Forty-four states participated in NCEO’s March 21 teleconference with Sue Rigney from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Gayle Potter from the Arkansas Department of Education on the topic of Setting Standards on Alternate Assessments for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities. Sue Rigney reviewed the December 9, 2003 regulation on alternate achievement standards. Her PowerPoint presentation included clarification of the terms "content standards" and "achievement standards," identification of the components of achievement standards, and the essentials of the standard setting process.

Gayle Potter discussed standard-setting processes for the Arkansas alternate assessment. She shared the state’s performance level labels and descriptors, and how they relate to the domain scoring rubric for their assessment.

Sue Rigney’s presentation, information about the Arkansas proficiency level descriptors and the scoring rubric, as well as several other standard-setting references can be found on the NCEO Web site at http://education.umn.edu/nceo/Presentations/tele10.htm, or www.nceo.info and click on Presentations, then Teleconferences, and then Teleconference10: March 21, 2005.

NCEO has just published Steady Progress: State Public Reporting Practices for Students with Disabilities after the First Year of NCLB (2002-2003) (Technical Report 40). This report is the seventh analysis of state reports conducted by NCEO to explore the extent to which states publicly report information about students with disabilities in statewide assessments. NCEO examined publicly available data, primarily from states’ Department of Education Web sites. If disaggregated data were not found online, the states were asked to submit public documentation that included this information.

For the 2002-2003 school year, 36 states reported both participation and performance data on students with disabilities for their general assessments. This represented an increase of one state over the results from the 2001-2002 school year (from 35 to 36 states). The most common way to report participation data was by number of students tested. Twenty-seven states went beyond the numbers to report rates of participation for state-level data.

Performance data reported on states’ general assessments was more likely than in previous years to include information about the performance of students with disabilities in comparison to the performance of general education students or the total population of students. The results showed the achievement gap that exists between these two groups. However, the gap varies dramatically across states.

Alternate assessment participation and performance reporting for 2002-2003 was available publicly in 29 states. This represented an increase of 7 states over 2001-2002. Other states provided either only performance data, or just participation data.

Many states still provide aggregated numbers instead of breaking down participation and performance information by grade level or content matter.

The full report can be found on the NCEO Web site at http://education.umn.edu/NCEO/OnlinePubs/Technical40.htm.

New to the NCEO Web site is a section for states to highlight their alternate assessment technical manuals. No Child Left Behind requires states to document the technical adequacy of their alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards just as they do for other assessments. Many states are having difficulty providing this information.

NCEO has provided a forum for sharing state technical manuals for alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. Through this forum, states can describe the current status of their alternate assessments and demonstrate how traditional approaches to technical adequacy apply to these assessments. NCEO will provide state contact information so readers can contact states directly for more information, as well as links to other resources and a set of quality control tools used to review the technical reports.

Colorado is the first state to post its state technical manual on NCEO’s Web site. See http://education.umn.edu/nceo/StateForum/default.htm.  When your state is ready to share your information, you may contact Martha Thurlow at thurl001@umn.edu, or Rachel Quenemoen at quene003@umn.edu.

NCEO will soon release the report 2003 State Policies on Assessment Participation and Accommodations for Students with Disabilities (Synthesis Report 56). This report updates information last reported by NCEO in 2001 and is one in a series of reports on this topic since 1992. These updates initially indicated increasing numbers of states with policies on participation and accommodation. More recently qualitative changes have been noted, both in the specificity of language and in the kinds of written documents, which now include guidelines, procedures, and training materials, as well as policies.

The 2003 study asked several new questions, including (1) What guidance does the state provide for using accommodations that are not explicitly addressed in state policy? and (2) Does the state have guidelines for the administration of accommodations involving another human to administer or record?

Among the findings in the 2003 policies on participation and accommodations are: