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NCEO Technical Reports: 2008-09 Publicly Reported Assessment Results for Students with Disabilities and ELLs with Disabilities (#59)A report analyzing the public reporting of assessment data for students with disabilities in K-12 schools in the United States; this is NCEO's 13th annual report on this subject. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) required states to disaggregate performance data at the state and district level. Although reporting practices for regular assessments have changed little for 2008-09 compared to the previous years, this year did mark the first time all 50 states reported disaggregated data for at least some state assessments in ESEA accountability systems. Although there were increased mean gaps between students with disabilities and regular students on regular assessments across all grades and content areas, the mean performance for students in both populations showed improvement in all grades and content areas. However, compared to students with disabilities, regular students showed larger mean gains compared to last year. Public reporting on English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities is also examined in this report.
Published: August 2011
NCEO Synthesis Reports: States' Participation Guidelines for Alternate Assessments Based on Modified Academic Achievement Standards (AA-MAS) in 2010 (#82)A report updating the information gathered by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) in previous reports. Since 2007, NCEO has annually compiled, analyzed, and summarized states' participation guidelines for the Alternate Assessment based on Alternate Achievement Standards (AA-MAS). The purpose of this report is to update the information gathered from previous reports. As of November 2010, 17 states - California, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia - had publicly available participation guidelines for an assessment the state considered to be an AA-MAS. As of February 2011, four states - Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas - had successfully completed the U.S. Department of Education's peer review process that determines whether the assessment fulfills the necessary requirements for the state to receive federal funds.
Published: May 2011
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Earning a High School Diploma through Alternative Routes (#76)A report based on a study examining the alternative routes to passing the high school exit exam that were available during the school year 2008-09 to students to earn a standard high school diploma. It examines alternative routes in the 26 states with active or soon-to-be active exit exams, and documents the alternative routes available for all students and those specifically for students with disabilities. Earning a standard diploma has increased in importance during the past several years. Not only is it a document that improves postschool outcomes, but it also has become a part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) accountability system at the high school level--with the required graduation rate including only those students who have earned a regular/standard high school diploma or higher. Complicating matters in several states is the addition of an exit exam requirement to the traditional coursework requirements. The addition of a testing requirement to other requirements for earning a standard diploma is a challenge for students who do not perform well on assessments. Many, but not all, of these students have disabilities.
Published: June 2010
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Common Misperceptions and Research-Based Recommendations for Alternate Assessment Based on Alternate Achievement Standards (#73)A report exploring misperceptions about assessments and the students who are assessed using Alternate Assessments based on Alternate Achievement Standards (AA-AAS). The misperceptions have been encountered by the National Alternate Assessment Center (NAAC) and National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) in their collaborative work with states and educators on the AA-AAS. AA-AAS are designed so that students with the most significant cognitive disabilities can be included in large-scale accountability testing, and promote their access to the same interesting and challenging curriculum as their peers. This report explores common misperceptions related to three major themes: (a) the characteristics of students who participate in AA-AAS; (b) the content that should be taught and assessed by teachers; and (c) issues regarding the purpose and the validity of AA-AAS outcomes. For each misperception, it proposes research-based recommendations to address them, and refers to the recent literature on assessment, curriculum, and instruction for students with the most significant disabilities to support its analysis and recommendations.
Published: February 2010
PARA Accessible Reading Assessment Reports: Disabilities and Reading: Understanding the Effects of Disabilities and Their Relationship to Reading Instruction and AssessmentA report providing common ground on the issues surrounding reading and students with various disabilities to facilitate discussion of accessible reading assessment. The information in this report was obtained through a broad review of literature and Web sites of national agencies and organizations, along with input and feedback from professionals in the disability areas. It is not intended to be a comprehensive research review of disabilities or reading-related issues, but nevertheless should prove useful for understanding the effects of disabilities and their relationship to reading. Seven disabilities are discussed in the order of their prevalence: specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, intellectual disabilities, emotional/behavioral disabilities, autism, deaf or hard of hearing, and visual impairments. Although these disabilities do not comprise all of the possible disability categories or even the most common disabilities, they do represent those often considered most challenging for reading assessment. This report provides:
- An overview of the characteristics of students with each disability
- A description of common approaches to reading instruction for students with each disability
- Assessment approaches and issues that surround the assessment of reading for students with each disability.
Published: March 2009
NCEO Technical Reports: Trends in the Participation and Performance of Students with Disabilities (#50)A report describing the first comprehensive analysis conducted by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) of trends in the public reporting of state assessment results for students with disabilities. The study followed NCEO's four analyses of public reporting since the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. More states are reporting assessment data for students with disabilities disaggregated by grade level and content area. States have also improved their data collection systems that make this type of reporting possible but the number of states for which data were available across the four years was relatively small. Based on the states with data across years, average percentages of students with disabilities performing at the proficient or above level showed moderate increases across the four years for both reading and math in elementary and middle schools but not in high schools. Trend data also showed higher percentages of elementary school students demonstrating proficient or above performance in reading and math than their counterparts in middle and high school. Trends in the Participation and Performance of Students with Disabilities is a brief summary of this report.
