It is widely recognized that the 12 percent of all youth in American public schools who have disabilities comprise a set of students with distinct capacities and needs. Federal legislation, including the most recent updates to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, identifies different disability groups and mandates that…

It is widely recognized that the 12 percent of all youth in American public schools who have disabilities comprise a set of students with distinct capacities and needs. Federal legislation, including the most recent updates to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, identifies different disability groups and mandates that…

Recent reforms in educational testing have brought many changes in approaches to accessibility and accommodations. These new approaches provide an opportunity for students who may not have received accommodations in the past to now benefit from needed accessibility features that are built into the testing platform. This Brief presents information…

Federal policy initiatives such as the flexibility waivers for accountability are requiring that states transition away from the use of an alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS). It is expected that those students who had participated in that assessment will instead participate in the state's general assessment (or a…

Sound test security policies and procedures are needed to ensure test security and confidentiality, and to help prevent cheating. In this era when cheating on tests draws regular media attention, there is a need for thoughtful consideration of the ways in which possible test security measures may affect accessibility for some students with…

This paper is the second in a series from Educational Testing Service (ETS) that conceptualizes next-generation English language proficiency (ELP) assessment systems for K-12 English learners (ELs) in the United States.The first paper articulated a high-level conceptualization of next-generation ELP assessment systems (Hauck, Wolf, & Mislevy,…

The academic progress of students is an important indicator of educational success. For school accountability systems, using a growth model to report on a student's academic growth can be viewed as an addition to or a replacement for a status model. Status models compare the performance of a cohort of students in a grade one year with the…

This is the fourteenth report by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) that analyzes public reporting practices for assessment data for students with disabilities in K-12 schools in the United States. This report includes information about both the 50 regular states and the 11 unique states (American Samoa, Bureau of Indian Education,…

To meet the assessment requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), states must ensure the inclusion of students with disabilities, as well as provide for the appropriate use of assessment accommodations. Accommodations have been defined in a number of ways. In the Council of Chief…

Students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs) participate in state assessment systems. Some participate in the regular assessment and some students with disabilities participate in an alternate assessment. How they participate is guided by each state's assessment guidelines for inclusion. These guidelines define the ways in which…

Computer-based testing (CBT) has emerged as one of the recent "innovative" approaches to assessments most pursued by states. CBT is lauded as the answer to having cheaper and speedier test delivery for state and district-wide assessments. It is also seen by some as an avenue toward greater accessibility for students with disabilities. In…

Some students are less accurately measured by typical reading tests than other students. By asking teachers to identify students whose performance on state reading tests would likely underestimate their reading skills, this study sought to learn about characteristics of less accurately measured students while also evaluating how well teachers can…

The success of all students, including students with disabilities, on statewide assessments in mathematics and reading/English language arts has been examined closely. This is due, in part, to the role of these content areas in school accountability for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) known as "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB).…

Beginning in 2007, federal regulations to two major education laws gave state departments of education the option to develop an alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS) for some students with disabilities. The regulations stated that the AA-MAS was intended for students who were being instructed in the grade-level…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation focuses attention on high expectations for all students in learning grade level academic content, and requires that disaggregated participation and performance data be reported for students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs). Although not required by law, some states have reported data…