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- V5-2: Meeting with Featured Student after Assessment AccommodationFormats: Online
A special education teacher interviews a student after the state test. The student shares her perspective on whether the accommodation "worked."
Published: 2014-05-05 - Universal Design Online ManualFormats: Online
Steps that states can take to ensure universal design of computer and paper-based assessments. Including any step in the design and review of tests may improve the design features of a state assessment.
Published: 2006-09-01 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Results of a Cognitive Interview Study of Immediate Feedback and Revision Opportunities for Students with Disabilities in Large Scale Assessments (#92)A report covering a study that was part of a larger research project originally designed to investigate an approach to Alternate Assessments with Modified Achievement Standards that provides immediate feedback and revision opportunities for students when they answer test items. After answering an item, students would receive feedback about whether the answer was correct or incorrect and would be given additional chances to correct their answer (for partial credit). This particular study employed cognitive interviews to determine whether: (a) Feedback and Revision had a qualitative impact on student interaction with the assessment (i.e., students' interview responses suggest that the feedback and revision feature had an impact on those students' success on the test), and (b) there were qualitative differences between groups of students with and without disabilities (i.e., students' interview responses suggest that the utility and effects of feedback and revision differ for these two groups).
Published: December 2013
Forum on Evaluating Educator Effectiveness: Critical Considerations for Including Students with DisabilitiesFormats: PDFA report summarizing the discussion at the Forum on Evaluating Educator Effectiveness held in June 2012 in Minneapolis. Thirty-six individuals representing a dozen states, four testing companies, and six other organizations participated in the forum, which was a pre-session to the Council of Chief State School Officers National Conference on Student Assessment, and was a collaboration of the Assessing Special Education Students State Collaborative on Assessment and State Standards and the National Center on Educational Outcomes. Its purpose was to address the challenging issues that exist in including students with disabilities and their teachers in educator evaluation systems, and to provide state representatives and other interested parties with an opportunity to meet and share their perspectives on this topic, particularly in light of the changing nature of accountability systems across the United States. This report summarizes the introductory material provided to participants, and presents a summary of the discussions in three facilitated topic discussion sessions focusing on including assessment results of students with disabilities, using IEP goals or student learning objectives, and developing a balanced model for educator effectiveness evaluations.
Published: 2012
NCEO Technical Reports: Student Think-Aloud Reflections on Comprehensible and Readable Assessment Items: Perspectives on What Does and Does Not Make an Item Readable (#48)A document reporting on research related to large-scale assessments for students with learning disabilities in reading. The researchers examined the role of "readable and comprehensible" test items that could make assessments more universally designed, using think-aloud methods to better understand how interventions to improve readability affect student performance. Reducing word counts in items and making important words bold did not seem to affect student achievement but vocabulary did. Students had difficulty with non-construct vocabulary in both the stem and answer choices of items as well as with words that have negative prefixes (e.g., dis). This suggests that readability correlates with vocabulary and that construct and non-construct vocabulary must be clearly defined in order to make tests more accessible.
Published: September 2007
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Access Assistants for State Assessments: A Study of State Guidelines for Scribes, Readers, and Sign Language Interpreters (#58)This year 2005 report describes a national study on state guidelines provided for human access assistants that help students who use either a scribe, reader or sign language interpreter accommodation on state assessments. Overall, 22 states had guidelines for one or more of the three access assistants that were the focus of the study. Variations across state guidelines extended from breadth and depth to format and ease of access. Further, 14 states with guidelines also had described the qualifications or characteristics required of these access assistants. The report concludes with a description of several challenges to the development of state guidelines for access assistants, and recommendations for meeting those challenges.
Published: December 2005- A State Guide to the Development of Universally Designed AssessmentsFormats: PDF
Test design strategies for accurately measuring the knowledge and skills of a diverse student population from test conceptualization and item construction, to field-testing, item reviews, statewide operationalization, and evaluation.
Published: 2006-09-01 - NCEO Newsletter: February 2023 issueFormats: Online
This issue highlights a disproportionality calculator tool that can be used to examine disproportionality with respect to student subgroup participation in the alternate assessment; a brief on including students with disabilities in K-2 assessments; a brief on involving students with disabilities in selecting accessibility features and accommodations; and a policy analysis of how states’ policies address the qualifications and training requirements for test administrators, proctors, and accommodations providers. This issue also contains an updated list of accommodations included in the NCEO Accommodations Toolkit. And we provide information on upcoming conferences NCEO staff will present at.
