This is the fifth installment in a series of exchanges about the Every Student Succeeds Act. I asked the questions, and David P. Cleary, chief of staff to Senator Lamar Alexander, answered them.
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My question:
How does the law affect the testing of students with disabilities? I have heard that there is a limit of 1% of students who may be given alternative assessments due to their disabilities, but far more than 1% of students have IEPs. What does the law say?
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The response:
The law allows students with the most significant cognitive disabilities to take alternate assessments aligned with alternate academic achievement standards.
The new law includes a cap on the total number of students that can take an alternate assessment aligned with alternate achievement standards. The cap is set at one percent of all students in the state, which equates to roughly 10 percent of students with disabilities. This is the same as the regulation under NCLB that has been in effect since January 8, 2004.
It’s important to remember that the overwhelming majority of students with Individualized Education Plans (IEP) take regular assessments, and do not take an alternate assessment aligned to alternate academic achievement standards.
The new law reaffirms and makes clear that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act law requires that the IEP team determine when a child with a significant cognitive disability should take an alternate assessment aligned with alternate achievement standards.
The new law also prohibits the federal government or the state from imposing a cap on a school district regarding the percentage of students who may be administered an alternate assessment. Therefore, a school district or school could administer an alternate assessment to more than 1 percent of students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Aren’t the second paragraph and last paragraph of his statement contradictory?
Yes, The second and last paragraph:
“The new law includes a cap on the total number of students that can take an alternate assessment aligned with alternate achievement standards. The cap is set at one percent of all students in the state,”
and
“The new law also prohibits the federal government or the state from imposing a cap on a school district regarding the percentage of students who may be administered an alternate assessment. Therefore, a school district or school could administer an alternate assessment to more than 1 percent of students.”
“The cap is set at one percent of all students in the state, which equates to roughly 10 percent of students with disabilities.”
“The new law includes a cap on the total number of students that can take an alternate assessment aligned with alternate achievement standards.”
“The new law also prohibits the federal government or the state from imposing a cap on a school district regarding the percentage of students who may be administered an alternate assessment.”
Huh?
Cleary certainly doesn’t answer your questions very clearly!
It’s capped at 1% but it’s not. You can’t make this #$%! up!
If there is a distinction, it is the difference between caps at the district vs. the state level. The state level is not to exceed the 1%. Individual districts may exceed the 1%. But I agree that the last line is MUD. The MUD will be removed (if at all by) ” guidance letters” from USDE to states. This fixer upper strategy also empowers the USDE to put a little bit of policy here, or there, fill in the blanks and resolve uncertainties. In theory, push back from states can limit USDE’s use of guidance letters to impose policies. Time will tell.
Watching this play out will be interesting. The suburban district where I teach has 20% of the student body identified special education. Surrounding districts are much higher.
Yes, it will be interesting to see how the tension between no local caps on alternative assessment participation and a state 1% cap get reconciled. Perhaps with no real sanctions and just monitoring memos, but we will need to see.
Special education rates vary across jurisdictions. Nationally, the percentage of students with disabilities seems to have peaked at 13.8% in the 2004-2005 school year. The most recent year for special education rates in the Digest of Educational Statistics is 2011-2012 and the percentage was 12.9%. Idaho’s rate was 9.7%, Wyoming’s was 17.2% Special education rates tend to be higher in the Northeast, but where Massachusetts was 17.5%, Connecticut was 12.3% Wisconsin’s rate in 2011-2012 was 14.2%, but our district’s rate was 10.3%
My point in mentioning these statistics is that there may be districts with more students who have significant disabilities where more than 1% of the enrollment qualify for the alternative assessment and others where the rate is much lower. Our students whose IEP’s indicate the alternative assessment have been less than a half-percent the last several years. I would much rather the federal government stay out of the business of state level caps altogether and trust the judgment of IEP teams, but this provision may not be as unworkable as it appears on its face.
This sort of ambiguity in the law doesn’t serve anyone well and sounds like a bad passage in a Pearson exam. The Congress should be ashamed for passing bad laws. I expect lawsuits to follow.
“. . . like a bad passage in a Pearson exam.”
