BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
476 (Torlakson)
Hearing Date: 08/27/2009 Amended: 08/19/2009
Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 7-1
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 476 would require the Superintendent of
Public Instruction, on or before April 1, 2010, to contract with
an independent evaluator to evaluate the Standardized Testing
and Reporting (STAR) program. The report would be due by
November 1, 2010, and is intended to help guide consideration of
reauthorizing the program prior to its scheduled sunset in July
of 2011.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
STAR evaluation $150
Federal
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STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE.
The STAR Program, initially authorized in 1997, requires the
testing of students in grades 2 through 11, including English
language arts and mathematics at most grade levels, and science
and history/social science at specified grade levels. In 2003,
the California Standards Tests (CST) replaced an earlier "off
the shelf" test as the primary battery of STAR tests. The CSTs
are written specifically to test California's content standards.
The state and federal accountability systems are primarily
based on the aggregated STAR test scores from all pupils in a
school or school district. Many elements of the STAR Program are
used by California to meet the assessment and accountability
requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
The STAR Program is currently scheduled to sunset in July 2011.
This bill would require an independent evaluation of the
Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program.
Specifically, this bill would:
1)Require the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), on or
before April 1, 2010, to contract for an independent
evaluation of the STAR Program that would:
a) Report on the results of prior analyses regarding the
alignment between the STAR assessments and the content
standards.
b) Recommend for improvements and revisions in the program,
and to improve grade level continuity and vertical
alignment of standards-aligned test content.
2)Require the advisory committee advising the SPI on matters
involving the Academic Performance Index to advise the SPI, as
specified, on the evaluation of the STAR
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AB 476 (Torlakson)
3)Program, and requires the SPI to appoint four additional
members, educators or large-scale assessment experts, to the
advisory committee for the purposes advising the SPI on the
evaluation.
4)Specify that federal Flexibility and Accountability funds
pursuant to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), not
to exceed $150,000, be used for this evaluation.
The SPI would be required to provide the evaluation to the
Legislature, the Governor, and the State Board of Education by
November 1, 2010.
Despite the importance of the STAR program to the K-12
accountability systems, there has yet to be an independent
evaluation of the program. An evaluation could help to guide
consideration of reauthorizing the program prior to its
scheduled sunset in July of 2011.
Staff understands that the author has worked with the Department
to find ways to narrow the bill's cost while maintaining key
components of the evaluation. The latest amendment of the bill
is more likely to maintain the $150,000 cap on expenditures then
the version originally analyzed in this committee by an
increased reliance on analysis already completed.