New Regulations Ease Restrictions on Special Education Testing
DISABILITIES
Keene Sentinel
Jessica Arriens
Boston University Washington News Service
4 April 2007
WASHINGTON, April 4 —The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it wants to increase the number of special-education students qualified to take easier disability tests, creating more flexible regulations for assessing students than those set under the original No Child Left Behind Act.
Currently, around 1 percent of the students tested under No Child Left Behind are allowed to take an easier alternative test because of significant disabilities. The new regulations would allow another 2 percent of the students—those with less significant disabilities, such as some forms of dyslexia—to take an easier test.
“We’re talking about a small group of kids where time is basically the determining factor,” Deputy Education Secretary Raymond Simon said in a telephone press briefing. “The regular grade level assessment is too difficult, yet the alternate grade level assessment is too easy.”
The new test would be easier than the test regular students take but would be harder than the standard alternative test. For example, a multiple-choice question might have only two possible answers instead of three or more.
“The achievement standards can be less challenging,” Simon said. “The regulations don’t permit content standards to be modified.”
Under No Child Left Behind, test results from special-education students are included in the determination of a school’s yearly progress. Schools may face sanctions if yearly goals are not met. Some states have called for increased flexibility in special-education testing in order for schools to maintain meeting their yearly goals
Catherine Reeves, director of special education for school administrative unit 29, said that while special-education scores could bring down a school’s overall grade, their test scores may also rate at “proficient,” aiding a school’s grade.
“Schools have always been attuned to students with disabilities,” she said. “We’ve always had to be aware of the progress they’re making and doing, but we now have to do it in a different way.”
According to Reeves, there always has been some flexibility for teaching students with disabilities, though she said more accommodations for students, such has having a teacher read a test to a reading-disabled student, are needed.
Reeves also recommended permitting out-of-level testing—such as allowing fourth grade students who are reading at a second grade level to have access to fourth grade curriculum while testing at second-grade level.
Reeves said the danger lies in applying blanket standards and tests to all special-education students, and requiring teachers to sacrifice their time compiling detailed portfolios of special-education student’s progress.
She also cautioned against classifying special-education standards as “dumbed down” versions of normal requirements. “If we are designing the curriculum to asses and meet the child’s needs, then that is appropriate assessment,” she said
To determine whether a student can be tested under the modified achievement standards, states would be required to create an individualized education program team, which would include a student’s parents and teachers and would ensure that disabled students are appropriately assessed.
Simon said the administration plans to provide $21.1 million in competitive grants to
help states develop new guidelines required by the individualized education programs. Monthly teleconferences and a nationwide meeting planned for July would provide further assistance to states implementing the new regulations.
No Child Left Behind, originally passed in 2002, is up for reauthorization this year. The new disability regulations were included in the reauthorization blueprint the administration sent to Congress.
“[The regulations] are very appropriate,” Simon said. “They strike a very good balance between students, teachers, parents, kids.”
“Special ed kids get tested all the time,” Reeves said, who also said there is a risk of setting the standards too low for special education students. “It’s hardly fair.”
According to Simon, if the regulations are correctly implemented, they will provide unprecedented information to teachers and parents to “make sure these children are taught and tested, truly, to their ability.”
“They will give the teachers and the parents the information they need to really guide instruction,” he said.
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