BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
AB 409 (Alejo)
Hearing Date: 08/15/2011 Amended: 05/19/2011
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Education 9-0
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 409 authorizes the administration of a primary
language assessment to pupils enrolled in dual immersion
programs who are not limited English proficient or who have been
redesignated as fluent English-proficient. This bill authorizes
the Department of Education (CDE) to make a primary language
assessment available to school districts and charter schools, as
specified. This bill requires a school district or charter
school that chooses to administer a primary language assessment
to do so at its own expense and to enter into an agreement with
the state testing contractor subject to the approval of the CDE.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13
2013-14 Fund
Spanish assessment Substantial cost pressure; partially
offset by fees General
Other language assessments Cost pressure: tens of
millions General
CDE administration $31
$63 $63 General
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Dual immersion programs, which are operated by both school
districts and charter schools throughout California, integrate
language minority students (English learners) and language
majority students (English speakers) to develop bilingualism and
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biliteracy in English and another language. These programs are
optional; students are not automatically enrolled in a dual
immersion program or school as a "neighborhood school". Parents
of English learners must sign yearly waivers of consent prior to
placement of their child in a dual immersion program. The two
most common program models are the 50/50 and the 90/10 models.
Both English and the target language are used 50 percent of the
time during the entire program in a 50/50 model. English is used
for a minimum of ten percent of the time beginning in
kindergarten, and the percentage increases annually until both
English and the target language are used equally in a 90/10
model. In both models, instruction is delivered in the two
languages; however, only one language at a time is used for
instruction.
Consistent with existing law, requiring pupils in grades 2-11 to
be part of the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR)
Program, English speakers in dual immersion programs participate
in the STAR. The STAR Program requires pupils to be tested in
English language arts, mathematics, science and history-social
science at specific grade levels. The STAR Program includes the
California Standards Tests (CSTs), the California Alternate
Performance Assessment (CAPA) and the California Modified
Assessment (CMA) administered to certain pupils with
disabilities, and a primary language assessment.
Existing law requires the California Department of Education
(CDE) to develop and adopt primary language assessments that are
aligned to the state academic content standards for
reading/language arts and mathematics. The primary language
assessments developed pursuant to this statute are the
Standards-Based Tests in Spanish (STS). Consistent with existing
law, requiring a pupil who is limited English proficient and
receives instruction in his or her primary language or has been
enrolled in a school in the United States for less than 12
months to take the primary language assessment, English learners
in dual immersion programs whose primary language is Spanish
(and meet the other criteria) take the STS. These pupils must
also take the CSTs or the CMA appropriate to the pupil's grade
level. (EC � 60640 (g))
English speaker pupils enrolled in English-Spanish dual
immersion programs, who may be receiving up to 90% of their
instruction in Spanish, are not allowed to take the STS. This
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bill authorizes, at a school's request and expense, the CDE to
make available to the school primary language assessments for
assessing their English speaker pupils. This would not replace
the STAR for state accountability, but would be an additional
tool available to the school for assessing its students'
progress.
This bill is permissive both for the CDE to make the assessments
available, and for the school to request and administer the
assessment. The CDE would have to choose to make tests available
before any costs identified would be incurred. If the CDE makes
specified assessments available, it will likely incur
substantial costs beyond what it could recover in fees. The bill
specifies that costs charged to requesting schools cannot exceed
the marginal cost of the assessment. Thus, while the CDE could
recover costs for the physical exams (of which it only has the
STS), it does not appear that the CDE could recover other costs.
The CDE estimates that it will require $850,000 in one-time
system updates, and a .5 PY (at $63,000) for ongoing
coordination, and increased monitoring of STS test use.
This bill does not specify that the existing STS, but rather
that "a primary language assessment" may be made available that
is developed pursuant to EC � 60640 (f). The code referenced
refers to using federal Title VI funds appropriated in the
Budget Act to develop any current or future primary language
assessments, in general. While English-Spanish dual immersion
programs are the most common, dual immersion programs exist in a
variety of languages. In 2008, there were 224 programs in 100
school districts. Glendale Unified School District, in Los
Angeles County, offers dual immersion programs in (English and)
Italian, German, Armenian, Japanese and Korean, as well as
Spanish. By allowing the CDE to make tests available, which it
does not yet have, to an increasing number and variety of dual
immersion programs, this bill could create cost pressure to
develop those tests. Developing the STS cost the CDE $15 million
over the course of 5 years.