English Testing Simplified

Education: The state removes some burdens of giving the exam. One part is no longer an annual requirement.

The California Board of Education voted this week to change some of the most contentious portions of a new test mandated by the state for students who are not fluent in English.

The test, given for the first time last year, was designed to evaluate the proficiency of students still learning English and track their progress annually. About a quarter of California’s 6 million public school students do not speak English fluently.

But many school administrators complained the test was too time-consuming and costly.

Nearly 2 million California students took the California English Language Development Test, or CELDT, last summer and fall. The test takes about 2 1/2 hours and costs $20 to $30 per student.

Many school officials complained about the added burden on their resources but agreed accountability was necessary. A state Department of Education report found that 38 of 209 districts surveyed in 2000 lacked adequate English programs for their nonnative speakers, two years after Proposition 227 curtailed bilingual education in California.

The state board, meeting in Sacramento on Wednesday, voted unanimously to ease the burden on school districts.

One portion of the test, for example, will no longer be an annual requirement for students who show proficiency.

The exam tests students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading and writing. There are four versions of the test: one for students in kindergarten through second grade, one for third through fifth grade, one for sixth to eighth grade and another for high school.

Students who score high in the listening and speaking portion won’t have to take it again until they reach the next test level.

“We are very excited,” said Jay Heck, supervisor of assessment and registration for Garden Grove Unified School District, which tested nearly 30,000 students and where about 60% of students are still learning English. He estimated the move would cut the amount of time his district spends administering the test by at least a third.

Heck also welcomed the state’s decision to allow testers to stop the exam once it is determined the student has very little grasp of the language. Under the current design, districts must test students’ writing and reading abilities even when they can’t answer the most basic questions in the oral portion.

“That took a lot of unnecessary time,” Heck said.

Future versions of the test also will include an answer sheet to make it easier to score.

Now that some of the chief problems have been addressed, education experts hope the test will become a more useful tool.

“Like most new assessments, the CELDT was first met with skepticism,” state Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Montebello), who sponsored the bill calling for the test, told the board Wednesday. “Despite the initial bumps in the road, what teachers are saying about this test is that it is giving them new insights.”



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