law keeps STAR
testing in grade 2 operative until July 1, 2011, and repeals the
STAR Program and related statute on January 1, 2012 unless
additional legislation reauthorizes the program.
Grade 2 testing has long been controversial in the testing
community. In a position paper, the National Center for Fair &
Open Testing (also known as FairTest), a research center that
works to promote fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial
evaluations of students, teachers and schools and to end misused
and flawed testing practices, presents six arguments for
opposing or eliminating grade 2 testing.
1)Tests of children in grade 2 are likely to be invalid and/or
unreliable, since research has shown that for children below
grade 4, the mechanics of taking tests and answering on
specialized answer sheets can prove more difficult than the
cognitive tasks the tests are asking them to address.
2)Standardized tests are scary for primary school children, bad
for their morale and confidence, and often do not show what the
student knows and can do because the student is overwhelmed by
the test situation.
3)Most seven-year-olds are still in the process of acquiring the
AB 476
Page 5
complex skills involved in learning to read and write.
Premature testing is discouraging to the learner in the same way
that having a work-in-progress exposed to summary judgment would
be.
4)Differences in background show up most vividly in the early
years of schooling: some children arrive in school never having
actually handled a book or in some cases seen one close up;
others have had books read to them since infancy. These
differences tend to diminish in later years in the face of their
common school experience.
5)Primary grade teachers know to build evaluation into daily
instruction as a built-in function. However, when an outside
agency takes over the responsibility for evaluation, the risk
arises that teachers looking for information to guide their
instruction begin to rely on the relatively thin, out-of-context
and delayed information contained in the test results, rather
than on the immediate feedback provided by classroom
evaluations.
6)In order to prepare students for testing, teachers may use more
work sheets, and drill students on skills and vocabulary out of
context. The curriculum may become dry and mechanical with
little time given to the kinds of rich reading and writing
experiences that can make students life-long readers and
learners; this can have a greater impact on low income students
who may be less likely to have had substantial early pleasure
reading experiences.
Supporters of eliminating grade 2 testing in California cite the
compromise agreement that lead to the reauthorization of the
STAR program, and argue that tests given to young pupils should
be for diagnostic or placement purposes only. They also argue
that the loss of instructional time to testing and the resulting
narrowing of the curriculum are particularly damaging in the
early grades. Educators also question the developmental
appropriateness and psychometric validity of testing in the
early grades. Teachers in opposition cite numerous examples of
negative impacts on individual grade 2 students, including
crying, acting out, loss of self-esteem, and hair loss due to
stress. The National Association for the Education of Young
Children has been opposed to standardized testing of young
children for a number of years for these reasons.
AB 476
Page 6
According to the author, "Standardized test instruments require
skills that most second graders have not yet mastered, and thus
impairs an accurate assessment of a child's learning.
Considering the current budget crisis, an investment of state
funds in a test that does not yield useful data is unnecessary
and should be eliminated. It is the author's intent that the
STAR evaluation required in this bill will provide direction on
a more useful, diagnostic exam for second grade students."
Opponents of eliminating grade 2 STAR testing would argue that
providing information to parents and teachers early in a
student's educational career is important for making adjustments
to that student's instruction. However, to the extent that the
validity of the scores and information produced by the tests
administered to grade 2 pupils can be questioned, the validity
of the educational decisions made using that information also
comes into question. For example, if a grade 2 reading test is
measuring something in addition to or other than reading (e.g.,
measuring the pupil's anxiety, lack of understanding of how an
answer form is filled in, lack of ability to sit still for a 45
minute testing session), then any decisions about the pupil's
reading abilities or about restructuring the pupil's reading
instruction may be misplaced; what appeared to be low reading
achievement may actually be the result of those other dimensions
that were unintentionally being measured by the test. Many of
these factors tend to diminish or disappear as the student ages
or gains more experience in classroom assessment situations.
The independent evaluation of the STAR Program: According to
the author, "This bill would require the Department of Education
to establish a STAR advisory panel that would authorize an
independent evaluation of the current STAR program's
effectiveness in measuring student progress on California
academic standards and meeting the requirements of NCLB. This
evaluation would also examine the feasibility and cost of a
state-wide diagnostic testing model, to achieve both a
classroom-focused diagnostic tool and a state-wide data tracking
function. This independent evaluation would inform the STAR
reauthorization discussion."
