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NCEO Minnesota Assessment Project Reports: Minnesota's Comprehensive Assessments: 1998 and 1999 Participation and Performance of Students with Disabilities (#32)Formats: OnlineThis year 2000 report analyzes the participation and performance of students with disabilities on the initial administration of Minnesota's Comprehensive Assessments in math and reading for grades three and five.
Published: December 2000- What Does Meaningful Accessibility Really Mean?Formats: PDF
This report contains the proceedings of a forum held on June 28, 2023 in New Orleans, Louisiana to discuss issues surrounding meaningful accessibility of assessments. The forum was a post-session to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) and was a collaboration of the Assessment, Standards, and Education for Students with Disabilities (ASES) Collaborative and the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO). A specific goal of the forum was to gather representatives from state education agencies (SEAs), assessment vendors, assistive technology experts, and others to discuss the meaningful accessibility of assessments and to identify possible solutions to the challenges that students face when accessing assessments.
Published: November 2023 - What New Special Education Directors Need to Know about Academic AssessmentsFormats: Online
The purpose of this toolkit is to provide easy access to information that will help special education directors fulfill their role in ensuring the participation of students with disabilities in assessments. The toolkit is meant to assist directors in locating information and resources on the website of the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) . The information and resources highlighted in this resource can help support special education directors in ensuring that all students with disabilities are included in state, district, and school assessments and accountability systems in a manner that is appropriate for each student based on their specific instructional and assessment needs.
Published: June 2022 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Models for Reporting the Results of Alternate Assessments Within State Accountability Systems (#39)Formats: OnlineA report summarizing six models for reporting the scores of students with disabilities participating in alternate assessments that existed in the year 2001. Reporting the scores of students with disabilities participating in alternate assessments raises a number of challenges, including those surrounding concerns about statistical soundness, as well as those related to the different purposes and focuses that characterize current alternate assessments. At the time of this report, across the nation, states had reached different decisions about how to report the results of their alternate assessments.
Published: September 2001- NCEO Reports: Universal Design and K-12 Academic Assessments: A Scoping Review of the Literature (#442)
This report summarizes an investigation of literature published in 1985-2023 on universal design (UD) of large-scale assessments. State education agencies, K-12 assessment vendors, teacher trainers, and classroom teachers are increasingly applying the principles of UD to the instruction and assessment of students from special populations. In theory, UD ensures that instruction and assessment are created from the beginning to be accessible to the widest population of students possible. Yet, it is unclear how these UD frameworks and their associated principles and elements are being applied, or even which UD framework is used. This obscurity and lack of defined UD principles in the research literature creates obstacles in research replication and in identification of evidence-based practices. This scoping review identifies how the concept of UD has been applied to the broad range of U.S. district and state large-scale academic assessments. We included literature on the application of UD to the broad range of K-12 district and state large-scale academic assessments in the U.S.
Published: February 2024 - 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 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Science Alternate Assessments based on Alternate Achievement Standards (AA-AAS) During School Year 2014-2015 (#99)A report that analyzes the characteristics of states' science alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) in 2014-2015. Federal law requires that all students, including students with disabilities, participate in state assessments used for accountability purposes. It also requires states to assess students in several content areas, including science. Most students with disabilities take the general science assessment with or without accommodations, but a few students with the most significant cognitive disabilities participate in AA-AAS. Although federal regulations do allow states to define the complexity, depth, and breadth of the AA-AAS, the apparent lack of consistency in the domains assessed suggests that some students with significant cognitive disabilities may not be getting access to the same rigorous grade-appropriate content.
Published: November 2015
Sign Support Guidelines for Accessible Assessments: Insights From Cognitive LabsFormats: PDFA report observing that students who are deaf or hard of hearing (Deaf/HH) and communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) may benefit from sign accommodations on state assessments. However, there have been challenges in standardizing assessment content including how items should be signed. Technology-enhanced assessment offers the opportunity to provide standardized sign support delivered through the test platform. One goal of the Guidelines for Accessible Assessment Project (GAAP) was to develop research-based sign guidelines that can be used across states, consortia, and assessment vendors to produce reliable and valid signed representations of assessment items and tasks for students who communicate using sign language. This report highlights the findings from cognitive labs conducted with students to gain their input and feedback on the proposed guidelines. A total of 46 elementary-, middle-, and high-school-aged students who were Deaf/HH and communicated using ASL participated in cognitive labs. The research findings point to the students' preferences for the provision of the sign support in general and for this support being grounded in ASL rather than representations aligned with other languages.
