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A Decision Framework for IEP Teams Related to Methods for Individual Student Participation in State Accountability Assessments

Question 1: In what way does the student access the general education curriculum?
Some students with disabilities access the general education curriculum in the same way as students who are not disabled; that is, students with disabilities are included in general education classes and/or are expected to master the general education curriculum to the same breadth, depth, and complexity as their nondisabled peers, although they may need some accommodations to do so (which hopefully does not change the construct being measured). Some of these students may have achieved grade-level reading and math skills but also have significant physical challenges that require extensive accommodations. In judging access needs of the student, administration conditions and response requirements of the general statewide assessment should not differ greatly from those provided to the student to demonstrate grade-level reading and math proficiency during the school year. If extensive accommodations are used to determine that these students achieved grade-level reading skills during the year, then the same extensive accommodations should be used for the general statewide assessment. If these accommodations are not a routine part of either the teaching or assessment/testing, then unsystematic variance is introduced into the testing situation (and potentially becomes part of the construct irrelevant variance), making the test easier or more difficult for the student and masking his or her true score.

An IEP team should recommend that students who are focusing on grade-level achievement standards as part of their ongoing instructional programs take the general assessment without or with accommodations. IEP teams are likely to choose this method for most students with disabilities. In fact, in a recent summary of participation rates across states for the 2002–03 school year, the National Center on Educational Outcomes reported that 84% of special education students participated in the general reading statewide assessment without or with accommodations and that 76% of special education students participated in the general math statewide assessment without or with accommodations (Thurlow, Moen, & Wiley, 2005).

If a student has been taking the general assessment (either without or with accommodations) but has not achieved proficiency, IEP teams should consider the type and quality of instruction the student has been receiving before recommending an alternate assessment method that is judged against modified or alternate achievement standards. Because of past traditions in special education in which separate, specialized curricula have been used, students may not yet have had access to the general education curriculum for their assigned grade level. Given the diversity of models for delivering special education services, students' histories may reflect pullout for instruction in basic skills, strategy supports, or content tutorials, all of which may or may not preclude grade-level content delivered using research-based practice by highly qualified teachers. Therefore, a more specific analysis of instructional focus is needed. Before recommending an assessment other than the general statewide test, without or with accommodations, the IEP team should consider these three questions:

• Has the student received instruction in the grade-level academic content?
• Was this instruction evidence-based?
• Was instruction delivered by a highly qualified teacher?

If the answer to any of the three questions is "No", then the IEP team should recommend that a student's instructional program be altered before considering an assessment method based on modified or alternate achievement standards. This recommendation is based on best practice.

Students who participate in general education settings during most of their school day may need the delivery of that instruction to focus on access or prerequisite skills. Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities may need to have their general education curriculum streamlined or prioritized. A number of options exist for changing the general education curriculum to accommodate challenges in short-term memory and transfer of knowledge that students with significant cognitive disabilities may need within ongoing instruction to target specific skills and provide frequent opportunities to learn. The National Alternate Assessment Center discusses some of the variables that relate to cognition for students with significant cognitive disabilities (Kleinert et al., 2005). Whatever changes need to be made, student access to the general education curriculum often involves ongoing team planning about how the student can participate in each instructional unit or weekly lesson.

Access also may require dual instruction (i.e., coordinated teaching from general and special education teachers) and the use of a double dose of time. Dual instruction can occur when teachers plan to focus on the same skills and knowledge with different contexts: the general education teacher within the grade-level content and the special education teacher within the context of skills to access the content. In this model, students with significant disabilities get double the opportunity to learn.

For example, the supports of many students may need only simple adjustments (e.g., amount of time, setting, prompts, scaffolds, etc.) to deliver important grade-level content. In this case, the statewide test should be a fair reflection of what the students have learned. As such, the accommodations made in the classroom must also be acceptable for use on the statewide test. In contrast, students with the most significant cognitive disabilities may be working on emergent literacy or numeracy skills in the context of grade-level content. For example, a fifth-grade student with the most significant cognitive disabilities may be using stories adapted from fifth- grade books to learn to identify pictures. Or, the student may be learning the concept of numbers but concurrently gaining awareness of how numbers are used in simple equations. If a student is receiving an extensive level of prioritization within the general education curriculum, then the IEP team may need to consider recommending an alternate assessment judged against alternate achievement standards.