Accounting for Students With Disabilities.

Ways to Open District and Statewide Assessment to Include All Students

As the nation moves rapidly toward results-based accountability, parents, community members, and policymakers need and, increasingly, expect to know how well all students in America's schools are learning.

The emphasis on "all" is intentional. New Title I legislation--the Improving America's Schools Act--mandates that students with disabilities be included in districtwide and statewide assessments beginning in 2001, or immediately if the statewide and districtwide assessments already exist. Additionally, policymakers expect that all students will perform at high levels. Finally, by law, students with disabilities have a right to participate in assessment and have a right to have their scores and performances considered when policy and accountability decisions are made.

As a result, this new emphasis on achieving higher educational standards and greater accountability is moving educators beyond the traditional issues of access to services, due process, and compliance to the more critical issue of how well students perform.

Clearly, policymakers have delivered school leaders a challenge. Although the path is not always simple, reasonable ways exist for school personnel to include students with disabilities in assessments, to provide accommodations that do not compromise testing integrity to students with diverse learning needs, and to systematically include information on these students in reports.

Three basic guidelines offer a good starting point.

* When in doubt, include students with disabilities in assessment;

* Provide accommodations to those who need them; and

* Report and account for those who do and those who don't take assessments.

School leaders may quake at the financial and technical ramifications of including students who will perform less well on district and statewide assessments. Some fears are partially warranted given that test scores can have a significant impact on a school, a district, or an individual. In fact, school bond issues today may be won or lost based on student test scores that are hyped by local news media, and school leaders' contracts may not be renewed.

Nonetheless, school leaders and the rest of us must ask ourselves what accountability system do students with disabilities belong to if they are not in the one that "all" students belong to?

Unintended Results

Exclusion of students with disabilities from district and state assessments carries serious unanticipated consequences. First, expectations for these students may drop since--like it or not--educators and others pay attention to what is tested.

When students are not tested, a second consequence is they often become invisible--out of sight and out of mind--to the point some educators may not consider themselves responsible for educating students with disabilities.

Harsh conclusions? Yes. But consider the accountability gap that exists under current testing scenarios where students with disabilities who take an assessment might have their protocols destroyed or shared only with their parents. Test scores of these students are often not included in building, district, or state reports. Often their cumulative files bear no record of any district or state assessment.

Another consequence is that school leaders may base program and financial decisions on partial information about student performance since not all students' performance levels are included.

For all these reasons states and localities need to develop policy for inclusive assessment, alternate assessments for some students with disabilities, and ensure reporting of results for all students.

The first step in considering a student's participation in a district or state assessment is to determine whether teachers, parents, and the student agree about the goal of the student's education.

If the goal is for the student to complete the same general course of instruction and to achieve the same outcomes and standards as other students, then the student must demonstrate attainment of the same goals. However, meeting the same goals does not mean all students must take the same test. A student may demonstrate the goals in different ways, through the use of accommodations in assessment procedures.

Accommodating Need

Assessment accommodations provide students the means to show what they know without being impeded by their disability. They provide equal footing for students, not an advantage. Accommodations typically fall into four categories: timing/scheduling, setting, presentation, and response(see table, page 26).

Most states have made provisions for students with disabilities to use accommodations during statewide tests. Contributing to this is the recognition that both statutory law and constitutional law imply that policies should provide students with disabilities the opportunity to participate in assessments with accommodations.

Providing assessment accommodations should be based on need, not benefit. Say, for instance, you are taking a graduate-level course. You need corrective glasses. You wear your glasses every day, during instruction, when reading, and when completing homework. However, you are told you cannot wear them when you take tests. How does this impact your performance or ability to show what you know? It is not your fault you need glasses while your classmates don't. Wearing glasses simply puts you on the same level as your classmates who don't require glasses to read.

In this scenario, the difference between need and benefit of assessment accommodations is clear. The purpose of most assessments is to measure what a student knows or has acquired in a particular area. Denying the use of accommodations to those who need them can very well mean we are measuring the student's disability, not the student's achievement.

All of us can benefit from an assessment accommodation. However, the distinction is this: accommodations should be provided for those who need them, not those who can benefit from them.

Decisions about who receives what kinds of accommodations are important ones. Most often these are left to the building or district individual education program teams. It is imperative that decision makers understand the purpose of a district's assessment program and the appropriateness of granting accommodations. For example, if a reading test is given to evaluate a student's ability to decode, providing someone to read for the test would be inappropriate. However, if the same test is given for the purpose of measuring a student's understanding of written text, a reader would be appropriate.

