(a) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this chapter to provide a system of assessments of pupils that has the primary purposes of assisting teachers, administrators, and pupils and their parents; improving teaching and learning; and promoting high-quality teaching and learning using a variety of assessment approaches and item types. The assessments, where applicable and valid, will produce scores that can be aggregated and disaggregated for the purpose of holding schools and local educational agencies accountable for the achievement of all their pupils in learning the California academic content standards. The system includes assessments or assessment tools for multiple grade levels that cover the full breadth and depth of the curriculum and promote the teaching of the full curriculum. In order to accomplish these goals, the Legislature finds and declares that California should adopt a coordinated and consolidated testing system to do all of the following: (1) Develop and adopt a set of statewide academically rigorous content standards in all major subject areas to serve as the basis for modeling and promoting high-quality teaching and learning activities across the entire curriculum and assessing the academic achievement of pupils, as well as for schools, school districts, and for the California education system as a whole. Exclusive of those assessments established by a multistate consortium, produce performance standards to be adopted by the state board designed to lead to specific grade level benchmarks of academic achievement for each subject area tested within each grade level based on the knowledge, skills, and processes that pupils will need in order to succeed in the information-based, global economy of the 21st century. (2) Provide information and resources to schools and local educational agencies to assist with the selection of local benchmark assessments, diagnostic assessments, and formative tools aligned with the state-adopted California academic content standards. The Legislature recognizes the importance of local tools and assessments used by schools and local educational agencies to monitor pupil achievement and to identify individual pupil strengths and weaknesses. The Legislature further recognizes the role the state may play in leveraging resources to provide schools and local educational agencies with information and tools for use at their discretion. (3) Ensure that all assessment procedures, items, instruments, scoring systems, and results meet high standards of statistical reliability and validity, and that they do not use procedures, items, instruments, or scoring practices that are racially, culturally, socioeconomically, or gender biased. (4) Provide information to pupils, parents and guardians, teachers, schools, and local educational agencies on a timely basis so the information can be used to further the development of the pupil or to improve the educational program. The Legislature recognizes that the majority of the assessments in the system will generate individual pupil scores that will provide information on pupil achievement to pupils, their parents or guardians, teachers, schools, and local educational agencies. The Legislature further recognizes that some assessments in the system may solely generate results at the school, school district, county, or state level for purposes of improving the education program and promoting the teaching and learning of the full curriculum. (5) When administered as a census administration, results should be reported in terms describing a pupilâs academic performance in relation to the statewide academically rigorous content and performance standards and in terms of college and career readiness skills possessed by the pupil, in addition to being reported as a numerical. When appropriate, the reports should include a measure of growth that describes a pupilâs current status in relation to past performance. (6) Where feasible, administer asses
‹ Prev All California sections Next ›
Lexace provides legal information, not legal advice, and no attorney–client relationship is created. Statute text is provided for general information and may not reflect the most recent amendments; verify against the official state code.