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- School Leader Series: What School Leaders Need to do Before, During, and After the Assessment Window (School Leader Series Brief #4)
This resource is designed to provide guidance on what school leaders need to do before, during, and after the assessment window. Developed in collaboration with CCSSO, the Assessment, Standards, and Education for Students with Disabilities (ASES) and School Leadership Development and Supports (SLDS) state collaboratives made important contributions to this document. This resource highlights what school leaders should do to prepare for, do during, and do after assessments for students with disabilities. It also gives talking points for school leaders to use when addressing key stakeholders on the topic.
Published: 9/28/2021 - School Leader Series: Supporting the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Assessment (School Leader Series Brief #1)
This resource is designed to provide guidance to school leaders about supporting the inclusion of students with disabilities in state and district content assessments. Developed in collaboration with CCSSO, the Assessment, Standards, and Education for Students with Disabilities (ASES) and School Leadership Development and Supports (SLDS) state collaboratives made important contributions to this document. This resource highlights what school leaders can do to ensure all students with disabilities are instructed in academic content for their enrolled grade and participate in state and district content assessments. It also gives talking points for school leaders to use when addressing key stakeholders on the topic.
Published: 9/28/2021 - School Leader Series: Understanding the Consequences of Assessment Participation Decisions for Students with Disabilities (School Leader Series Brief #2)
This resource is designed to provide guidance to school leaders about understanding the consequences of assessment participation decisions for students with disabilities. Developed in collaboration with CCSSO, the Assessment, Standards, and Education for Students with Disabilities (ASES) and School Leadership Development and Supports (SLDS) state collaboratives made important contributions to this document. This resource highlights what school leaders can do to ensure IEP teams understand the short-term and long-term consequences of participation decisions for students with disabilities and ensure appropriate assessment participation decisions are made and implemented. It also gives talking points for school leaders to use when addressing key stakeholders on the topic.
Published: 9/28/2021 - School Leader Series: Working with IEP Teams to Make State Assessment Participation and Accessibility and Accommodations Decisions (School Leader Series Brief #3)
This resource is designed to provide guidance to school leaders about working with IEP teams to make state assessment participation and accessibility and accommodations decisions. Developed in collaboration with CCSSO, the Assessment, Standards, and Education for Students with Disabilities (ASES) and School Leadership Development and Supports (SLDS) state collaboratives made important contributions to this document. This resource highlights what school leaders should ensure IEP teams do when making decisions about state assessment participation, what factors must IEP teams not consider when making assessment participation decisions for students with disabilities and what school leaders can do to ensure that IEP teams select appropriate accessibility features and accommodations for students with disabilities. It also gives talking points for school leaders to use when addressing key stakeholders on the topic.
Published: 9/28/2021 - 1% Toolkit: Developing an Assessment Participation Action Plan: A Tool for District Leaders (NCEO Tool #14)
The purpose of this resource is to provide a tool for districts that wish to improve student assessment participation. The tool provides guidance on how district leaders can develop an assessment participation action plan and describes a series of steps that support the development of the action plan. States may customize the tool as needed to meet their needs. This resource was developed through a collaborative process with the 49 states participating in NCEO’s 1% Cap Community of Practice (CoP) during its bi-weekly webinar calls in 2021 and 2022.
Published: April 2023 - 1% Toolkit: Developing an Assessment Participation Action Plan: A Tool for State Leaders (NCEO Tool #13)
The purpose of this resource is to provide a tool for states that wish to improve student assessment participation. The tool provides guidance on how state leaders can develop an assessment participation action plan and describes a series of steps that support the development of the action plan. States may customize the tool as needed to meet their needs. This resource was developed through a collaborative process with the 49 states participating in NCEO’s 1% Cap Community of Practice (CoP) during its bi-weekly webinar calls in 2021 and 2022.
Published: April 2023 - NCEO Newsletter: February 2022 issueFormats: Online
This issue highlights (1) information about a participation communication toolkit that NCEO recently released with customizable resources, sample social media posts, and other resources that can be used when communicating about why it is important for students to participate in state tests; (2) a new series for school leaders on including students with disabilities in assessments; (3) two new resources on the assessment of English learners with disabilities; (4) a new publication about including deaf students in assessments; (5) an article that several NCEO staff wrote for the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) on ensuring students with disabilities leave school ready to succeed; and (6) information on sessions on upcoming conferences that include NCEO staff.
Published: February 2022 
NCEO Reports: Guidance Manuals for Educators of English Learners with Disabilities: Ideas and Lessons from the Field (#410)This report describes ideas and lessons learned from leaders who developed state education agency guidance manuals for identifying, assessing and referring English learners (ELs) to special education. To ensure that students are receiving optimal instruction, appropriate interventions, and assessments, state, district, and school leaders need to develop or improve the systematic processes educators and administrators work through. Providing manuals with consistent and practical guidance (and appropriate professional learning on their use) is a means to do so. This report presents findings from telephone interviews conducted with the authors of six state manuals, probing the impetus for getting started; the manual development process; dissemination and professional learning; and lessons learned during manual development. The report concludes with implications for state and local leaders.
Published: April 2019- NCEO Reports: Using Interim Assessments to Appropriately Measure What Students with Disabilities Know and Can Do: Advisory Panel Takeaways and NCEO Recommendations (#427)
A report on a virtual meeting NCEO held on February 16 and 17, 2021 of an Interim Assessment Advisory Panel to tap into the panel members’ collective knowledge about using interim assessments to support valid interpretations of what students with disabilities know and can do. The panel represented psychometricians, researchers knowledgeable about students with disabilities, state education agency (SEA) assessment and special education leaders, local education agency (LEA) leaders, and parents. Interim assessments refer to assessments that are administered several times during a school year to measure student progress. The meeting purpose was to develop and disseminate guidance to state departments of education on how to enable all students with disabilities, including students with the most significant cognitive disabilities and English learners with disabilities, to participate in interim assessments in ways that yield valid inferences of what they know and can do.
