BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2553
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 21, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 2553 (Brownley) - As Amended: April 12, 2010
SUBJECT : Kindergarten readiness
SUMMARY : Establishes guidelines for the development of a
voluntary statewide kindergarten readiness data collection tool
or tools. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes findings and declarations regarding how a child's
readiness for school includes physical well-being, social and
emotional development, language development, cognition, and
the child's approach towards learning, as well as how children
who enter kindergarten ready for school are more likely to
achieve later success.
2)Requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to
adhere to the following guidelines, in collaboration with
specified representatives, if the CDE commences a process for
the creation of a school readiness data collection tool or
tools:
a) Ensure that the kindergarten readiness data collection
tool or tools can be used to both provide a statewide
snapshot of the skills pupils demonstrate and to provide
kindergarten teachers with information about the level of
skills and behaviors that pupils demonstrate at the
beginning of kindergarten;
b) Review work done in counties as well as other states
that have successfully created tools that support
instruction and inform policy; and,
c) Ensure that any kindergarten readiness measurement tool
or tools crafted meet the following requirements:
i) Meet accepted statistical and psychometric standards
for validity and reliability;
ii) Are age and developmentally appropriate;
iii) Include the multiple domains of children's
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development, including social-emotional development, and
align with the California Preschool Foundations in the
areas of cognitive, physical, language, and
social-emotional development and the corresponding
kindergarten content standards; and,
iv) Are appropriate for use with children who are
English learners.
3)Specifies that if the CDE develops a kindergarten readiness
data collection tool or tools, the CDE shall develop a plan
for the voluntary implementation of the kindergarten readiness
data collection tool or tools that address, but are not
limited to, the following:
a) How best to train and support personnel administering
the tool or tools;
b) How the tool or tools complement the ongoing assessments
done in the classroom to support and inform instruction and
pupil progress;
c) How to distribute data to local educators,
administrators, and state and local policymakers in a
timely and useful fashion;
d) If and how the kindergarten readiness data collection
tool or tools and methods for capturing kindergarten
readiness data should be piloted;
e) If and how kindergarten readiness data can connect with
school readiness data collected in preschool and other
child development and care settings;
f) If and how kindergarten readiness data should be
included or connected to the California Longitudinal Pupil
Achievement Data System (CALPADS); and,
g) Identification of potential federal or other non-General
Fund funds for implementation of any components of the
plan.
4)Specifies that for the purposes of this bill, the CDE shall
collaborate with representatives from the California State
Advisory Council on Early Childhood Education and Care, the
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Legislature, K-12 teachers, early childhood professionals,
education researchers, users of existing measures of school
readiness, and children's advocates.
5)Prohibits any kindergarten readiness data obtained from a tool
or tools to be used for any non-informational purpose,
including, but not limited to, determining a child's
eligibility for kindergarten or determining whether to retain
a kindergarten pupil.
6)Specifies that no kindergarten readiness data derived from the
kindergarten readiness tool or tools shall be utilized for
high stakes purposes, including determining a child's
eligibility for kindergarten or determining whether to retain
a kindergarten student.
7)Provides that the guidelines and plan specified in this bill
shall be incorporated into any existing efforts to develop a
tool or tools for kindergarten readiness. The CDE may use any
federal funds or other sources, including private funds, for
this purpose.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to ensure
that all contracts for child care and development programs
include a requirement that each public or private provider
maintain a developmental profile to appropriately identify the
emotional, social, physical, and cognitive growth of each
child served in order to promote the child's success in the
public schools. To the extent possible, the CDE shall provide
a developmental profile to all public and private providers
using existing profile instruments that are most cost
efficient. (Education Code 8203.5)
2)Specifies that any child, who has participated in a state
subsidized preschool that maintains results-based standards,
including the desired-results accountability system, may have
the performance information transferred to any subsequent or
concurrent public school setting. Any transferred information
shall be in summary form and only accomplished with the
permission of the parent or guardian. (Education Code 8282)
3)Authorizes CALPADS and requires the CDE to contract for the
development of a system that will provide for the retention
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and analysis of longitudinal K-12 pupil achievement data on
Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program assessments,
the high school exit examination, and English language
development assessments.
4)Establishes the State Advisory Council on Early Childhood
Education and Care. Membership on the council shall include
the 13 members of the Early Learning Quality Improvement
System Advisory Committee and five specified representatives
serve on the State Advisory Council. (Executive Order
S-23-09)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown.
COMMENTS : Early childhood education advocates maintain that
utilizing school readiness data can positively influence later
academic achievement by providing critical opportunities to
gauge skill level and guide additional interventions at an early
age. AB 2553 specifies that if the CDE initiates the development
of a kindergarten readiness tool or tools, the CDE shall adhere
to specific guidelines.
Many school readiness efforts in California have been led by
local First 5 organizations and other educational entities.
Consequently, these efforts have led to the creation of various
oberservation tools used in districts across the state. While
the efforts at the local level have produced useful data for
counties and districts, early childhood education experts
believe that California would benefit from a tool or tools that
can provide both statewide data, as well as information that is
useful to teachers.
