Federal

Test Groups Weigh Unified Accommodations Policies

By Lesli A. Maxwell — April 02, 2013 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A patchwork of testing accommodations is used in the nation’s public schools to help students with disabilities and those still learning English show their command of academic content, just as their general education peers do.

The list of accommodations—providing extra time, allowing the use of dictionaries, and reading test directions aloud, to name a few—has ballooned in the No Child Left Behind Act era. Schools have been under pressure to demonstrate how well they are educating all students, including those with special needs. Some researchers estimate as many as 100 different accommodations are used for students with disabilities and English-language learners in states and local districts.

But that may be changing as two groups of states labor to design new assessments for the Common Core State Standards to replace the wide variety of standardized reading and mathematics tests used now. With a rollout of the new assessments expected in 2014-15, test developers are aiming not only to streamline the types of testing supports offered to special education students and English-language learners, but also to make sure the tests are designed to be as broadly accessible as possible to all students, regardless of their profiles.

Opening Doors

“We are in deep conversations about what we can do to increase accessibility in a way that benefits any student, including English-language learners and students with disabilities,” said Danielle Griswold, a program associate for policy, research, and design at the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, the consortium of 22 states known as PARCC.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, composed of 24 states, is striving to do the same.

This is no lightweight undertaking.

States do not have widely consistent rules on testing accommodations. Some states allow test items to be read aloud, particularly for certain students with disabilities, while others do not. Some allow for test directions and even test items to be translated into other languages for English-learners, while others forbid it.

Officials with PARCC and Smarter Balanced agree that building consensus among the member states is a challenge.

Federal education officials who oversee policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress have been wrestling with similar issues as they seek to include more students with disabilities and ELL students in the “nation’s report card” and more accurately allow for state-by-state comparisons of student achievement.

Exactly what the new landscape of testing accommodations looks like will start to become clearer to educators and the public in the coming weeks and months when PARCC and Smarter Balanced release more details about their policies. In navigating this vexing territory, both groups are zeroing in on what research has found about the impacts of accommodations on students and identifying where more research is needed.

Coverage of the implementation of the Common Core Standards and the common assessments is supported in part by a grant from the GE Foundation, at www.ge.com/foundation.
A version of this article appeared in the April 03, 2013 edition of Education Week as Access to Common Exams Probed

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Biden Calls for Teacher Pay Raises, Expanded Pre-K in State of the Union
President Joe Biden highlighted a number of his education priorities in a high-stakes speech as he seeks a second term.
5 min read
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
Shawn Thew/Pool via AP
Federal Low-Performing Schools Are Left to Languish by Districts and States, Watchdog Finds
Fewer than half of district plans for improving struggling schools meet bare minimum requirements.
11 min read
A group of silhouettes looks across a grid with a public school on the other side.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
Federal Biden Admin. Says New K-12 Agenda Tackles Absenteeism, Tutoring, Extended Learning
The White House unveiled a set of K-12 priorities at the start of an election year.
4 min read
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
Steven Senne/AP
Federal Lawmakers Want to Reauthorize a Major Education Research Law. What Stands in the Way?
Lawmakers have tried and failed to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act over the past nearly two decades.
7 min read
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz answers questions about the company's actions during an ongoing employee unionizing campaign, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023. The two lawmakers sponsored a bill to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP