Author(s):

Judy Elliott and Judy Schrag

Reprinted with Permission From:

International Dyslexia Association (info)

Printed Date: Fall 2001

Date Posted on this Website: August 16 2002

The words educational accountability appear regularly in newspaper headlines, on radio programs, and in political speeches. Educators have raised many questions about assessment and accountability and the implications they have for school personnel, parents, and students - articularly students with learning disabilities. Students with disabilities can participate in district and state assessments in three ways. They can take the assessment without accommdations, take the assessment with accommodations, or take a different or alternate assessment. The IEP eam's job is to make decisions about who needs which accommodations on what class- room assignments and tests, and which district and state assessments.

Accommodations - Fair Or Not?
Providing assessment accommodations has been controversial for many reasons. One reason deals with the issue of fairness. Some people argue that providing assessment accommodations for some students and not others is not fair. Another reason arises from concerns about whether accommodations invalidate what the test is trying to measure. To determine what accommodations are appropriate or inappropriate, valid or invalid, IEP teams must be acutely aware of the constructs or skills being assessed. While preliminary research is being conducted, much more is needed on specific tests, both norm referenced and criterion referenced, with specific accommodations, particularly those most often needed by students with learning disabilities. The soundness of decisions about accommodations lies in educators' knowledge and understanding of what the test is attempting to measure and whether a specific accommodation will challenge the fairness and validity of the test.

Where the Rubber Hits the Road
Felicity is a high school student with a specific learning disability in spelling. While her IEP indicates she can use a spell checker in her classes and on tests, she is not allowed to use one for the statewide assessment. Why not? Won't she be tested on her disability if we don't provide a spell checker for her? But if the test is measuring spelling, won't providing a spell checker invalidate what the test is trying to measure? What is the test trying to measure? Says who? Based on what? And, who decides what accommodation is allowed and what is not? How are these decisions made? These questions and more were recently raised in a lawsuit filed against the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) (Advocates for Special Kids v. Oregon State Board of Education}.

Recent Efforts on Behalf of Students with Learning Disabilities
Disability Rights Advocates (ORA), on behalf of students with learning disabilities in the state of Oregon, filed a suit protesting (1) the lack of a wide range of allowed accommodations for the Oregon state assessment, (2) the lack of an alternate assessment for the lOth grade assessment for students with learning disabilities who are disadvantaged by some or all of the general statewide assessment program, and (3) the lack of a process by which students with learning disabilities may appeal the results of the Oregon assessment.

At the same time the lawsuit was filed, ODE continued to work toward implementing assessment tools that were aligned to a set of standards of student performance. The Oregon Statewide Assessment System (OSAS), to date, is one of the most thorough and thoughtful assessment systems in the country, including a process for determining research-based accommodations, albeit not researched on the OSAS itself, and an alternate assessment for students who are working on a life skills curriculum.

The Blue Ribbon Report
A "Blue Ribbon Panel" was created by agreement between the ODE and DRA to review the OSAS as it related to students with learning disabilities. As a result, a Blue Ribbon Report was written addressing six agreed upon areas: (1) overview of the OSAS, (2) accommodations and modifications, (3) alternate assessments, (4) decision-making and appeals process, (5) IEP process, and (6) use of test results. (The reader is referred to the Oregon State Department of Education web site for a complete review of the Blue Ribbon Report and Settlement Agreement.)

The underlying principles of the Blue Ribbon Report included the following seven points:

• Students with learning disabilities should be provided a statewide assessment option that leads to the Certificate of Initial Mastety(CIM).
  
  The CIM is an official stamp that is placed on a student's transcript when a certain level of proficiency is achieved on the OSAS. A student must reach proficiency on each of the four sections of the OSAS to receive a CIM. At the time of the lawsuit all students were required to take the OSAS in the same manner and format except for those students with IEPs. Students with IEPs could take the OSAS with accommodations listed on their IEP. However, if any of those accommodations listed on students' IEPs were deemed not allowable for the OSAS, these students' assessment results were rendered unscorable, and the students were ineligible for a CIM. The Blue Ribbon Panel recommended that another assessment option leading to the CIM be provided for students with learning disabilities who are working toward achieving the same content standards of the CIM, but who because of their disability are not able to validly show what they know and can do taking the OSAS.
  
  
• The OSAS should not directly assess a student's learning disability.
  
  While case law has shown that standards need not be adjusted or changed for students with disabilities, the Blue Ribbon Panel recommended that ODE provide an alternative assessment or different scoring procedure for students with leaming disabilities. That is, if a specific area of learning disability is assessed by the OSAS and that area is an essential requirement for meeting or exceeding the benchmark for obtaining the CIM, ODE should provide a different way for students with learning disabilities to show what they know and can do and not directly and unfairly assess a student's disability.
  
  
• Accommodations that are on a student's IEP or 504 plan should be allowed unless and until research proves such use invalidates what the OSAS is trying to measure.
  
