California public schools began administering a new assessment this school year, called the Reading Difficulties Risk Screener. The screener must be administered at least once per year in kindergarten, first, and second grade to identify struggling students so that schools can deploy supports to get them back on track. However, due to the timing and frequency of screenings, districts may not have accurate information about which early learners need support.
The original legislation requiring the screener did not mandate when within a year it must be administered. That choice was left to school district discretion so long as “pupils have received sufficient instruction in foundational reading skills to support a valid assessment.” The governor’s new trailer bill for education has proposed additional restrictions for administering the test. Namely, it states that the test cannot be administered before the 91st school day for kindergarten students and before the 46th school day for first and second grade students.
In a recent survey of 254 California school districts serving K–2 students, PPIC found that nearly half (48%) of districts are administering the screening test to kindergarten students between August and October, which is squarely within the first 90 school days. That timing may not be a problem if districts screen students again later in the year, giving students additional opportunities to demonstrate their skills and providing teachers with information about growth trajectories.
However, screening early and only once raises concerns that the assessment may direct students to services they do not need. Our survey found that 20% of school districts—or roughly 1 in 5—are administering their screening assessment only once a year to kindergarten students with that test occurring between August and October.
We found that this practice of screening early and only once is more common in schools that serve higher percentages of English Learners and higher percentages of low-income students. This raises the risk that the assessment flags students who have not had enough time to learn the assessed skills (like letter names or basic word reading) rather than those students for whom acquiring those skills would pose a challenge. This could lead to students being routed to intensive supports or even referred for special education identification based on invalid evidence.
Many other states require the test be administered multiple times throughout the year—including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Michigan; current California law only requires the test be administered once a year. This repeated assessment can provide more granular information to teachers about how to target instruction and is recommended by the Institute for Education Sciences practice guidelines.
California should consider a similar approach: encourage districts to administer the screener multiple times a year, and allow them to administer the test within the first few months only if paired with later tests in the same school year to re-assess progress.