Given the sunset and potential reauthorization of the STAR
Program in 2011, the Legislature's need for an evaluation of the
program is clear. The STAR Program has tested millions of
students in multiple content areas annually for eleven years
(the twelfth year of testing is currently in progress), however,
AB 476
Page 7
no independent evaluation has been required or completed. A
technical report on the test is completed annually by the
testing contractor responsible for administration, scoring, and
reporting the test and test results, but the independence of a
contractor has been called into question by the California
Department of Education and the SBE at times over the lifetime
of the program. In addition, a report to the Legislature and
the Governor from the SPI and SBE regarding the status of
implementation of the STAR Program was required and provided in
2001; an annual report of test scores from the SPI to the
Legislature and SBE is also required. Neither the annual
technical reports nor any of the SPI/SBE reports were completed
by an independent entity, and none of those reports examine all
of the issues that the Legislature should examine prior to the
reauthorization of the STAR Program.
By contrast the California's high school exit examination,
authorized in 1999 and first administered in 2001, has had an
ongoing independent evaluator that has issued both annual and
biennial evaluative reports since 2001. These evaluations are
contracted for separately from the contract issued to the vendor
or vendors responsible for the administration, development or
any other facet of the test, and have been conducted by a firm
and staff with backgrounds in measurement, and specializing in
research and program evaluation.
During this period of economic and budgetary crisis, imposing
the requirement of a new one-time evaluation and the cost that
it creates will be difficult for the Legislature to consider.
However, as a whole this bill's proposals would result in net GF
savings to the state, since the cost of implementing a one-time
evaluation of the STAR Program would certainly be more than
offset by the larger savings generated by the elimination of
grade 2 testing. In addition, the evaluation may allow the
Legislature to more efficiently use the state's resources to
support the reauthorized testing program.
Committee amendments: Committee staff recommends, and the
author has accepted, the following amendments.
1)Change the timing of the evaluation to both lengthen the
period of me available to the evaluator and provide the
evaluation to the Legislature and SBE at an earlier date, by
requiring the contract to be in place by April 1, 2010 and the
evaluation to be provided by November 1, 2010.
AB 476
Page 8
2)Specify that funding for the evaluation be redirected from the
savings generated by the elimination of STAR testing in grade
2, and place a cap on the cost of the evaluation with the cost
of the contract not to exceed $150,000.
3)Delete the new advisory panel proposed in this bill to advise
the California Department of Education on the independent
evaluation, and instead place the existing advisory committee
advising the SPI on issues related to the Academic Performance
Index (API) in that role. Also augment that advisory
committee, only for the purposes of advising on this
evaluation, to include four additional members, to include
educators and other individuals having expertise with multiple
forms of assessment and reflecting the diversity of
California.
Related legislation: SB 800 (Hancock), pending in the Senate
Education Committee, eliminates grade 2 STAR testing and makes
conforming changes to dates by which related sections of law
become inoperative and are repealed.
Previous legislation: SB 80 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal
Review), Chapter 174, Statutes of 2007, keeps STAR testing in
grade 2 operative until July 1, 2011. AB 1353 (Huff), held in
the Assembly Education Committee in 2007, would have required
grade 2 testing under the Standardized Testing and Reporting
(STAR) program to continue after July 1, 2007 and until July 1,
2010. AB 1695 (Goldberg), held in Assembly Appropriations in
2005, would have required a school district to select and
administer an existing diagnostic reading test for
administration to each pupil in grade 2. SB 1448 (Alpert),
Chapter 233, Statutes of 2004, reauthorizes the STAR Program and
implemented a compromise over the eventual elimination of grade
2 testing; this elimination was to be accomplished over a three
year period with grade 2 provisions becoming inoperative on July
1, 2007 and repealed the following January 1. AB 356 (Hancock),
held on the Senate floor in 2004, would have provided for a
diagnostic assessment, rather than standardized testing, in
grade 2 as part of the STAR program. SB 376 (Alpert), Chapter
828, Statutes of 1997, establishes the STAR Program and
authorizes testing in grades 2 through 11.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
AB 476
Page 9
Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
AFL-CIO
California Alliance for Arts Education
California Business Education Association
California Federation of Teachers
California Mathematics Council
California Science Teachers Association
California Teachers Association
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087