Blind students will have access to the common-core-aligned field tests under development by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, based on a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind.
The federation filed the suit against PARCC in January, claiming practice tests need to be accessible to students using Braille so that problems can be fixed before the tests are officially administered next school year.
PARCC representatives had said that not all accessibility features would be available for the spring 2014 field tests. But under the terms of the settlement announced last week, all the practice tests will be compatible with accessibility devices or available through electronic files that can be used to create hard-copy Braille pages and tactile graphics.
