Bill Seeks School Test Exemptions

As schools across California brace for the release of Stanford 9 test scores this month, a renewed campaign is underway in Sacramento to exempt students who speak limited English from taking the exam next year.

A bill that is widely expected to pass the Legislature would allow students to skip the test if they have had less than 30 months of instruction in English. An estimated 400,000 students statewide would be exempt under that standard.

Comparable exams in Spanish and other primary languages would have to be created for those students, who represent about 10% of the 4.1 million test takers.

Existing law requires all students in grades 2 to 11 to take the Stanford 9 in English regardless of their ability to read and write the language. The author of the new bill, Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), said the system places an unfair burden on students and yields invalid results.

“It doesn’t make sense to test kids in English when they don’t understand English,” Migden said. “It’s costly, demoralizing and insensitive.”

But opponents denounce the bill as an end run around Proposition 227, the voter initiative designed to end bilingual education in California.

“I think it’s completely misguided and outrageous,” said Ron Unz, the father of Proposition 227. “How can the people of California monitor if these children are learning English properly if they are not tested? It’s an attempt to cover up the English learning that might be going on among those students.”

The Stanford 9 bill is a near duplicate of one Migden introduced last year that won approval in the Legislature but was vetoed by former Gov. Pete Wilson. He wanted all students tested in English to provide a statewide picture of school performance.

Whether Gov. Gray Davis would differ from Wilson on the bill remains unknown. Davis is likely to be faced with the issue later this summer. The state Assembly approved the bill last month and the Senate is expected to follow suit in the next two months.

Davis Reluctant to Take Sides

Davis has yet to take a position on the potentially explosive proposal that has drawn praise from the state’s largest school districts--including those in Los Angeles and San Francisco--but criticism from foes of bilingual education.

A Davis spokesman said the governor is taking steps to foster English skills among students by devoting nearly $75 million in the new budget to English language development programs and testing.

“It’s important for these kids to get up to speed and master English and take tests in English,” said the spokesman, Michael Bustamante. “Obviously there are challenges to be met.”

The experts say the new Stanford 9 bill could throw a wrench into Davis’ vaunted plan to hold schools accountable for their performance.

That plan will rank schools on several factors, including their Stanford 9 test scores. Some experts question whether removing students from the overall mix will affect the rankings--and the sanctions that accompany a poor showing.

In addition to the debate over the merits of the issue, Migden’s bill has political ramifications for Davis.

Students who have limited English skills predictably do worse on standardized tests than those who are fluent. If those students are exempted for 30 months, but are then put back into the testing pool, the average score would be expected to drop when they do take the test, one Sacramento education expert said.

The drop would come just as Davis faces reelection, the expert noted, adding that “Davis faces a great dilemma.”

Migden said she plans to change the proposed exemption period to 24 months when the bill reaches the Senate Education Committee--the result of concerns raised by Republicans over the long time frame.

Other states already offer a testing exemption for students who speak limited English. Among them is Texas, whose size and demographics resemble California’s.

In Texas, such students can be freed from taking the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills in English for a maximum of three years.

The Texas test is administered in grades 3 to 8, and in grade 10 as a high school exit exam. Students in grades 3 through 6 are allowed to take a Spanish version of the test.

Students Given Time to Master English

More than 1.8 million Texas students took the exams this spring. Of that total, nearly 48,000 took the Spanish version.

Texas officials said the exemptions give students critical time to master English so they can meet the state’s high expectations.

“Some of these students come into the school system at age 10 or 11 and may never have heard English,” said DeEtta Culbertson, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency. “We’re doing what we can to help them.”

The issue of testing limited-English students has simmered for years in California. Over the last 15 years, the state has allowed such students to forgo taking standardized tests for 30 months.

When the Stanford 9 was introduced last year, the San Francisco Unified School District refused to test more than 5,500 limited-English students who had been in city schools for less than 30 months. The state sued, seeking to force the district to comply with the testing law. A Superior Court judge denied the state’s request, allowing the district to continue its practice. San Francisco school officials allowed more than 5,000 more students to skip the Stanford 9 this spring.

“We believe in testing children but in testing them appropriately,” said district spokeswoman Sandina Robbins. “There are other tests that measure skills without possibly doing very serious damage to a child’s educational career.”

San Francisco school officials helped draft Migden’s original bill last year.

The latest bill would allow districts to offer tests in other primary languages such as Spanish. Schools also could give the Stanford 9 to students who teachers believe are ready.

And like existing law, the Migden bill would require tests in primary languages for students who have been in public schools less than one year.