NCEO StateLinks

Many students can take the general assessment with or without accommodations, but some students with disabilities need alternate ways to access assessments. For the past several years, states have had alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. However, there may have been some students for whom neither the general assessment nor the alternate assessment seemed appropriate.

In April 2007, new NCLB regulations on modified academic achievement standards were released; these are sometimes referred to as the 2% option. These regulations were the topic of the Special Education Partnership Conference held in Washington, DC on July 26-27 at the United States Department of Education.

This conference highlighted the most current information on alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards. Participating states were introduced to materials that can aid in identifying who the students with disabilities are for whom a modified assessment may be appropriate, how to make appropriate IEP team decisions for those students, guidance on documenting the technical adequacy of assessments based on modified achievement standards; and a fact sheet on reporting results for these assessments.

Key questions addressed about students who may qualify to participate in this option, and the needs of IEP teams for appropriate decision-making, were:

Also presented was A Technical Design and Documentation Workbook for Assessments Based on Modified Achievement Standards produced by Scott Marion from the Center for Assessment. This report highlighted the need for documenting the development of assessments based on modified achievement standards.

The thoughtful development of high-quality assessment and instructional systems have the potential to improve not only the accountability system, but also the learning of those students whose disability has precluded them from achieving grade-level proficiency and whose progress is such that they are not likely to reach grade-level proficiency in the same time frame as other students.

NCEO will continue to work with states on their needs related to alternate assessments based on modified achievement standards. It shares with states the common interest in investigating the characteristics of the students who may qualify to participate in an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAS). A set of common needs was identified:

• To better understand issues and options to appropriately assess all students by using state data sets.

• To have special education, general education, and assessment experts review and develop a better understanding of what these students can do—and the issues and assessment options. Then, take this information back to stakeholders (e.g., teachers, administrators).

• To develop guidelines for IEP teams with criteria for determining which students should be assessed using the alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards and train IEP teams in how to use these guidelines.

• To develop ways to change an existing assessment or develop a new assessment to better assess targeted students would be most appropriate.

• To share resources of documented findings and suggestions among states.

Materials from the 2% kickoff meeting are now available on the NCEO Web site at http://www.nceo.info.

Although not specifically addressed in legislation, the academic instruction of English language learners with disabilities needs special attention. The academic performance of these students tends in general to be lower than that of either special education students or English language learners as separate groups.

The study reported in this document looked at the instructional strategies being recommended by states in their standards, curriculum materials, and other stand-alone resources either from regional resource centers or other entities for the instruction of ELLs with various disabilities. Also noted were strategies for the separate groups that might be used successfully with students with common characteristics from both populations.

The definition of instructional strategies used in this project was based on a paper by Barrera and Liu (2005):

The definition excluded student generated strategies and learning strategies that required no instruction, an approach, an assessment activity used to determine placement or progress in curriculum, principles, or teachable moments.

The report acknowledges that a strategy’s effectiveness with individuals or groups varies depending on implementation factors. This issue, especially with reference to strategies recommended by states as being in support of Universally Designed Learning (UDL) for all students, is discussed in brief.

The report describes the strategies found by content area, by recommended population or characteristic, by how they are presented, and by the extent to which the strategies are contextualized or linked to help students reach a specific state standard. It also makes suggestions on what information might be included in instructional materials to help educators make better use of the recommended strategies.

See http://www.nceo.info/Online Pubs/ELLsDis18/.