BILL ANALYSIS
SB 930
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB 930 (Ducheny)
As Amended August 20, 2010
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE :23-13
EDUCATION 6-1 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|Ayes:|Brownley, Ammiano, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Bradford, |
| |Arambula, Carter, Eng, | |Huffman, Coto, Davis, De |
| |Torlakson | |Leon, Gatto, Hall, |
| | | |Skinner, Solorio, |
| | | |Torlakson, Torrico |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Miller |Nays:|Conway, Harkey, Miller, |
| | | |Nielsen, Norby |
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SUMMARY : Modifies California's public school assessment and
accountability system with respect to English Learner (EL)
pupils, including expanding the number of limited English
proficient (LEP) students who are tested on the state's content
standards in their primary language, and other changes related
to the testing of EL pupils and inclusion of their test scores
in accountability measures. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes Legislative findings and declarations regarding the
Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program, other
assessments, accountability, and the testing of EL pupils.
2)Requires any primary language assessment developed on or after
July 1, 2013, and the results of that primary language
assessment for LEP students who receive instruction in their
primary language, are identified as literate by the primary
language assessment and have been enrolled in U.S. schools for
less than three consecutive years, or are enrolled in dual
language immersion programs, be included in the state
assessment system, the federal and state accountability
system, and any successor assessment or accountability
systems.
3)Requires that any successor to the state assessment system
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adopted on or after July 1, 2013, modify, based upon research
designed to maintain the rigor of the test, the California
Standards Test in order to eliminate linguistic complexity and
include test accommodations for English learners, including
repetition of test directions, and a glossary and translations
of test directions provided by the California Department of
Education (CDE).
4)Requires that any advisory committee, work group, task force
or technical assistance group required by the Legislature or
Governor, or established by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) for the purposes of providing
recommendations on future state assessment, or state or
federal accountability systems provide recommendations to the
SPI and the State Board of Education (SBE) on 2) and 3) above,
as well as on reporting and disaggregating comprehensive EL
data. Also specifies that any group specified above includes
persons with demonstrated expertise in assessment of or
research on EL pupils.
5)Requires that the state's primary language assessments meet
the technical requirements, with respect to validity,
reliability and comparability, in the standards jointly
developed by the American Psychological Association, American
Educational Research Association, and National Council on
Measurement in Education; also requires the test development
contractor to report to the SBE in writing as to how those
technical requirements are met.
6)Establishes an operative date of July 1, 2013 for these
provisions.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires a LEP pupil, who is enrolled in grades 2 through 11
to take a test in his or her primary language if a test is
available, and if fewer than 12 months have elapsed after his
or her initial enrollment in any public or nonpublic school in
the state or if the pupil receives instruction in his or her
primary language; the Standards-based Tests in Spanish (STS)
are currently available for this purpose.
2)Requires each school district that has one or more EL pupils,
to assess each pupil's English language development in order
to determine the level of proficiency within 30 calendar days
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after the pupil's initial enrollment, and annually,
thereafter, until the pupil is redesignated as English
proficient; also requires the CDE with the approval of the SBE
to establish procedures for conducting English language
proficiency assessments and for the reclassification of a
pupil from LEP to proficient in English; the California
English Language development Test (CELDT) is the assessment
designated for this purpose.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee;
1)Annual General Fund Proposition 98 (GF/98) state assessment
apportionment costs, beginning in 2013, of approximately
$200,000 to school districts to administer a primary language
assessment. This cost may be reduced if pupils enrolled in a
dual language immersion program take this assessment, since
the measure requires school districts implementing such
programs to pay for the assessment.
2)Beginning in 2013, annual GF/98 administrative costs, likely
less than $100,000, to CDE to provide school districts with
bilingual glossaries and translated test directions, as
specified.
COMMENTS : According to the author, under current law, "Only
scores of the English achievement tests are included in the
calculation of the Academic Performance Index and in the
Adequate Yearly Performance. After 12 months of enrollment, an
English learner not instructed in their primary language is
required to take the academic test only in English.
Additionally, only minimal accommodations have been made
available to English learners taking the achievement tests in
English." The author's stated intent of this bill is to
"establish an accountability system that would provide accurate
information regarding the academic performance of students who
are English learners."
California's state assessment program is comprised of three
major testing components, the Standardized Testing and Reporting
(STAR) Program, the 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. STAR includes the STS, which are Spanish language
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tests in reading-language arts and mathematics administered to
Spanish speaking English learners who have been in school in the
United States less than 12 months or who are receiving
instruction in Spanish. STAR results are reported for the
individual pupil, but no accountability attaches to these
individual results; metrics used in the state and federal
accountability systems (e.g., the academic performance index
(API) and adequate yearly progress (AYP) are primarily based on
aggregated STAR test scores from all pupils in a school or
school district but do not include STS results.
The fundamental question posed by this bill is whether it is
appropriate to make decisions, where educational stakes for a
pupil, school or district are involved, on the sole basis of
content tests that are administered to pupils that do not fully
understand the language in which the test is written. That
question may be answered by a hypothetical example. If there
were a grade 6 mathematics test written in Japanese kanji
(characters), that test would look very different from its
English version. There would be similarities, since modern
mathematics has developed a fairly universal set of standard
notations and most of the world has adopted Arabic numbers and
Greek letters for the purposes of mathematics, but the test
would clearly be different in terms of the test directions and
the text-based stem of any question (particularly in the word
problems that frequent grade 6 mathematics). If that test were
administered to a non-Japanese reading pupil, then that pupil
would be able to engage in some parts of the test (the numbers
and symbols might be familiar) but clearly would be unable to
show the depth of his or her understanding and abilities in
mathematics. Even though the content of the test is meant to be
purely mathematics and the score is intended to reflect that,
for this pupil it would be a test of something more than
mathematics; clearly the test score would reflect both the
pupil's understanding of mathematics and the pupil's ability to
read and understand the language in which the test was written.
This example is analogous to the situation faced by an EL
student who is administered a content-based test written in
English; the score may have some information about the pupil's
understanding or abilities with respect to the content of the
test, but that information is confounded by the fact that the
test score will also reflect the pupil's lack of understanding
of the language in which the test was written. If the testing
was not explicitly designed to separate out a content score from
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a language score (to the extent that would be possible), then it
would not be possible to determine what the student knows and
can do in the content area. Thus decisions, including those
concerning instruction, retention, promotion or graduation, made
about that pupil using judgments about the pupil's knowledge and
ability in that content area derived from a content test written
in a language in which the pupil has limited fluency may very
well be flawed. This problem follows the pupil's test score as
it is aggregated up into scores at the school, district and
other levels, and will also be present in any other metric that
includes the test score (e.g., API, AYP). This would
particularly present problems for aggregate scores and measures
in schools or districts with very high proportions of EL pupils,
and for any educational decisions that involve high stakes
(e.g., graduation for the individual, or sanctions and
interventions for the school or district).
This bill addresses this test validity problem by improving the
state's primary language tests and expanding the number students
to whom the tests are administered, increasing the information
composited into the API and AYP by including primary language
content test results, and reducing linguistic complexity and
requiring testing accommodations on English language content
tests so as to reduce the effect of language differences on the
test scores of EL students.
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087
FN:
0006532