  The creation of the list of "allowed" and "not allowed" accommodations on the OSAS was not necessarily empirically based. That is, there had been no actual research on different types of accommodations on the actual OSAS test. The Panel thus recommended that research on accommodations be specifically conducted for the OSAS. The Panel further recommended that until such research showed that specific accommodations invalidate items on the OSAS, the accommodations should be allowed.
  
  
• Problem Resolution and an Appeals Process should be a three-tiered approach that incorporates both formal and informal problem solving.
  
  The Blue Ribbon Panel recommended that a process be developed for parents and students to appeal or resolve issues around the OSAS, such as the use or denial of accommodations and challenging the scoring of the OSAS. The suggested process uses a three-tiered approach. Tier One is an informal problem solving approach that would take place at a building site. Tier Two is a formal problem-solving forum at the district level if the problem was not resolved at Tier One. And, Tier Three is a formal appeals procedure that would be addressed at the state level. In this manner, parents
  and students would be afforded a venue for appealing and resolving issues.
  
  
• Purposeful and systematic training for both parents and school personnel should be conducted.
  
  The Blue Ribbon Panel also recommended training about the full array of participation options for students with disabilities, guidelines for allowable accommodations, the alternative and alternate assessments for the OSAS, and the Problem Resolution and Appeals process. One of the issues in the lawsuit was the inconsistent information received from different persons in the ODE. Furthermore, IEP teams were making decisions without full understanding of the impact of accommodations on scoring results.
  
  
• On-going research and study be continued specifically in the area of psychometric analysis assuring the reliability, validity, and fairness for the OSAS for students with learning disabilities.
  
  Further study was recommended in areas of construct validity, that is, what impact the accommodations have on what the test is trying to measure, and the issues of fairness and validity of the OSAS for students with learning disabilities.
  
  
• Consistent with ODE policy, the OSAS should not be used for high stakes consequences for students.
  
  In order to avoid unfair consequences for students with learning disabilities, it was recommended that ODE track the potential misuses of the OSAS and proactively discourage the inappropriate use of the CIM by school districts.

Lessons Learned
Many lessons are to be learned from Oregon's litigious situation. With the possibility of similar litigation in other states, these lessons speak both to states and to students with learning disabilities and their families.

1. Stay focused on kids. In this day of accountability and high stakes assessments, it is important that policymakers do not lose sight of the real purpose of the assessment - to document how well students are achieving. Because all students do not learn in the same way or at the same rate, it is critical that individual differences are planned for. Namely, what accommodations do students with learning disabilities need and how do we make sure we assess skills and abilities validly?
   
2. The day of accommodations lists is over. No longer can states safely assume that the lists of approved and non-approved accommodations will "stick" when legally challenged. Research must be conducted using targeted accommodations on actual tests in order to show that indeed they challenge the validity of test results.
   
3. Students with leaming disabilities may not be able to demonstrate what they know and can do with traditional means of assessment. It is imperative that states examine different ways to provide all students, including students with disabilities, opportunities to show what they know without the impediment of their disability. Most often students with learning disabilities are learning the same rigorous standards that are measured by the typical assessment. However, sometimes these students require an accommodation that is either not allowed or has been shown to invalidate tests results. It then rests upon the state to provide an alternative means to allow these students to gather a body of evidence that would show mastery of a particular standard.

Where Do We Go From Here?
Since the settlement of the ASK v. ODE lawsuit, Oregon has fully implemented several options that it had already been working toward. This year for the first time there were juried assessments for students taking the OSAS. Several students were allowed to present a collection of evidence to a jury or panel of stakeholders who in turn decided whether the students had the knowledge and understanding of the content needed to demonstrate proficiency. This modified or juried assessment provided students who needed a non-allowed accommodation a different way to show knowledge and understanding of the standards.

Other states are also exploring the use of waivers for certain parts of an assessment that cannot be taken with needed accommodations. Take Felicity for example. She would need to be provided with a spell checker for her assessment in order for her to show what she really knows about the content of the assessment. While she is a straight I N student in all her classes, she uses a spell checker. Clearly validity of the results of a writing subtest that included spelling would be challenged by Felicity's use of a spell checker. The waiver process would allow the spelling portion of the subtest to be waived and Felicity's performance on all the other skills assessed by the subtest to be scored. In this way, students with learning disabilities who are working toward the standards measured by the assessment could take most of the assessment and still receive a score.

Summary
In the past decade we have witnessed a dramatic change in how students with learning disabilities are educated. If schools, districts, and states are to know how all students are performing, including students with learning disabilities, then we must accommodate and account for all students. Extending the use of accommodations and options such as juried assessments and waivers may indeed be the most robust way to have students with learning disabilities
demonstrate what they truly are capable of regardless of their disabilities.


Judy Elliott, Ph.D. was a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel. Dr. Elliott is currently the assistant superintendent of special education at the Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach, California. She was formerly a research associate at the National Center on Educational Outcomes.

Judy Schrag, Ed.D. was a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel. Dr. Schrag is the former director of the Office of Special Education Programs for the U.S. Department of Education. Currently, she is director of the Education and Human Services Group.

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