Published: 1/30/2023 - NCEO Newsletter: October 2022 issueFormats: Online
This issue highlights several new NCEO activities and products. The first is a toolkit for new state special education directors that is designed to be easy to use and help new directors (and their staff) become experts on how to include students with disabilities in assessments. Next is NCEO’s presence on TikTok. There is also recently published proceedings of the forum on assistive technology interoperability with online assessment platforms and other technology and services. Additionally, there is an article about a recent scan of the national landscape of formative assessment definitions and how students with disabilities are included in them, as well as articles about NCEO presentations at the recent National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) conference and at the upcoming Conference on Test Security (COTS).
Published: 10/3/2022 - 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 - 1% Toolkit: IEP Team Resource: Making Decisions about Participation in the Alternate Assessment (NCEO Tool #10)
This IEP team resource is designed to support IEP team members, including teachers, school psychologists, English language development specialists, speech language therapists, occupational therapists, paraprofessionals, parents, administrators, and others who may participate in the IEP team meeting. It provides supports for the decision about whether a student with a disability should participate in a general assessment or an AA-AAAS. States can modify the tool as needed to reflect any differences in their IEPs or to link to their own guidelines for participation in the AA-AAAS.
Published: January 2021 
TIES Center Briefs: Taking the Alternate Assessment Does NOT Mean Education in a Separate Setting! (#2)This Parent Brief describes how participation in the alternate assessment does not automatically mean that a student is in a different instructional setting from his or her same-age peers without disabilities. The brief defines who are students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, what is meant by the “least restrictive environment,” the legal provisions that support inclusion, including students with the most significant cognitive disabilities in general education classrooms, and next steps for parents.
Published: May 2019
NCEO Technical Reports: A Summary of the Research on the Effects of Test Accommodations: 2007-2008 (#56)The use of accommodations for both instruction and assessment continues to be of great importance for students with disabilities. Numerous efforts are underway to ensure that students with disabilities participate meaningfully in more inclusive classrooms and large-scale assessments. Still, there is a need for greater understanding of the ways in which accommodations are selected and implemented during classroom instruction and assessments. The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the state of the research on testing accommodations, as well as to identify promising areas of research likely to contribute to understanding of current and emerging issues.
Published: May 2010
NCEO Technical Reports: Nearing the Target in Disaggregated Subgroup Reporting to the Public on 2004-2005 Assessment Results (#46)This year 2007 report describes the public reporting of participation and performance data for students with disabilities published on state department of education web sites for the 2004-2005 school year. It describes the state assessment systems, how data were reported, and achievement gaps. It concludes with recommendations for public reporting.
Published: April 2007
NCEO Limited English Proficiency Projects Reports: Relationships Between a Statewide Language Proficiency Test and Academic Achievement Assessments (#4)This year 2004 report presents a study on Minnesota's English learner performance on the Test of Emerging Academic English in comparison to English learner and English fluent student reading performance on Minnesota's Comprehensive Assessment in grades 3 and 5, and the Basic Skills Tests in grade 8.
Published: August 2004
NCEO Technical Reports: Almost There in Public Reporting of Assessment Results for Students with Disabilities (#39)This year 2004 report examines the extent that states reported participation and performance data for students with disabilities in the 2001-2002 school year. The report describes state assessment systems, summarizes how states reported disaggregated data for students with disabilities by test, and presents achievement gap information by content area and grades 4, 8 and 10. Recommendations for clear reporting are provided.
Published: August 2004
NCEO Minnesota Assessment Project Reports: Input from the Field on the Participation of Students with Limited English Proficiency and Students with Disabilities in Meeting the High Standards of Minnesota's Profile of Learning (#10)Formats: OnlineThis year 1996 report summarizes focus group input from teachers and administrators on the participation of English learners and students with disabilities in Minnesota's Profile of Learning, which includes performance-based classroom-level assessments.
Published: August 1996
NCEO Classroom-Based Assessment Project: Using Accelerated Math to Enhance Instruction in a Mandated Summer School ProgramFormats: PDFA report from NCEO's Classroom-Based Assessment Project.
Published: July 1999
NCEO Reports: 2013-14 Publicly Reported Assessment Results for Students with Disabilities and ELLs with Disabilities (#401)This is the seventeenth report by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) that describes how states publicly report online assessment data for students with disabilities in K-12 schools in the United States. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) require states to disaggregate participation and performance data at the state level. The ESEA flexibility waivers that many states received also require states to report for the "all students" group as well as for all of the subgroups, including students in special education, as long as the number of students in a subgroup is equal to or above the minimum reporting number defined by the state. This report presents information on publicly reported participation and performance data for the 50 regular states and the 11 unique states. Recommendations are offered to states for the public reporting of disaggregated data for students with disabilities.
Published: February 2016- NCEO Classroom-Based Assessment Project: Enhancing the Learning of English Language Learners: Consultation and a Curriculum Based Monitoring SystemFormats: PDF
A report from NCEO's Classroom-Based Assessment Project.
Published: March 2001