TAGO! Leonie.
If one didn’t come away from reading that response with a WTF one wasn’t doing a close reading (or anything that might be construed as reading).
You mean like this one that appeared on a Pearson test for sixth graders?
“As a result, the location of the cloud is an important aspect, as it is the setting for his creation and part of the artwork. In his favorite piece, Nimbus D’Aspremont, the architecture of the D’Aspremont-Lynden Castle in Rekem, Belgium, plays a significant role in the feel of the picture. “The contrast between the original castle and its former use as a military hospital and mental institution is still visible,” he writes. “You could say the spaces function as a plinth for the work.”
Incidentally, isn’t “a bad passage in a Pearson exam” actually redundant?
There must be an exception for Flint written into this legislation.
Glad I hadn’t taken that sip o tea before reading that, Christine!!!
I suspect the key difference is in the “aligned with alternate achievement standards” part. States can give an alternate assessment but not one that is aligned with different standards. Not that that makes much more sense, but yeah.
Do they not re-read what they write before they hit “send”?
Either they trust the IEP team to make these determinations or they don’t.
So yeah, “The new law…makes clear that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act law requires that the IEP team determine when a child with a significant cognitive disability should take an alternate assessment”
But ESAA says it can only be 1% of your population, regardless of the students’ actual diagnoses, educational needs, and professional judgement of the people caring for and educating those students.
Teachers, make it so. We have that kind of power, you know…. *smh*
It’s much easier to clarify the 1% mixup discussed above…..than to justify it as sensible public policy.
Here I’ll tackle the first challenge only–and leave the bigger one for another day.
I believe the 1% mixup is this:
The district and state can REPORT results of up to 1% of students taking that alternate assessment. However, neither the district, state nor feds can limit the number of students who TAKE that test. That decision is made by the student’s individualized IEP Team.
So… The new law imposes a 1% cap but prohibits the federal or state government from imposing a cap? Huh?
This is all beside the point. There are many students who have well-documented special needs (i.e. have an IEP), who do not a have significant enough cognitive disorder to be included in the alternate assessment group, 1% cap or not. These students are not well served by being subjected to these Common Core (or facsimile) assessments. Every special ed teacher knows this. That advocacy groups for the various learning disabilities continue to insist that IEP students must take the same assessments at the same pace as students without these obstacles to their learning is profoundly misinformed. All students need to be challenged, and assumptions cannot be made for any type of learning challenge. That is why the IDEA calls for an INDIVIDUALIZED plan, approved by a team of knowledgeable practitioners. To give an eighth grade standardized test to a student who has been determined to be functioning academically at the third grade level serves no purpose other than to frustrate the student and teacher. No meaningful educational “data” can be gleaned from this process. And then the students’ poor performance becomes a hammer against the student’s prospects for the future, for the teacher’s evaluation, and for the school’s rating. This test mania applied to special needs students is so twisted that it’s inconceivable that it hasn’t been abandoned. Diagnostic assessments administered by professionals knowledgeable about the disability are vital. Standardized assessments inappropriate for general education students are even more detestable when administered to students when there is no prospect that the results will be meaningful. Parents and special educators need to speak up and denounce this testing mania.
Sheila, the reason that kids with disabilities are subjected to the same tests is because the advocacy groups demand it. They do an awful disservice to the kids.
Yes, Diane, this is what I find incomprehensible and reprehensible. This is the same misguided thinking as some of the national civil rights groups. They want ALL children included in the testing expecting that this means they will ALL be provided with an equally challenging curriculum. What they fail to understand is that the Common Core Standards themselves are misguided and do not lead to engaging and challenging curricula–they are stultifying. For students who are highly motivated and not having to contend with learning challenges, high scores are attainable. These high scores do not mean the students are well educated, only that they have been trained in a certain narrow vision of intellectual accomplishment. To force any student to endure this narrow vision is misguided. To force students who have additional obstacles to learning to follow in lock-step with these misguided standards is malpractice.
