On Special Education

Lance T. Izumi, the director of education studies for the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, wrote an editorial for the San Francisco Chronicle arguing that exit exams could help, not hurt, students in special education:

Some districts, instead of complaining, have risen to the challenge by implementing programs such as pre-exit-exam academic boot camps for special ed students. Higher expectations for special ed students and greater confidence in their abilities underlie such efforts. A positive agenda focused on getting special ed students to pass the exit exam will, in most cases, help these young people succeed in life much more than compassionate defeatism.

The federally funded National Center on Educational Outcomes has closely tracked the issue of exit exams for special education students, and wrote a report based on survey results that looked more closely at the issue nationwide.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My blog post about "books of the future" using principles of universal design for learning brought this comment from source Candace Cortiella, director of The Advocacy Institute, which I thought was worth bringing up:

Hi Christina:

UDL approaches also extend to large-scale assessment design. The National Center on Educational Outcomes has written a guide for states to help begin thinking about designing assessments (UDA) with all students in mind, just as UDL attempts to design curriculum accessible to the widest range of students right from the start.

It would be most unfortunate for UDL to take hold without UDA coming along at the same time. We would be yanking away lots of accessibility aspects in the most important arena -- testing what a student has learned -- the results of such tests are used BOTH for school accountability (NCLB) and student stakes (exit exams) ... so it's important to promote UDA along with UDL.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's the time of year when high school seniors' thoughts turn to graduation, so two reports from Project Forum and the Center for Education Policy are perfectly timed.

The CEC policy brief linked to on this page takes a look at how high school exit exams affect students with disabilities. The conclusion is that they're not so great. States that require students to pass an exam in order to receive a diploma tend to have low graduation rates overall, particularly among students with disabilities.

Project Forum, a federally funded program of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, takes a broader view by looking at graduation rates overall, not just exit exams. The report offers 14 recommendations, including allowing "multiple measures" for students to meet graduation requirements and allowing a range of course options that satisfy minimum graduation requirements.

(Project Forum used material from other research on this issue, including some reports from the National Center on Educational Outcomes, which I wrote about last month.)

One thing I've heard from a lot of disability advocates is their concern that without federal pressure, teachers won't hold students with disabilities to a high standard. So, the advocacy of "multiple measures" makes me wonder if they also might be seen as a backing away from high standards, or if they're just part of the reasonable accommodations schools should make for students with a variety of needs.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The National Center on Educational Outcomes, a federally funded center that provides "national leadership in the participation of students with disabilities in national and state assessments, standards-setting efforts, and graduation requirements," is promoting a number of new reports available on its Web site.

I'll be examining these reports more closely for potential story ideas, but here are a few that jumped out:

States’ Alternate Assessments Based on Modified Achievement Standards (AA-MAS) in 2007: NCEO doesn't try to assess the quality of these tests, which can be given to 2 percent of students who are capable of learning grade-level content, but not as fast as their peers. But it does offer a snapshot of which states had created them (as of July 2007) and what the tests look like.

Revisiting Graduation Requirements and Diploma Options for Youth with Disabilities: A National Study: One conclusion in the report is that states do not fully know what the impact of changing graduation requirements will be on students with disabilities, particularly any requirements that students pass a series of tests in order to earn a regular diploma.

English Language Learners with Disabilities in State English Language Proficiency Assessments: A Review of State Accommodation Policies: How do states handle testing students who are learning English and who also have disabilities? This paper brings up some promising practices and issues.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)