Currently, state level early childhood assessment efforts have
been primarily driven by the CDE's use of the Desired Results
Developmental Profile (DRDP)-a mandatory assessment tool for use
in state-funded early childhood education programs only. The
DRDP largely serves to produce reports of student performance
that inform teachers' understanding of student learning and help
teachers plan next instructional steps. However, the CDE has
begun developing a school readiness (SR) tool for use in
kindergarten classrooms. Development of the proposed SR tool
will be derived from the CDE Child Development Division's
overall DRDP development process, and will share key
characteristics with existing and upcoming DRDP assessment
tools. The CDE is expected to begin testing the SR tool this
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year. AB 2553 serves to align the goals of the DRDP/ SR tool
with those that would allow for kindergarten readiness data to
be aggregated at a statewide level for the purposes of informing
educational policy decisions.
The sponsor of AB 2553, Children Now, has emphasized developing
a tool that is inclusive of the multiple domains of child
development, as well as appropriate for English learners.
Though 31 states currently administer assessment tools in
kindergarten, many solely measure child literacy. AB 2553
ensures that any statewide kindergarten readiness assessment
tool or tools will include cognitive, physical, language, and
social-emotional development in addition to incorporating
existing California Preschool Foundations. The tool or tools
may require the teacher to assess the child's proficiency in
areas such as:
Ability to plan and coordinate use of grasp, release,
and control of fingers for functional and play activities;
Ability to maintain balance;
Engagement with books;
Recognition of rhyming words;
Recognition of letters of the alphabet;
Ability to stay focused/ pay attention during
activities; or,
Ability to follow one-to-two step directions.
The implementation plan required by AB 2553 would serve to
address many of the concerns associated with developing a
statewide tool. Advocates have, understandably, raised concerns
with crafting a tool that is lengthy or requires a significant
amount of effort on the part of the teacher-particularly those
with larger classroom sizes. While existing tools may require
the teacher to spend less than 10 minutes per student, others
have been reported to require more than 30 minutes per student
in completing the assessment. Advocates in the field have also
raised questions of how a statewide tool would align with
current classroom assessments. Once a child has entered
kindergarten, some districts or schools currently administer
tests to determine a child's readiness for specific aspects of
the curriculum. AB 2553 would require the CDE to discuss how to
best integrate an assessment tool or tools with current in-class
practices.
AB 2553 also requires the plan to include how best to train
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teachers who wish to participate in the administration of a
kindergarten assessment tool. Researchers have stated that
training requires minimal time, and may be modified according to
the function of a kindergarten readiness tool. Additionally,
researchers have noted that teacher training is a key component
to using a kindergarten readiness tool effectively in
classrooms. Training may consist of topics including, but not
limited to, the following:
Properly observing pupils;
Proper recording of pupil observations; and,
Proper reporting of pupil assessment.
AB 2553 requires the CDE to create a comprehensive plan
pertaining to data collection at the state level. While
assessment tools used today may provide information for
counties, there are no means of transferring this data to the
state for analysis or use. Such data would provide local
educations, administrators, and state and local policymakers the
ability to better monitor student progress and assist high need
students at even earlier ages. Santa Barbara County, for
example, has used the Kindergarten Student Entrance Profile tool
to support early data-based decisions about student's early
educational needs in promoting early language and literacy
skills among their high population of English learners. While
any data collected would provide critical information to
educators and policymakers alike, the distribution of an
assessment may not be used to establish standards in
kindergarten classrooms or for other high stakes purposes.
The bill also provides for the discussion of integrating data
collected through a kindergarten readiness tool with CALPADS,
though this may be challenging given the qualitative nature of
current kindergarten readiness data collection tools.
Concerns have been raised that the use of a kindergarten
readiness tool may lead to standardized testing of kindergarten
students. The author maintains that it is not the intent of
this bill to create a tool that may ultimately evolve into a
standardized test. Additionally, the author upholds that any
tool developed by the CDE is intended to be used to record
teachers' observations within the first weeks of school and does
not involve testing students' knowledge or understanding of
educational concepts, assignments or coursework in any form.
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Ultimately, having access to readiness information can better
inform kindergarten teachers, early learning educators,
providers, state and local policymakers in their efforts to
better assist children before they enter kindergarten and during
their kindergarten year. AB 2553 could lead to the development
of a kindergarten readiness tool or tools that is reflective of
state and local needs, as well as a collaborative effort between
the CDE and the various educational advocates across the state.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Children Now (Sponsor)
Advancement Project
Applied Survey Research
Bay Area Council
Bella Vista Foundation
California Federation of Teachers
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California
First 5 Alameda County
First 5 Association of California
First 5 Santa Barbara County
First 5 San Mateo County
First 5 Santa Clara County
Preschool California
San Mateo County Office of Education
Santa Clara County Office of Education
Santa Clara Partnership for School Readiness
Silicon Valley Leadership Group
The Education Trust West
Opposition
None on File
Analysis Prepared by : Pilar Whitaker and Sophia Kwong Kim/ ED.
/ (916) 319-2087