Published: May 2021 
Educational Policy Reform Research Institute Reports: Topical Review One: Creating Performance Goals and Indicators in Special Education (#1)Formats: PDFThis year 2002 topical review addresses performance goals and indicators for special education. It is part of a series developed by the Educational Policy Reform Research Institute (EPRRI), which is investigating issues related to accountability and special education. This review looks at how to create valid and measurable indicators of key features of special education that can be used to gauge effectiveness as well as target improvement strategies.
Published: January 2002
NCEO Reports: Principles and Characteristics of Inclusive Assessment Systems in a Changing Assessment Landscape (#400)This document is the fourth in a series of Principles documents produced by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO). NCEO revisited and revised its 2008 Principles for inclusive assessment systems to respond to the many changes in the current educational assessment context. The revised Principles reflect a broader perspective that acknowledges that the Principles should apply not only for students with disabilities but also for English learners (ELs) and ELs with disabilities, as well as to all types of assessments in assessment systems. Similar to previous documents, it is designed to identify the principles and characteristics of inclusive assessment systems.
Published: February 2016
NCEO Technical Reports: An Analysis of Accommodations Issues from the Standards and Assessments Peer Review (#51)A report commissioned by the Accommodations Monitoring Study Group of the Assessing Special Education Students State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards. It is the second in a three-part series providing information to states about the monitoring of accommodations to address the question of how states meet the NCLB requirement to routinely monitor the extent to which test accommodations are consistent with those provided during instruction, specifically for students with IEPs. This technical report provides a comprehensive analysis of the peer review guidance information and the methodology used in the research, as well as summarizing themes found across multiple peer reviews of state assessment systems. The first report in the series is Hints and Tips for Addressing Accommodations Issues for Peer Review.
Published: December 2008
IEP Monitoring by States of Alternate Assessment Participation DecisionsFormats: PDFThis presentation shares results from a national survey of leaders in the special education and assessment offices of SEAs, and reviews three states’ approaches and procedures for monitoring AA-AAAS participation decision making. Implementation successes and challenges are highlighted, and recommendations for best practices are shared. The presentation was given at the 2022 National Association of State Directors of Special Education annual conference.
Published: 9/27/2022
NCEO Reports: Principios y Características de Sistemas Inclusivos de Evaluación en un Escenario de Evaluación Cambiante (#400 Spanish)This document is a Spanish translation of the fourth in a series of Principles documents produced by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO). NCEO revisited and revised its 2008 Principles for inclusive assessment systems to respond to the many changes in the current educational assessment context. The revised Principles reflect a broader perspective that acknowledges that the Principles should apply not only for students with disabilities but also for English learners (ELs) and ELs with disabilities, as well as to all types of assessments in assessment systems. Similar to previous documents, it is designed to identify the principles and characteristics of inclusive assessment systems. Content is in Spanish.
Published: January 2016
NCEO Brief: Performance of Special Education Students: Implications for Common State Assessments (#5)A brief -- the fifth in a series for the Race to the Top Assessment Consortia -- presenting information on the performance of special education students, highlighting the range in performance of these students in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Consortia states, as well as the nature of gaps between special education and non-special education students. Changes in the percentage of special education students proficient and above on state tests over time are also provided. This brief provides concluding thoughts about the performance of special education students and suggestions for steps that Consortia and states might take to look at their own data. This is one of a series of NCEO Briefs for the Race to the Top (RTTT) Assessment Consortia that address the opportunities, resources, and challenges facing cross-state collaborative assessment efforts as they include students with disabilities and English language learners.
Published: January 2012
NCEO Newsletter: June 2020 issueFormats: OnlineThis newsletter highlights several new resources that address various aspects of distance learning, including a new brief on formative assessment strategies to improve distance learning outcomes for students with disabilities. We also are highlighting resources in the continually growing series on distance learning that is being developed by TIES Center, which is a NCEO affiliated project. This series is focused on instruction and engagement of students with significant cognitive disabilities in a distance learning environment. This issue also includes an article about a new brief on multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) for all students, including students with significant cognitive disabilities, as well as an article about several new interactive Data Analytics which enable users to explore and visualize data about assessment participation and performance. We conclude with two articles about products created by a NCEO affiliated project, the Improving Instruction for English Learners Through Accessibility Decision Making project – a report that presents the findings of a literature review on research on test accommodations for English learners and English learners with disabilities, and information about two new professional development modules on accessibility decision making.
Published: June 2020- Parent Video Series: Supporting the Learning of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities at Home: Helping Your Child with Communication at HomeFormats: Online
This video describes ways that parents with students with disabilities can help support their child’s communication development at home, and provides sources for more information.
Published: November 2020 - Parent Video Series: Supporting the Learning of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities at Home: Helping Your Child with Routines at HomeFormats: Online
This video helps support parents of students with disabilities in establishing routines at home, in order to promote better behaviors and communications. It also provides other sources for more information.
Published: November 2020 - Parent Video Series: Supporting the Learning of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities at Home: Helping Your Child with Writing at HomeFormats: Online
This video describes practical ways to support students with significant cognitive disabilities as they grow in their writing skills. It also describes the types of supports a parent can ask for from a teacher or instructional team.
Published: July 2021 - Parent Video Series: Supporting the Learning of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities at Home: Helping Your Child with the Foundations of Communication at HomeFormats: Online
This video provides parents and siblings of students with disabilities with tips on how they can support the development of communication skills of their child (or sibling) at home, and provides other sources for more information.
Published: November 2020