As a parent and advocate of children with disabilities, and as an individual with a disability (I am legally blind), I feel obliged to respond. It is you, Ms. Ravitch, who are doing students with disabilities a disservice by perpetuating the wrongly-held and discriminatory belief that any child receiving special education services must be incapable of performing at or above grade level or they wouldn’t be receiving special education services. The fact is the vast majority of students receiving special education and related services under the IDEA have no cognitive disability which would prevent them from mastering grade level curriculum. These are students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia, speech and communication impairments, ADHD, emotional disturbances, auditory, visual or orthopedic impairments, and high functioning ASD (see Percentage distribution of children ages 3–21 served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by disability type: School year 2012–13 http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp). When provided individually appropriate services and accommodations, these children can, and do, succeed. Why should they not be included in statewide assessments alongside their peers? If a State or district fails in their duty to provide the appropriate services and supports necessary to enable these children to progress in the general curriculum, they are in violation of the IDEA. Should they not be held accountable?
I know Diane can defend herself, but your attack struck me as so wrongheaded that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I don’t believe Diane has ever made the assertion about ALL students receiving special ed services cannot achieve “success.” “When provided individually appropriate services and accommodations, these children can, and do, succeed.” Yes, and the more resources a district has the more likely it is to be able to adequately support all of their special ed population. And yes, when services are not provided, someone should be held responsible. The who, what and when are often not easily determined. For example ADHD kids are often given extended time for testing. If they are really lucky, the testing is conducted over several days. Teacher made assessments may be chunked in manageable and logical sections. Provisions might be made for testing one-on-one or in a small group in a controlled environment with limited distractions. Classroom activities might include a mix of activities geared to a student’s strengths with clear procedures for transitions that often prove problematic. Seating is carefully considered. Perhaps earphones and music are used to block out distractions when appropriate. If we are lucky, these accommodations might be enough to allow a student to function adequately in a mainstream classroom, and with age and maturity chances are this child will be successful ( although testing may never be a good way of measuring that success). I did find that teachers and parents who were able to adjust on the fly to the child were frequently much more valuable to the learning of the child than a list of set accommodations. It seems to me, that the discussion in this blog has focused on not trying to assess every child by the same age/grade level expectations. That is totally inappropriate and counterproductive.
Christine Broughal, I have never said or written that children with disabilities are incapable of performing at or above grade level. It really depends on the individual child and the disability. Some children are profoundly disabled and it is not fair to expect them to perform at or above grade level when they are actually unable to read or speak at all. Others are more than capable to achieve at or above grade level. Each child in unique. Each child deserves to be treated as an individual, not as a standardized cog in a giant wheel.
Yes, Diane, I agree completely. The IEP team (hopefully made up of actual experts in the child’s disability, along with the parents) should understand the child’s strengths and needs well enough to know if the curriculum is truly challenging the child at his or her zone of proximal development (if anyone still understands what that means). If “success” is defined by a number on a standardized test, all students are being ill-served. For many special needs students, a written mass-administered test will not show their strengths or their accomplishments. That is the error that many so-called special needs advocates are making when they insist all students should take the same (fatally flawed) assessments.
Forgive me if I have misinterpreted your comments. In reading Sheila’s comments, specifically;
“That advocacy groups for the various learning disabilities continue to insist that IEP students must take the same assessments at the same pace as students without these obstacles to their learning is profoundly misinformed.”
And the response, “Sheila, the reason that kids with disabilities are subjected to the same tests is because the advocacy groups demand it. They do an awful disservice to the kids” I concluded your point as being that by demanding “kids with disabilities” be included in the same tests, advocates are doing kids with disabilities a disservice. This extremely general statement seems to indicate you believe no kid with a disability should be “subjected to” the same tests as kids who don’t have disabilities.
Yes, some children are profoundly disabled but most children with disabilities are not. For the small percentage of students who are profoundly disabled, alternate assessments would be applicable. For the remaining majority of students with disabilities, appropriate services, supports and accommodations should be provided to enable them to participate in the general assessments.
I am not saying I am a huge fan of any of these assessments but if kids are going to be required to take them, then it is not wrong to expect kids with disabilities to be required to take them and you can be sure advocacy groups for the “various learning disabilities” will continue to fight for their inclusion.
“Forgive me if I have misinterpreted your comments.” You did. You should have stopped there.
