BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair

                                          SB 753 (Padilla)
          
          Hearing Date: 05/26/2011        Amended: 05/24/2011
          Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Education 9-0
          
















































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          BILL SUMMARY: SB 753 would require that the California English 
          Language Development Test (CELDT) be administered annually 
          during a three-month test period commencing with the day upon 
          which 65 percent of the instructional year is completed, 
          beginning after the current CELDT test contract expires. This 
          bill would require the California Department of Education (CDE) 
          to provide the score a pupil achieves on the CELDT to the parent 
          or guardian of the pupil in English and, if available, in the 
          language reported on the home language survey, as specified.
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                            Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions            2011-12      2012-13       2013-14       
           Fund
                                                                  
          Screening test implementation  $3,000-$6,000 annually, beginning 
          in 2013-14   General
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          STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
          
          Under existing law, a pupil whose primary language is not 
          English must have his or her English language development 
          assessed within 30 days of enrolling in a California public 
          school and annually thereafter until the pupil is redesignated 
          as fluent English proficient.  The assessment tool used by the 
          state is the CELDT.  Currently, authority for setting the annual 
          timeframe for administration of the CELDT is determined by the 
          Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) and the State Board 
          of Education (SBE).  The SPI and SBE have established the 
          testing window as beginning on July 1 and ending on October 31. 
          Existing law further requires that the assessment be conducted 
          upon initial enrollment and annually thereafter during a period 
          of time determined by the SPI and the SBE, until the pupil is 
          redesignated as English proficient.



          This bill would require the annual assessment (the CELDT) to be 
          conducted during a 3-month test period commencing with the day 
          upon which 65% of the instructional year is completed, and would 
          provide that these provisions, as well as the provisions 








          SB 753 (Padilla)
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          requiring an initial and annual assessment, would not be 
          implemented until 2015, after the current test publisher's 
          contract expires. 



          Because federal law requires that English learners' language 
          development be tested within 30 days of enrolling in a 
          California school, and the majority of new students enroll at 
          the beginning of a school year, the CDE would need to provide 
          schools a test for initial screening of pupils, separate from 
          the spring CELDT. This bill requires that the CDE use an 
          existing, prior CEDLT exam as a screening test.



          This bill will also incur additional costs to administer the 
          initial screening test, which will presumably be modeled after 
          the CELDT. The CELDT is a labor-intensive test to 



          administer because portions of it are done one-on-one (verbally) 
          with an administrator and each single student test taker. Test 
          administrators receive significant training to administer the 
          CELDT. Costs to administer the CELDT in 2009-10 were over $21.9 
          million, of which $11.4 million was General Fund.  There are 1.5 
          - 2 million test takers, annually, and the vast majority of them 
          are tested as part of the annual assessment, which indicates 
          that most English learners either first enrolled in California 
          schools in Kindergarten or enroll in the fall. Students who 
          currently enroll after the CELDT test has been completed are 
          tested separately within 30 days of enrolling in a California 
          school. It is unclear how many new English learner students will 
          need to be given the initial screening test in a given year, 
          under this bill. Costs will be driven by the number of 
          out-of-cycle test takers.

          Amend per author to require implementation commence in the 
          2013-14 school year, and to specify the prior year's CELDT test 
          be used as a pupil's initial screening assessment.












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