CTA Defeats Effort to Reinstate, Fund 2nd Grade STAR Test
CTA has won three major victories that may spell an end to efforts to revive an unnecessary and burdensome 2nd grade testing series that is slated to phase out on July 1, 2007.
Under pressure from CTA and other education advocates, Assembly Member Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) has decided not to take up his CTA-opposed AB 1353, which would have kept the Grade 2 Standardized Testing And Reporting (STAR) test in effect beyond that date.
CTA also defeated attempts to put funding for continuation of the testing in the Senate and Assembly versions of the state budget during separate meetings of the fiscal subcommittees in both houses.
CTA advocates caution that the Association will maintain a vigilant eye on the reinstatement proposal in case Assembly Member Huff or others seek to put those provisions into another bill. The Association will also be on guard to ensure that funding for the testing is not put into the budget during the May Revision.
The first victory came when Assembly Member Huff chose not to bring his AB 1353 up for its scheduled vote in April in the Assembly Education Committee. Assembly Education Chair Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo) and Assembly Members Mervyn Dymally (D-Los Angeles), Sandre Swanson (D-Oakland), and Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica) had made it clear they would stand with CTA and oppose the measure.
The two other victories – which eliminated funding for the testing reinstatement – came on April 17 in the Assembly Budget Subcommittee 2 and on April 24 in Senate Budget Subcommittee 1. In both cases at CTA’s urging, lawmakers penciled funding proposals out of their draft spending plans for 2007-2008. Senators Jack Scott (D-Pasadena) and Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) were instrumental in defeating the effort to secure funding in the Senate fiscal panel.
The current law that Assembly Member Huff’s proposal would overturn specifically phases out the unnecessary and low reliability Grade 2 statewide tests. The phase-out will bring California into compliance with the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The ESEA (or NCLB) requires that children be tested statewide only in Grades 3 and up. Keeping the 2nd grade testing in force would cost California approximately $3.2 million annually, funds that could be better used for instructional purposes.
Teachers point out that forcing more than 470,000 second-graders to continue taking these tests would cost them additional lost instructional time and make them suffer testing pressures that are age-inappropriate.
With the unnecessary testing phasing out, teachers will have the time to help the youngest students prepare to meet the state’s rigorous academic content standards -- instead of wasting time preparing for the age-inappropriate tests.