My last few years were spent in a district that had no idea as to how to administer testing that was not forced by the state that followed the IEPs of my students. In district assessments (MAP), arrangements were never made to follow their testing accommodations. Small group? I had another full class walk into the middle of our testing session and start testing. Extended time? Students were never called to complete tests for which they needed more time. What do you do when you have students who don’t understand all of the directions? Sorry. I can’t help you. NOBODY CARED! They just wanted numbers they could attach to kids. In class, I was supposed to administered Aimsweb (owned by Pearson and NOT designed for high school students) in the middle of my classes while running reading classes that included its own own assessment process. The district decided they wanted everybody to give the same assessment, k-12, whether necessary or rational so they could make nice district charts, I’m sure with encouragement from Pearson. I never did figure out how to incorporate this as much as weekly, one-on-one protocol (students had different testing schedules) or how to record the data. After copying reams of reading passages, I finally gave up. No one ever came to check, and I had plenty of more user friendly data to impress my building watchdogs. One of them use to browse our computer usage through the administrator portal to see if we were using all of the data the program generated, useful or not. I learned to click on it all whether I found it useful or not. As a biology teacher turned administrator/data guru, he had no idea how to teach reading, but he sure did know how to generate numbers. He had no interest in the students or their (IEP) needs.
In a perfect world every child would have those accommodations to explore their intelligence and their talents. However, this is a very flawed world that is now wanting a standardized child. Not happening!!
I remember going to court with a very gifted Asperger child and the Judge who was serving that case was blind. He could not see that this young man had no affect or his social skills were non existent or if that the boy hadn’t any sense of normalized humor but he sounded mega bright and unless you were able to ‘see’ the whole child he was left without a credible voice for the Judge to assess. His scatter was not ‘visible’ in his cross examination and he was sent back to his school where he lasted less then a couple of days. He eventually committed suicide. I remember the Judge saying how he had a disability and was somehow equating his to this young man. No, neither were standardized but each could exist with the right supports and accommodations. Each needed to be seen for their gifts as they were both gifted but one had profound reasoning and processing, along with social disabilities and was adrift in a world that did not understand him and even had fear of him except for the bullies who taunted him.
The golden age of special education is dead and there is a shift back to before the laws. Because of the money! Follow the money!!!. All things equal, and they are not, the sorting and measuring being done today is for the corporate global needs and will code these children as early as the testing can begin. Some will receive certificates of attendance at the end of all their years of schooling. A code for the partnership to exclude them from opportunity. How many children were sent back before readiness of so called Inclusion classrooms? The mild to moderate learning disabled student no longer exists except they know who they are! Struggling to keep up and taking tests without a safety net. Back to push through and drop out!!! Back to not being identified for their disabilitiy or their struggle.
Pearson has been part of the decimation of school budgets and to what end?! Their motto brings us to “-measuring and all that can be measured can be controlled.” End game!
Each of you have dedicated your lives to children with disabilities and anyone
who have read your remarks could feel the passion and the belief in the possibilities
for these children, but it is a horrible truth that the private public partnerships have caused people to be at each other and not recognize that they move ahead with a deliberate plan of dumping whole populations of children inclusive of the disabled, minorities, disenfranchised. That this plan of creating a Education Industrial Complex with all the money designated for the education portion of the pie moves forward no matter what anyone thinks. Lumping in gentrification, real estate, privatizing damn near everything from our schools, water companies, utilities, destroying unions, holding power through a militarized police, privitized for profit prison system, etc. On an on towards an end for too many and a new beginning for the ‘best and brightest’ gifted children who can be sorted early for use. There will still be the minimum subsistent jobs to serve the ‘others’ but
for the disabled who were moving well for a long time with special education the standardized tests and common core curriculum will cause harm. I agree with Sheila that those that inflict this travesty on children who are disabled and struggling learners is malpractice. When is it about the child? Each of us remember a time and some will never know it! The fight is now and the battle has begun for the voiceless and the powerless, for the child, the families, the nation!
This conversation is definitely a hot topic! As someone who has worked directly with the law under NCLB at the state level, I want to add some clarity to what is meant by 1%.