Often the use of calculators in a math assessment is controversial. If the test purports to measure a student's ability to calculate numbers, then providing a calculator would be inappropriate. However, if we are interested in evaluating whether a student understands when to use a formula to derive an answer, a calculator would be an appropriate accommodation. Decisions to provide individual students with assessment accommodations and reasons given for their use need to be documented.

The use of assessment accommodations generates great controversy for test developers and measurement people. Many contend the introduction of an accommodation contaminates or changes what the test intends to measure. However, these claims are based on opinion, not fact. No hard evidence or research backs up these opinions.

Until we better understand the impact of assessment accommodations, to deny their use to students who need them is a lawsuit waiting to happen--especially if high stakes are attached for the student. School leaders faced with an assessment accommodation request. would be well-advised to consider it carefully.

Two important reminders: (1) not all students with disabilities will need accommodations during assessment, and (2) assessment accommodations should not be introduced during the administration of a test, but rather should align with an accommodation provided during the instruction. Providing accommodations to students who need them increases the number of students with disabilities who can take district and state assessments and thus be included in the accountability system.

A Wide Umbrella

To create an atmosphere that will bring all students under the assessment umbrella, school leaders should consider these steps.

* Communicate.

Involvement by all parties (teachers, parents, students, community members) is vital when curriculum frameworks and their respective assessments are developed. Special education professionals need to be at the table with general educators from the start when decisions are made about reworking curriculum frameworks, assessments, and test administration.

* Inform and Disseminate.

General and special education professionals, administrators, parents, and board members are among those who need to know what an inclusive accountability system is and, even more so, why it is important. They need specifics about the district and statewide assessments and their purposes and uses to gain a complete picture.

While all students are not able to participate in traditional assessments, all can participate in the accountability system.

* Write Guidelines.

Clear written guidelines are needed for making assessment decisions. These guidelines must be understood at the building and IEP team level, as well as by central-office staff and board members. The guidelines should answer these questions: What criteria are used to make decisions? For what assessments? How will accommodations be made? Who decides?

* Monitor and Check.

Develop a system to monitor the integrity and implementation of decisions. The system should focus on student participation in assessment, the provision of accommodations, and the reporting of results.

A Full Accounting

When policymakers have solid information about student assessment results, they can make informed decisions about program improvements. This is especially important as states and districts develop policies and criteria that reflect inclusive assessment practices. At the same time, studies are examining the technical adequacy of assessment accommodations and their impact on results.

Our society has made a significant investment in educating all students, including youngsters with disabilities. Unless all students are part of assessment and accountability systems, we have no idea about the return on our investment.

Only when educators and policymakers take into account performance results of the full range of our schools' diverse students can we as a nation know for certain what all students in America's schools know and can do.

Additional Resources

The following materials on the subject of accommodating students with disabilities in academic assessments are available from the National Center on Education Outcomes, University of Minnesota, 350 Elliott Hall, Minneapolis Minn. 55455, or by calling 612-624-8561.

"Assessment Guidelines That Maximize the Participation of Students with Disabilities in Large-Scale Assessments: Characteristics and Considerations," by J.L. Elliott, M.L. Thurlow, and J.E. Ysseldyke

"High School Graduation Requirements: What's Happening for Students with Disabilities?" (Synthesis Report 20)

"Policy Directions No. 1: Guidelines for Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Large-Scale Assessment"

"Policy Directions No. 5: Alternate Assessments for Students with Disabilities"

Examples of Assessment Accommodations

Timing/Scheduling

* Extend the time allotted to complete the test

* Administer the test in several sessions, specify duration.

* Allow frequent breaks during testing

Test Setting

* Provide special lighting

* Provide adaptive or special furniture

* Allow setting in a small group, study carrel, or individually

Presentation

* Increase spacing between items or reduce items per page or line

* Increase size of answer bubbles 

* Provide reading passages typed with one complete sentence per line

* Highlight key words or phrases in directions

Test Directions

* Read directions to student

* Simplify language in directions

* Provide cues (e.g. arrows and stop signs) on answer form

Use of Assistive Devices/Supports

* Provide audiotaped administration of sections

* Secure papers to work area with tape/magnets

* Read questions aloud to student

* Use masks or markers to maintain place and/or reduce visible print

Student Response

Test Format

* Provide wider lines and/or wider margins.

* Allow student to mark responses in booklet rather than answer sheet

Use of Assistive Devices/Supports

* Provide word processor

* Allow student to tape response for verbatim transcription 

* Provide copy assistance between drafts

* Provide slantboard or wedge

* Provide calculator

Judy Elliott