BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 754
AUTHOR: Padilla
AMENDED: April 6, 2011
FISCAL COMM: No HEARING DATE: April 13, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Kathleen
Chavira
SUBJECT : California English Language Development Test
(CELDT)
SUMMARY
This bill prohibits a student in grades 3-12 from being
required to retake portions of the California English
Language Development Test (CELDT) for which the student has
previously tested Early Advanced or Advanced, effective
when the current test publisher's contract expires and to
the extent permitted by federal law.
BACKGROUND
Both federal and State law require that each school
district with English language learners annually assess
these students' English language development until they are
redesignated as English proficient. The assessment, the
California English Language Development Test (CELDT), must
be administered to all students whose primary language is
not English within 30 calendar days after they are enrolled
in a California public school for the first time, and
annually thereafter during a period of time determined by
the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State
Board of Education until they are reclassified as fluent
English proficient. Districts are required to inform
parents of test results within 30 calendar days of
receiving student results from the testing contractor, or
within two weeks of the child being enrolled in a language
instruction program after the beginning of the school year.
(Education Code � 313)
The CELDT serves three purposes. It 1) identifies pupils
as limited English proficient, 2) determines the level of
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English language proficiency of these students, and 3)
annually assesses the progress of these students in
acquiring the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and
writing in English. Among other things, current law
requires that the test be aligned with the English Language
Development Standards and be age and developmentally
appropriate for students. (Education Code � 60810)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Prohibits a student in grades 3-12 from being required
to retake portions of the California English Language
Development Test (CELDT) for which he/she has tested
Early Advanced or Advanced, to the extent permitted by
federal law.
2) Specifies that the prohibition applies within the
appropriate grade spans determined by the department,
in accordance with current law requirements that the
test be age and developmentally appropriate for
students.
3) Delays the effective date of these provisions until
such time as the current test publisher's contract
expires.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, "Passing
the CELDT is a critical first step for
reclassification as fluent English proficient.
Reclassification is vital for career and college
readiness. Currently, an English Learner (EL) who
fails any section of the CELDT is required to retake
the entire exam, including sections the student has
previously passed. Clearly, California has an interest
in eliminating unnecessary barriers in the
reclassification process. Requiring students to retake
sections of the CELDT which they previously passed is
detrimental to reclassifying students." In addition,
the author contends that the bill will produce cost
savings because it will no longer require unnecessary
testing.
2) Further clarification . Current law authorizes that
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the CELDT be used for early literacy assessment of ELs
in kindergarten and grade one (K-1) commencing with
the 2009-10 school year. This bill's provisions do not
apply to K-2 students.
In addition, while it is the author's stated intent to
facilitate reclassification of students, this bill
does not change the reclassification process. Current
law requires the use of multiple criteria to determine
whether to reclassify an EL including, but not limited
to, the results of a language proficiency assessment
(CELDT), teacher evaluation, parental opinion and
consultation, and the results of the California
Standards Tests. These criteria, and school districts'
discretion to determine reclassification, remain
unchanged.
3) English learners . ELs constitute approximately 24
percent of the total enrollment in California public
schools. A majority of ELs (68 percent) are enrolled
in the elementary grades, kindergarten through grade
six, with 31 percent enrolled in the secondary grades,
seven through twelve. Although EL data are collected
for 55 language groups, 95 percent speak one of the
top ten languages in the state, which include Spanish
(84.8 percent), Vietnamese, Pilipino (Filipino or
Tagalog), Cantonese, Hmong, Korean, Mandarin, Arabic,
Punjabi, and Armenian. During 2009-2010 the CDE
administered the CELDT to 1.6 million students, 1.3
million of whom were tested under the annual
assessment window.
4) How is the CELDT scored ? The California English
Language Development Test (CELDT), aligned to the
English-language development (ELD) standards adopted
by the State Board of Education (SBE), assesses the
four domains of listening, speaking, reading, and
writing in English. Test results are reported by five
performance levels: beginning, early intermediate,
intermediate, Early Advanced, and Advanced. The
overall scale score is calculated by weighting the
domain scale scores 25 percent in each domain, for
grades 3-12. The CELDT Criterion for English language
proficiency is an overall score of Early Advanced or
higher and scores for each domain (listening,
speaking, reading, and writing) at Intermediate or
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higher.
5) Grade spans ? This bill establishes a prohibition
against retesting students on portions of the CELDT
within appropriate "grade spans." The CELDT
blueprints, developed by the California Department of
Education, outline the specific English Language
Development (ELD) standards tested and the number of
questions included within each domain on the CELDT for
each grade from kindergarten through grade twelve.
These blueprints are grouped by the following grade
spans, K-1, grade 2, grades 3-5, grades 6-8, grades
9-12. Under the bill's provisions, an EL who has
previously passed any of the domains of the CELDT, yet
has not met the overall score necessary to be
considered English language proficient, would be
prohibited from being retested on those domains until
reaching the next grade span.
6) Federal law requirements . Concerns have been raised
that federal accountability requirements do not allow
the "banking" of scores and that the prohibitions
proposed by this bill would jeopardize the state's
access to Title III funding. It is unclear whether
federal regulations offer any flexibility in this
regard. Staff notes that this bill was recently
amended to clarify that its provisions are effective
only to the extent permitted by federal law.
7) Continually improving the CELDT. In 2006, test
developers conducted a study for the CDE evaluating
linkage and alignment of the English Language
Development Standards and assessments. Among other
things, it found that:
ELD standards were generally of lower
complexity than content standards as ELD
standards usually represented linguistic skills
while content standards represented more academic
language functions.
Development of California English Language
Development Test (CELDT) items that reflect more
academic language functions and higher levels of
complexity would improve overall alignment of the
system, and increased emphasis on academic
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language functions was necessary to bring
English-language development (ELD) standards and
CELDT into better compliance with federal
requirements.
The CELDT was somewhat aligned to ELD
standards, but items in listening and writing
showed weaker alignment than speaking and
reading.
State content standards reflect more
academic language functions and higher complexity
when compared to the ELD standards and the CELDT.
Misalignment on complexity affects the
interpretation of the CELDT as a measure of
proficiency for purposes of reclassification or
initial identification as fluent. Students
prematurely classified may not get the support
needed to succeed in school and beyond.
While development of test items that reflect
more academic language functions/higher level
complexity improve overall alignment, classroom
and formative assessments may still be more
suitable for assessing academic language
functions.
As a result of the study, the CELDT cut scores were
changed in 2006 and the test was rescaled to allow for
the comparison of a student's scale score on each
domain across future academic years. According to the
CDE, there is continual development of test items to
ensure the validity and reliability of the CELDT at
all grade spans.
1) Related federal activity . In January 2010, the U.S.
Department of Education (USDE) announced that it
planned to add the development of English-proficiency
tests based on the common-core standards as a priority
to an existing competitive grant program, the Enhanced
Assessment Instruments Grant program. The plan calls
for a minimum of 15 states to join together in each
consortium that applies to create an
English-proficiency test and requires that members of
the consortium agree to a common definition of English
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language learners and common criteria for students to
be reclassified. The USDE anticipates the program
will be implemented by August 2011.
SUPPORT
Alliance for a Better Community
Association of California School Administrators
Latin Business Association
Public Advocates
OPPOSITION
None received.