NCEO StateLinks

The National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) has launched a new interactive data Web site, the NCEO Data Viewer (http://data.nceo.info/). NCEO’s Data Viewer contains information that NCEO has been collecting on state policies and on the assessment participation and performance of students with disabilities nationwide. It offers the information in multiple databases that allow users to create customized reports based on criteria that they can choose.

NCEO has been tracking and analyzing state policies on assessment participation and accommodations since 1992. Given that both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 and Title I of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 require the participation of students with disabilities in state assessments, it is important to document how they participate and what, if any, accommodations are used. NCEO Data Viewer users can both analyze state policies related to participation and accommodations and make summary tables. The NCEO Data Viewer automatically creates charts and color-coded national maps based on the chosen criteria.

States and other educational entities receiving Part B funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) submit their Annual Performance Reports (APRs) to the U.S. Secretary of Education. These reports contain information on a variety of indicators, including assessment participation and performance results for state assessments. The state assessment data on NCEO’s Web site were submitted by states in their Annual Performance Reports, and then summarized using a common approach to construct numerators and denominators for determining percentages. As with the policy information, users can create color-coded national maps as well as view related data tables from the APR data.

For more information, contact Michael Moore, 612-626-0546, moore031@umn.edu.

A new tool, "Hints and Tips for Addressing Accommodations Issues for Peer Review," which was developed in collaboration with the Assessing Special Education Students State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (ASES SCASS), examines the key accommodations issues that have arisen for states in the recent federal standards and assessments peer review process. In early rounds of the peer review process, several states did not provide sufficient evidence for the assessment accommodations criteria. NCEO was asked to document the results of the peer review process for the accommodations sections, examining issues such as (1) the accommodation criteria addressed insufficiently by states, (2) what was acceptable evidence based on the peer review notes and comments, (3) what was insufficient evidence, and (4) peer suggestions that might be helpful to other states.

NCEO analyzed all of the accommodations-related peer review comments from each of the fifty states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia for themes. Four primary concerns about accommodations were found: selection of accommodations, keeping assessment accommodations consistent with those used in instruction, monitoring accommodations, and ensuring that accommodations use provides valid inferences and meaningful scores.

Each theme is presented as a fact sheet that includes the relevant portion of the guidance document, and highlighted examples from states that were considered both acceptable and insufficient for peer review. Each section concludes with NCEO recommendations for best practices with regard to assessment accommodations.

See http://www.nceo.info/OnlinePubs/PeerReviewAccomm.pdf. A technical report with more detailed examples on each theme will be available in the future.

Math Strategy Instructions for Students with Disabilities Who Are Learning English (ELLs with Disabilities Report 16)
This report describes a series of single-subject studies conducted to examine the effects of a teacher directed mathematical "think aloud" instructional strategy with Latino and Hmong background students with learning disabilities who were also identified as limited English proficient. Research questions were to (1) find out whether the strategy would improve academic performance in meeting standards-based mathematics objectives, and (2) look at how teachers during the course of using the strategy may change how they instructed their students in order to meet their individual needs.

Although there were variations in how the strategies were implemented (i.e., small group vs. one on one, a teacher starting with lower difficulty content to introduce the strategy, etc.), the results suggested that the think aloud strategy may be useful for improving students’ academic outcomes. Results showed that all four students, Hmong and Latino, improved in their use of the strategy and were able to maintain or improve in their mathematical skills of finding algebraic unknowns and converting fractions. See http://www.nceo.info/OnlinePubs/ELLsDis16/

Use of Chunking and Questioning Aloud to Improve the Reading Comprehension of English Language Learners with Disabilities (ELLs with Disabilities Report 17)
This set of case studies looked at Chunking and Questioning with four students with limited literacy proficiency in English who also had learning disabilities. One teacher worked with a Somali student with a speech-language disability and the other teacher worked with three Mexican-American students with learning disabilities in reading and math as well as other subjects. (See the report for details on pre-assessment baseline data and other observations and measures used.)

The strategy showed positive results with all four students, with improvement in measures of literal reading comprehension using grade-level English/Language Arts or Social Studies content readings. Even though all students increased their scores on the curriculum-based measures (i.e., Maze procedures), performance on state-based standardized reading assessments showed no discernable improvement in literal reading comprehension.

These types of results raise questions and reinforce the need for continued research in this area. See http://www.nceo.info/OnlinePubs/ELLsDis17/.

Before- and After-School Care Arrangements and Activities of School-Age Language Minority Children
A special report available on the NCEO Web site looks at the before and after participation of language minority students with and without disabilities in school programs and activities. The results from The National Household Education Surveys (NHES) 2001 administration were used to conduct analyses on these two groups of students, focusing on time spent in services, location of service, type of activities engaged in, and other variables such as parent reported grades of students and parent economic and academic status.

Overall, the analyses showed that language minority children with disabilities were much less likely to receive or participate in before- and after-school care and activities than their non-language minority peers. Because the literature base in this area often reports positive academic or social effects for participation in quality activities, this study suggests that more could be done to increase broader participation of language minority students with disabilities in such activities in order for them to experience comparable benefits. For more findings and information on definitions and statistics used, see the report at http://www.nceo.info/OnlinePubs/SchoolCare.pdf.