State Leaders to Unveil Agenda for Educational Testing

California’s new legislative leaders on education will announce plans today to reevaluate the state’s testing system because they are concerned it does not accurately measure student achievement.

The new heads of the Assembly and Senate education committees will unveil their five-point education agenda for the coming year during a joint news briefing in Sacramento.

That agenda features a long-range plan for helping low-performing students, proposals to train teachers and boost pay for new instructors and a review of the state’s vocational education system. But the leaders, Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin (D-Duncan Mills) and Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), plan to focus first on the Stanford 9 exam.

The two legislators cited long-held concerns that the test is not aligned with the state’s new academic content standards.

They also questioned whether the Stanford 9 offers an accurate measure of academic performance because of demographic differences between California’s students and those used to set performance levels on the test. Fewer than 2% of the students in the Stanford 9 national sample are still learning English. By contrast, 25% of California schoolchildren fall into that category.

The pair plan to hold a joint hearing on Jan. 31 to delve into concerns about the Stanford 9 and the state’s fledgling accountability system.

“If we are going to be intellectually honest about evaluating our schools, we need to make sure whatever assessment we use reflects what is being taught, especially in the high-stakes climate we have created,” said Strom-Martin, who taught elementary school for 24 years before joining the Assembly.

If it is to remain in use, the Stanford 9 must be reauthorized by the Legislature by the end of the year.

The basic skills exam was introduced in California in 1998. By law, it is given each spring to more than 4 million public school students in grades 2 through 11. The test scores form the sole basis for the statewide accountability system, which rewards schools that improve their test scores and can penalize those that do not.

Recognizing that the test does not adequately reflect California’s rigorous standards, the state has been expanding the exam with questions that cover what students are expected to know in each grade.

Beginning next year, the state will incorporate scores on some of those standards-based tests into the state’s Academic Performance Index.

Strom-Martin, who voted against the statewide testing system in 1997, criticized the accountability system for relying exclusively on Stanford 9 test scores. Other measures, such as dropout rates and teacher turnover, should be factored into a school’s performance, she said.

The law that created the Stanford 9 requires the state to factor in other measures--such as attendance and graduation rates--as they become available. However, for the time being, the state index encompasses just the test scores, which determine whether schools qualify for sizable monetary rewards.

Delaine Eastin, state superintendent of public instruction, said she welcomed the scrutiny. Over the years, she has had her own concerns about attaching high stakes to exam scores.

“I for one am glad they’re reviewing it,” said Eastin, who years ago favored the development of a test that was geared to the standards but was overruled by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. She noted that the state soon will begin to rely more heavily on scores from the standards-based tests, a forthcoming high school exit exam and other factors.

“I think there’s a way to build the system and to keep comparability,” Eastin said. She suggested that the state could consider using a much shorter form of the Stanford 9 rather than the full six-hour multiple choice exam.

In today’s news briefing, the legislators also plan to outline their ideas for making preschool available to all 4-year-olds, and for beefing up teacher training.

Strom-Martin said she will reintroduce a bill that would more than double the number of staff development days, for a total of seven annually in schools statewide. That $320-million plan would build on new proposals from Gov. Gray Davis, who has called for boosting training for reading and math teachers this year.