Published: December 2008
PARA Accessible Reading Assessment Reports: Examining DIF, DDF, and Omit Rate by Discrete Disability CategoriesA report describing a study of differential item functioning (DIF), differential distractor functioning (DDF), and differential omission frequency (DOF) for one third grade and one fifth grade statewide reading test for three disability groupings: students with speech/language impairments, learning disabilities, and emotional/behavioral disorders. The study found substantive DIF/DDF only for students with learning disabilities, not for students with speech/language impairments or emotional/behavioral disorders. Furthermore, examination of response characteristic curve graphs showed that DIF/DDF did not necessarily indicate an item had statistical bias against students with learning disabilities. Rather, low-performing students with learning disabilities more often than low-performing students without disabilities appeared to choose wrong answers randomly rather than selecting the most appealing wrong answers. The researchers concluded that there was no evidence of test bias for students with disabilities in the state reading tests examined in the study.
Published: December 2007
PARA Accessible Reading Assessment Reports: Examining Differential Distractor Functioning in Reading Assessments for Students with DisabilitiesA report examining the incorrect response choices, or distractors, of students with disabilities in standardized reading assessments. Differential distractor functioning (DDF) analysis differs from differential item functioning (DIF) analysis, which treats all answers alike and examines all wrong answers against the correct answer. DDF analysis, in contrast, examines only the wrong answers. If different groups, such as students with disabilities and students without disabilities, preferred different incorrect responses to an item, then the item could mean something different to the different groups. The authors found items showing DDF for students with disabilities in grade 9, but not for grade 3. Results also suggest that items showing DDF were more likely to be located in the second half of the assessments rather than the first half. Additionally, results suggest that in items showing DDF, students with disabilities were less likely to choose the most common distractor than their non-disabled peers. Results of this study can shed light on potential factors affecting the accessibility of reading assessments for students with disabilities.
Published: January 2007
PARA Accessible Reading Assessment Reports: Examining Differential Item Functioning in Reading Assessments for Students With DisabilitiesA report examining group differences between students with disabilities and students without disabilities using differential item functioning (DIF) analyses in a high-stakes reading assessment. Results indicated that for grade 9, many items exhibited DIF and these were more likely to be located in the second half of the assessment subscales. After accounting for reading ability, when compared to their non-disabled peers, students with disabilities consistently under-performed on items located in the second half relative to the items located in the first half. These results were seen in grade 9 for data from two different states, but these results were not seen for grade 3. This study has several limitations to the data. There was no access to information about the testing accommodations that students with disabilities might have received, and no information about the type of disabilities. Results of this study can shed light on potential factors affecting the accessibility of reading assessments for students with disabilities, in an ultimate effort to provide assessment tools that are conceptually and psychometrically sound for all students.
Published: January 2007
NCEO Synthesis Reports: High Stakes Graduation Exams: The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Minnesota's Basic Standards Tests for Students with Disabilities (#62)This year 2006 report examines the intended and unintended consequences of Minnesota's high stakes graduation exam on students with disabilities through focus group data and interviews. The study included focus groups included parents of students with disabilities, special educators from six schools in two large urban and suburban school districts, and member of the Minnesota Association of educational Assessment and Evaluation, and interviews from building administrators, school district representatives, and a state representative. Findings include a combination of positive and negative consequences such as increasing exposure to curriculum, increased participation in testing, raising expectations, high levels of anxiety and frustration, and drop-out concerns among other findings. The author concludes that further studies are needed to document empirically whether these consequences are occurring for students with disabilities.
Published: August 2006
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Progress Monitoring in an Inclusive Standards-Based Assessment and Accountability System (#53)This year 2004 report describes how progress monitoring--a set of techniques for assessing student performance on a regular and frequent basis--can be an essential and integral part of an inclusive standards-based assessment and accountability system This report discusses contextual challenges that affect its implementation for students with disabilities including: historical limited access to challenging curriculum, instruction, and assessment; concerns about the target of measurement (i.e., only basic skills or a full range of challenging content); and limited use of data for effective provision of instructional strategies, interventions, and supports. Further, the authors discuss the benefits and uses of progress monitoring methods and formative data sources in four general categories: (1) Curriculum-Based Measurement; (2) Classroom assessments (system or teacher-developed); (3) Adaptive assessments; and (4) Large-scale assessments used during the year to monitor growth of individual students and groups of students. Several recommendations for practice are also offered.
Published: February 2004- Accommodations Toolkit: Word Prediction: States’ Accessibility Policies, 2023Formats: Online
This summary of states accessibility policies for word prediction is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 4/22/2024 - Accommodations Toolkit: Large Print: States’ Accessibility Policies, 2023Formats: Online
This summary of states accessibility policies for large print is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 4/22/2024 - Accommodations Toolkit: Extended Time: States' Accessibility Policies, 2023Formats: Online
This summary of states’ accessibility policies for extended time is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 3/5/2024 - Accommodations Toolkit: Math Charts/Tables: States’ Accessibility Policies, 2022Formats: Online
This summary of states’ accessibility policies for math charts/tables is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 6/8/2022 - Accommodations Toolkit: Test breaks: States’ Accessibility Policies, 2020Formats: Online
This summary of states’ accessibility policies for test breaks is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 9/30/2021 - Accommodations Toolkit: Multiple Days: States’ Accessibility Policies, 2020Formats: Online
This summary of states’ accessibility policies for testing over multiple days is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 8/31/2021 - Parental Expectations on the Post-school Outcomes for English Learners with DisabilitiesFormats: PDF
This presentation, focusing on parents’ expectations about post-school outcomes for English learners with disabilities, was presented at the 2021 National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) annual conference.
Published: 2021-04-28 - Examining Assigned Accommodations Over Time Through Interactive Data AnalyticsFormats: PDF
This presentation, examining assigned accommodations over time through interactive data analytics, was presented at the 2021 Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) annual conference.
Published: 2021-03-08 - 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