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NCEO Policy Directions: Educational Accountability for Students with Disabilities (#3)Formats: OnlineThis year 1994 report outlines steps that educators can take towards a new and inclusive accountability system with consistent procedures for all students, including students with disabilities. These steps include considering alternative approaches to accountability, ensuring educators have data needed to demonstrate that education is working for students with disabilities, and ways to overcome potential barriers to obtaining these data. The report concludes with specific recommendations.
Published: November 1994- NCEO Technical Reports: Secondary Analysis of State Assessment Data: Why We Can't Say Much About Students with Disabilities (#10)Formats: PDF
This year 1994 report summarizes activities of the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) directed at producing a report on the status of students with disabilities from the secondary analysis of state collected achievement data. Although more than half of the 50 states reported that large-scale achievement data were available for some students with disabilities, potentially usable data were obtained from only six states. The report describes numerous difficulties encountered in attempts to collect and aggregate state achievement data on students with disabilities and concludes that it was not possible to produce a synthesis report on the achievement status of students with disabilities from aggregated state data bases. Recommendations are presented for improving the probability of conducting such analyses in the future.
Published: August 1994 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Opportunity-to-Learn Standards (#14)Formats: PDFThis report provides an overview of the use of the term "Opportunity to learn (OTL) standards in recent (1994) legislation, alternative perspectives on OTL standards, and state practices in the implementation of OTL standards. We examine how students with disabilities are treated in discussion of OTL standards, how people propose to measure OTL, and major issues surrounding the concept of OTL standards. Implications for students with disabilities are discussed, and we conclude with several recommendations.
Published: July 1994
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Recommendations for Making Decisions About the Participation of Students with Disabilities in Statewide Assessment Programs: A Report on a Working Conference to Develop Guidelines for Statewide Assessments and Students with Disabilities (#15)Formats: PDFThis report is a summary of a meeting held in the Washington, DC area on May 17 and 18, 1994. The purpose of the meeting was to: (1) Discuss participation of students with disabilities in state assessment programs, (2) Discuss adaptations in assessments or assessment procedures to accommodate students with disabilities, (3) Attempt to arrive at agreement on a reasonable set of practices in making participation and accommodation decisions, and (4) Identify major technical and implementation issues that might be part of state or federal research agendas on participation and accommodations in assessment programs. This report proposes a set of recommendations for making participation and accommodation decisions, and indicate the fundamental assumptions that underlie participation of students with disabilities in state assessment programs. We describe the rational for the development of a consistent system for making decisions about participation and accommodations in state assessment programs.
Published: July 1994- NCEO Policy Directions: Students with Disabilities and Educational Standards: Recommendations for Policy and Practice (#2)Formats: Online
This year 1994 report describes various types of standards in education (i.e., content, performance, opportunity-to-learn, and assessment) and summarizes issues when applying these standards to all students, including students with disabilities. The report concludes with recommendations for policies addressing content and performance standards.
Published: May 1994 - NCEO Policy Directions: Guidelines for Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Large-Scale Assessments (#1)Formats: Online
This year 1994 report provides background on how students with disabilities have been excluded from large scale assessments and provides recommendations for the development of guidelines and monitoring practices that promote full participation of students with disabilities in large-scale assessment programs. It recommends guidelines for policies that address inclusion, accommodations and adaptations, and monitoring of implementation of these policies.
Published: May 1994 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Making Decisions About the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Large-Scale Assessments: A Report on a Working Conference to Develop Guidelines on Inclusion and Accommodations (#13)Formats: PDFThis report is a summary of a meeting held in Washington, D.C. on March 9-10, 1994. Much of the focus of this meeting was on the challenges faced in making decisions about inclusion and accommodations for students with disabilities on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The content of this report and the recommended guidelines also have applicability for state large-scale assessments.
Published: April 1994
NCEO State Surveys: State Special Education Outcomes 1993: A Report on State Activities in the Assessment of Educational Outcomes for Students with DisabilitiesFormats: PDFA report on NCEO's third survey of states conducted in 1993 to address the needs of state directors, policymakers and others for information about current state activities in multiple outcomes areas: Knowledge, skills, status, and attitudes of students with disabilities. It also addresses issues related to change over time in accountability and assessment activities. The specific objectives of this survey were to: (1) Develop an ongoing system to describe the status of state activities to assess educational outcomes, (2) Develop an ongoing tracking system of procedures and practices used by states to include and make accommodations in the assessment of students with disabilities, (3) Identify persistent barriers and needs of states related to outcomes assessment, and (4) Identify state data bases that might be used to create a national data base of outcomes for students with disabilities.
Published: March 1994
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Implementation of Alternative Methods for Making Educational Accountability Decisions for Students with Disabilities (#12)Formats: PDFThis report examines some of the issues and challenges in gathering data for purposes of making accountability decisions for students with disabilities (1994). The report (1) describes the alternative methods that are being used, (2) describes the student population and accountability decision-making practices in representative states, (3) describes the kinds of issues State Education Agency (SEA) personnel encounter, (4) identifies the kinds of data SEA and national education policy personnel say would be needed to demonstrate that education works for students with disabilities, (5) describes ways in which SEA personnel have been successful in overcoming barriers, and (6) makes recommendations of promising practices for making accountability decisions.