Published: December 2014
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Accommodation Policies for States' Alternate Assessments based on Alternate Achievement Standards (AA-AAS) (#90)A report focusing on accommodation policies for alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). NCEO has analyzed participation and accommodation policies for students with disabilities on state administered assessments since 1992 and this report is part of that long-term study. In addition to presenting a national overview of policies, this report also addresses the results of NCEO's policy analysis by the four content assessment consortia -- Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM), and National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC). The researchers' summary of the results of their analysis of accommodation policies for AA-AAS is organized under three areas of focus: the terms states used to describe changes in assessment administration, the specific accommodations addressed in policies overall, the accommodations addressed for ELLs and accommodation guidelines provided by states. Detailed information overall and by the four consortia are provided in the report appendices.
Published: July 2013
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
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- English Learners with Disabilities Toolkit: State Assessments for English Learners with Disabilities: State Data Display Templates (Tool 2)Formats: PDF
This State Data Display Templates tool is designed to provide state education agencies with templates to use to display state assessment participation and student characteristics data for English learners with disabilities. The templates are designed for a closer look at State assessment data but may be adapted for use with other types of assessments.
Published: September 2024 - MIDAS Project Reports: Parents’ Perspectives on Their Child’s Move from the AA-AAAS to the General Assessment (#104)Formats: PDF
This report presents the findings of interviews that were conducted with parents of students who moved from the alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS) to the general state assessment used for accountability. The purpose of the interviews was to learn more about their experiences as parents of students on the cusp between the two assessments.
Published: August 2024 - NCEO Minnesota Assessment Project Reports: A Review of the Literature on Students with Limited English Proficiency and Assessment (#11)Formats: Online
This year 1997 report summarizes a literature review conducted to examine best practices in assessing English learners. This review does not address second language acquisition in detail, nor competency development in content areas.
Published: August 1997 - State Public Assessment Reports for ELs with DisabilitiesFormats: Online
This page has links to state pages with assessment reports that include disaggregated data for English learners with disabilities.
Published: 2021-02-01 - Making and Implementing Accessibility and Accommodations Decisions in Assessment and Instruction for English LearnersFormats: PDF
This presentation focused on how to make and implement accessibility and accommodations decisions in assessment and instruction for English learners. It was presented at the 2019 National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) annual conference.
Published: 2019-06-25 
Training Guide for Minnesota Manual of Accommodations for Students with Disabilities in Instruction and Assessment: A Guide to Selecting, Administering, and Evaluating the Use of AccommodationsFormats: PDFThis training guide is designed as a companion to the Minnesota Manual of Accommodations for Students with Disabilities in Instruction and Assessment and the Procedures Manual for the Minnesota Assessments. Together, these documents serve to outline five key steps in making decisions about accommodations and to identify Minnesota's policies for the use of accommodations on state assessments.
Published: August 2009- NCEO Minnesota Assessment Project Reports: Participation and Performance of Limited English Proficient Students: Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments in Reading and Math, 1998-99 (#24)Formats: Online
This year 2000 report summarizes the participation and performance of English learners taking Minnesota's Comprehensive Assessments in Reading and Math for year 1998-1999.
Published: January 2000 - NCEO Brief: Pre-assessment to Plan Instruction for Students with Disabilities During Distance Learning (#21)
Distance learning, whether completely remote or in combination with classroom experiences, can pose challenges for teachers, students, and families. Pre-assessment to plan instruction can help guide the instructional planning process and improve the distance learning experience for students with disabilities, as well as for other students. This brief describes pre-assessment to plan instruction and presents 10 tools that can be used for pre-assessment of students with disabilities. Ideas are presented about ways to use each tool during distance learning. Pre-assessment and the 10 tools can also be used during face-to-face learning.
Published: December 2020 - NCEO Annual Performance Reports and State Performance Plans: 2007-2008 State Assessment DataFormats: PDF
A report summarizing the 2007-2008 state assessment information that was submitted by states in their Annual Performance Reports. States and other educational entities receiving Part B funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) submitted their Annual Performance Reports and Section 618 Table 6 data together to the U.S. Secretary of Education on or before February 2009. This report summarizes the 2007-2008 state assessment information that was submitted by states in their Annual Performance Reports. It contains information on large-scale assessment participation and performance data for the 2007-2008 school year.
Published: August 2010