Both IDEA and ESEA require alternate assessments for students with disabilities who cannot participate in general state or district assessments with accommodations.
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education issued regulations limiting how many students taking the Alternate Assessments Based on Alternate Achievement Standards (AA-AAS) could be counted toward the state’s proficiency goal. The regulation states that only 1% of all students may be counted as proficient or advanced based on the AA-AAS. Said another way, only up to 1% of all students can be counted for accountability (i.e., as proficient or advanced) based on alternate achievement standards. The cap on the number of advanced and proficient AA-AAS scores that can be used for accountability purposes is calculated by multiplying the number of students taking any state assessment by 1%. For an a local education agency (LEA) with 10,000 students (LEA “A”), the cap would be 100. The Senator’s staffer referenced what I just explained in his second paragraph, but the problem with his response is a lack of clarity around what this means for all students needing to be tested in the new law (ESSA).
Under NCLB, schools had to comply with a 95% subgroup participation rate within each content area and grade level that meet assessment requirements. Subgroups include: racial/ethnic groups, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, and English language learners (ELLs). For example, approximately 10% of the student population (1,000 students) at LEA “A” has a disability. Therefore, 950 students with disabilities at LEA “A” must be assessed. This meets federal and state assessment requirements for 95% of all students within each student subgroup to participate.
LEA A’s 1% cap is based on all students – a number equal to about 10% of students with disabilities (i.e., the cap of 100 would be applied to the 1,000 students with disabilities). So 10% of the 1,000 students with disabilities could have their proficient and advanced scores used for accountability purposes.
His statements:
“The new law also prohibits the federal government or the state from imposing a cap on a school district regarding the percentage of students who may be administered an alternate assessment. Therefore, a school district or school could administer an alternate assessment to more than 1 percent of students”
make me that there is no cap for accountability purposes, but I’d need to seek clarification on that point. The USDE is in the process of working out detailed guidance right now. The ESSA resources on their website is quite helpful: http://www.ed.gov/essa?src=policy.
This conversation is definitely a hot topic! As someone who has worked directly with the law under NCLB at the state level, I want to add some clarity to what is meant by 1%.
Both IDEA and ESEA require alternate assessments for students with disabilities who cannot participate in general state or district assessments with accommodations.
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education issued regulations limiting how many students taking the Alternate Assessments Based on Alternate Achievement Standards (AA-AAS) could be counted toward the state’s proficiency goal. The regulation states that only 1% of all students may be counted as proficient or advanced based on the AA-AAS. Said another way, only up to 1% of all students can be counted for accountability (i.e., as proficient or advanced) based on alternate achievement standards. The cap on the number of advanced and proficient AA-AAS scores that can be used for accountability purposes is calculated by multiplying the number of students taking any state assessment by 1%. For an a local education agency (LEA) with 10,000 students (LEA “A”), the cap would be 100. The Senator’s staffer referenced what I just explained in his second paragraph, but the problem with his response is a lack of clarity around what this means for all students needing to be tested in the new law (ESSA).
Under NCLB, schools had to comply with a 95% subgroup participation rate within each content area and grade level that meet assessment requirements. Subgroups include: racial/ethnic groups, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, and English language learners (ELLs). For example, approximately 10% of the student population (1,000 students) at LEA “A” has a disability. Therefore, 950 students with disabilities at LEA “A” must be assessed. This meets federal and state assessment requirements for 95% of all students within each student subgroup to participate.
LEA A’s 1% cap is based on all students – a number equal to about 10% of students with disabilities (i.e., the cap of 100 would be applied to the 1,000 students with disabilities). So 10% of the 1,000 students with disabilities could have their proficient and advanced scores used for accountability purposes.
His statements:
“The new law also prohibits the federal government or the state from imposing a cap on a school district regarding the percentage of students who may be administered an alternate assessment. Therefore, a school district or school could administer an alternate assessment to more than 1 percent of students” make me that there is no cap for accountability purposes, but I’d need to seek clarification on that point.
The USDE is in the process of working out detailed guidance right now. The ESSA resources on their website is quite helpful: http://www.ed.gov/essa?src=policy.