The purpose of educational assessments is to provide an academic check-up and to give educators and parents meaningful information on what students know and can do, and how well they are progressing toward college and career readiness. Assessments strive to show how well students perform on clearly defined standards and skills that are being…

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) strives to provide every student with a positive and productive assessment experience, generating results that are a fair and accurate estimate of each student's achievement. Further, Smarter Balanced is building on a framework of accessibility for participating students, including…

Schools are encountering a unique problem regarding how to best accommodate the increasing number of active bilingual learners/users of English (ABLE) students on state achievement tests. Previously, states used disability focused rather than language responsive accommodations for these students. The current study employed double-coding procedures…

This paper examines the accommodations for the inclusion of children with disabilities in regular schools in Trinidad. A multiphase mixed methods design consisting of three phases is used. In the first phase, the environmental accommodations essential for the inclusion of children with disabilities in schools are identified. This information is…

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) strives to provide every student with a positive and productive assessment experience, generating results that are a fair and accurate estimate of each student's achievement. Further, Smarter Balanced is building on a framework of accessibility for all students, including English…

The Indiana Department of Education's (IDOE's) Accessibility and Accommodations Information for Statewide Assessments is intended for school-level personnel and decision-making teams as they prepare for and implement Indiana statewide assessments. Information is provided for school personnel as a reference to inform guidance on universal features,…

Mateo was like many students, neither fluent in English nor in American Sign Language (ASL) and significantly delayed in literacy skills. At Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD), he was provided with emerging signers services to develop his expressive and receptive ASL skills. He was also provided with speech and language services by a…

The COVID-19 pandemic placed stress on all aspects of the educational system. Many state departments of education acknowledged the disruption to individualized education program evaluation and implementation but insisted that evaluation timelines and services continue undisrupted. School psychologists were therefore forced to navigate the…

Research highlights the importance of faculty awareness regarding the varying needs of students with disabilities and the ways in which these students may better be supported within the postsecondary educational setting. However, there is a dearth of research regarding how instructional and assessment accommodations are offered in a rural…

When either privileged or under-resourced families navigate gray areas in the law, including federal laws related to students with disabilities such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, inequities are revealed. Research and emerging trends have raised increasing concerns about unfairness and abuses of disability policies, particularly with…

The purpose of educational assessments is to provide an academic check-up and to give educators, parents, students, and policymakers valuable feedback about students' academic strengths, areas that need improvement, how well they are progressing toward college and career readiness, and the effectiveness of the state's educational system. This…

As states, districts, and schools plan to return for the 2021-22 school year, questions are raised about whether and how to test children with disabilities, including children with the most significant cognitive disabilities and English learners with disabilities. This FAQ addresses some common questions and provides links to useful resources.

The purpose of this Brief is to highlight available federal data about the characteristics of English learners with disabilities, including how the population has changed over time. Understanding the characteristics of English learners with disabilities is critical to ensuring that their needs are met appropriately during the assessment process.…

The West Virginia Department of Education has crafted this document to offer policy guidance to teams and Section 504 committees in providing appropriate access for students in statewide assessments; and to assist teachers and schools to work within the framework of federal law and state policies. The guidelines are referenced by West Virginia…

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) strives to provide every student with a positive and productive assessment experience, generating results that are a fair and accurate estimate of each student's achievement. Further, Smarter Balanced is building on a framework of accessibility for all students, including English…