Published: March 1994- NCEO Technical Reports: Matching State Goals to a Model of School Completion Outcomes and Indicators (#9)Formats: PDF
This year 1994 report presents the conceptual model of school completion indicators developed by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) in partnership with stakeholders and compares how the identified indicators match to those developed by states. The model, which includes eight major outcome domains, was designed to be appropriate for students with and without disabilities at these levels: early childhood--age 3, early childhood--age 6, grade 4, grade 8, school-completion, and post school.
Published: February 1994 - NCEO Technical Reports: Availability of Data on School Completion Outcomes and Indicators (#8)Formats: PDF
This year 1994 report examines the extent to which indicators in the model of outcomes and indicators developed by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) were found in states at the school completion level. The model contained eight domains or content areas. Data managers from 36 states or territories reported that data were available for indicators in the Presence and Participation and Contribution and Citizenship domains, but few data were available for the remaining six areas. The report discusses the need to establish new instruments and data collection systems in order to report outcomes valued by educators and parents.
Published: January 1994 - NCEO Technical Reports: Matching Information in National Data Collection Programs to a Model of School Completion Outcomes and Indicators (#7)Formats: PDF
This year 1994 report presents results from a study comparing the National Center on Educational Outcomes' (NCEO) comprehensive system of Educational Outcomes and Indicators for Students Completing School and indicators included in national data collection programs. The results indicated that important school completion outcomes for all students were substantially represented in the national data collection system. Across 13 national data collection programs, 91% of the NCEO school completion outcome indicators were found to be represented by at least one measure. However, it was not possible to produce comprehensive reports about the status of students with disabilities due to the significant exclusion of such students from data collection programs and the variable or nonexistent identification of such students in national data collection programs. Recommendations are provided to realize the potential present for producing useful policy-relevant information regarding school completion outcomes for students with disabilities.
Published: January 1994 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: National Goals, National Standards, National Tests: Concerns for All (Not Virtually All) Students With Disabilities? (#11)Formats: PDFThis report provides an analysis of inclusion as it relations to national goals, national standards, and national tests for students with disabilities. Efforts to address these concerns as well as actions that can be taken to improve services to students with disabilities are described.
Published: November 1993- NCEO Technical Reports: The Identification of People With Disabilities in National Databases: A Failure to Communicate (#6)Formats: PDF
This year 1993 report presents an analysis of how students with disabilities were identified in national databases. It examined 19 national data collection programs in the U.S. Departments of Education, Commerce, Justice, and Health and Human Services, as well as databases from the National Science Foundation. Findings showed significant variability was evident in the disability categories used both within and across the national data collection programs. Suggestions are provided for improving disability identification in collecting and reporting policy relevant information.
Published: September 1993 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Outcome-Based Education: Its Relevance to State and National Decision Making (#9)Formats: PDFThis report was developed to propose a framework for applying an outcome-based approach throughout the education system for students with disabilities. The needs of three major levels of the system were examined: local, state, and national. It is argued that it is necessary to define different uses for the term "outcome" in order to achieve consensus and understanding. Matching uses with the needs of the specific levels of the system will help clarify communications and facilitate the process of identifying expected outcomes.
Published: October 1993
NCEO Synthesis Reports: The Effects of Standards and Assessment on Students in Special Education (#10)Formats: PDFIn this report, the author examines accountability and assessment issues that are relevant to students in special education.
Published: October 1993
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Synthesis Report Update 1993: Recent Activities in National Goals, Standards, and Tests (#8)Formats: PDFThis report updates major recent (1993) national initiatives in the areas of (a) the national education goals, (b) standards, and (c) national testing for students with disabilities.
Published: September 1993
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Views on Inclusion and Testing Accommodations for Students with Disabilities (#7)Formats: PDFThis monograph represents the culmination of an effort to obtain expert opinions about the challenges of inclusion (who should be included - or excluded - from assessments, how the decision is made, and who makes the decision) and accommodations (what modifications can be made in assessment materials and/or procedures that still allow valid assessment results to be obtained). This monograph presents papers on issues of inclusion and accommodations be field experts Bob Algozzine, Paul H. Koehler, Barbar L. Loeding and Jerry B. Crittenden, Jack Merwin, Daniel J. Reschly, and Maynard C. Reynolds.
Published: September 1993- NCEO Technical Reports: IEPs and Standards: What They Say for Students with Disabilities (#5)Formats: PDF
This year 1993 report presents a study comparing students' IEPs to national and locally defined standards for mathematics. The IEPs of 76 students with mild disabilities were compared to the National Assessment of Educational Progress proficiency levels for mathematics, local standards, and a taxonomy of dimensions including: Level of Mastery, Nature of the Material, and Operations. The report suggests a widening of the gap between what students with disabilities are taught and the assessments with which they are tested. Implications for actions by the special education and standards-setting communities are discussed.
Published: May 1993 
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Implications of Outcomes-Based Education for Children with Disabilities (#6)Formats: PDFThis report discusses Outcomes-based education (OBE) and its implications for students with disabilities from the perspective of the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: April 1993