Release: #08-47
April 23, 2008

Contact: Pam Slater
E-mail: communications@cde.ca.gov
Phone: 916-319-0818

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today released the results of the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) that showed increases in both the number of English learners participating in the annual assessment and the percentage of English learners scoring at the top performance levels.

The number of English learners who took the CELDT this school year increased by nearly 24,000 students or 2 percent over last year. This reverses the trend of the previous three years when there was an annual 1 percent drop (See Table 1). The increase in the number of English learners is found in grades one, two, three, six, eleven, and twelve (See Table 2).

The overall results for 2007-08 show that nearly 36 percent of English learners who took the CELDT in California's public schools scored at the early advanced (28.21 percent) and advanced (7.63 percent) performance levels on the CELDT (See Table 3). These results are between 3 percent and 4 percent higher than those for last year. Results for 2006-07 showed that just over 32 percent of English learners scored at early advanced (25.31 percent) and advanced (6.98 percent) performance levels overall on the CELDT.

"Becoming fluent in English can open a world of new opportunities for every student. I am pleased to see that more English learners participating in the assessment are making good progress toward English language fluency," O'Connell said. "All children need strong English language skills in order to do well in the classroom and compete successfully in the work place. These results show that more students are meeting this challenge."

While the percentage of English learners achieving at the higher levels of CELDT is increasing, O'Connell continues to be concerned about the significant gap in academic achievement between students learning English and their native English-speaking peers.

"If our state is to maintain a competitive edge in the global economy, we must all work together to close the achievement gap," O'Connell said. "A quarter of the students in our state are learning the English language. It is critical to their futures, and to the future of our state, that we find ways to help all students, including English learners, meet our high standards so they can fulfill their potential."

The CELDT is one of four criteria for determining whether or not students should be reclassified to fluent English proficient. Other criteria include comparison of performance in basic skills (e.g., the California Standards Test in English-language arts, which is part of the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program), teacher evaluation, and parent opinion and consultation. Each school district establishes its own local reclassification procedures using these criteria.

To satisfy the CELDT criterion for English language proficiency, a student must have an overall scale score of early advanced or advanced, plus a score of intermediate or above for each of the domains tested (listening, speaking, reading, and writing).

 Results for the 2007-08 CELDT show that 32.9 percent of English learners met the CELDT criterion for possible reclassification (See Table 4). That is almost four points over the percentage of all English Learners who met the CELDT criterion last year. The number of students who were reclassified by school districts this school year will be available this summer. (See Table 5).

"While I recognize that CELDT results are only part of the picture that school officials must examine before reclassifying a student, I hope that these positive results will be reflected in an increase in the rate of reclassification in the coming year," O'Connell said.

The CELDT annually assesses listening and speaking skills of English learners in kindergarten and first grade, and listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in grades two through twelve. Beginning in the 2009-10 school year, students in kindergarten and first grade will also be assessed in Early Literacy (reading and writing).

Compared to the rest of the nation, California has the greatest number of students whose primary language is not English. More than 100 languages are spoken by the state's English learners, of which approximately 85 percent speak Spanish.

School, district, county, and state results of the 2007-08 CELDT Annual Assessment are available on the CDE DataQuest Web site at the CELDT reporting site at California English Language Development Test Reporting Site.

# # # #

Attachments

Table 1. Number of Students Tested during the CELDT for Annual Assessment by Grade Span

Year	K-2	3-5	6-8	9-12	All Grades	% Difference
2007-08	356,778	417,002	289,507	271,499	1,334,786	+2%
2006-07	335,139	422,176	285,609	268,188	1,311,112	-1%
2005-06	324,320	439,130	299,087	266,662	1,329,159	-1%
2004-05	325,443	446,567	305,000	265,944	1,342,954	-1%
2003-04	343,201	448,007	310,253	256,293	1,357,754	+5%
2002-03	328,971	432,974	296,218	239,272	1,297,435	+3%
2001-02	326,665	417,531	286,070	232,030	1,262,296	---

Table 2. Number of English Learners Tested for Annual Assessment by Grade Level

Grade	2007-08	2006-07	Difference*
K	5,967	7,143	-1,176
1	182,795	168,999	13,796
2	168,016	158.997	9,019
3	153,171	149,290	3,881
4	135, 399	143,798	-8,399
5	128, 432	129,088	-656
6	109,440	103,392	6,048
7	92,909	94,727	-1,818
8	87,158	87,490	-332
9	81,401	82,319	-918
10	74,483	75,913	-1,430
11	63,845	61,375	2,470
12	51,770	48,581	3,189
Totals	1,334,786	1,311,112	23,674

*Difference is 2007-08 minus 2006-07

Table 3. CELDT Annual Assessment Results by Overall Performance Level

Year	Beginning	Early Intermediate	Intermediate	Early Advanced	Advanced
2007-08	8.90%	16.63%	38.63%	28.21%	7.63%
2006-07*	10.35%	17.95%	39.41%	25.31%	6.98%

*Beginning in 2006-07, CELDT results are based on a new scale.

Table 4. Percentage of Students Who Met CELDT Criterion for Possible Reclassification by Grade Span

Grade Span	2007-08	2006-07	Percent Difference*
K-2	23.7%	20.0%	3.7%
3-5	31.6%	27.3%	4.3%
6-8	42.5%	37.4%	5.1%
9-12	36.8%	34.3%	2.5%
All Grades	32.9%	29.1%	3.8%

* Difference is 2007-08 minus 2006-07.

Table 5. Percentage of English Learners Reclassified as Fluent English Proficient

School Year	Percent1 of English Learners Reclassified as Fluent English Proficient
2007-08	Not Yet Available*
2006-07	9.2
2005-06	9.6
2004-05	9.0
2003-04	8.3
2002-03	7.7
2001-02 (first CELDT administration)	7.8

1 The percent is calculated by dividing the number of reclassified students by the prior year's EL count then multiplying by 100.

The percentage of English Learners Reclassified is reported by districts on the Language Census R-30 and will be published in the summer. The percent of English Learners Reclassified will be available at Language Census (R30-LC).