Alternate Assessments In Special Education

There are a number of landmark court cases of special education in the country that have become the basis of how we currently provide services to students with disabilities. Diana v. California State Board of Education (1970) and Larry P. v. Riles (1984) are two of these landmark court cases that highlight nondiscriminatory assessments. Below is the analysis of the two court cases in four major sections: The Legal Cases, Summary, Future Practice, and Comparison and Contrasts.

It is abundantly clear, after reading this article, that minorities students are overrepresented in special education classrooms. One point that really stuck out for me from this article was how students are placed in special programs and provided with special services because of their results on early elementary testing. “Diverse learners are more likely to be referred for additional testing and placement in special education programs because achievement tests typically do not assess literacy skills that they may have acquired outside school, and these skills often differ from the ones these children are expected to have when they enter school” (pg. 2). As educators

Before children can be declared eligible for special education or placed in a special education program, they must be evaluated by a team of professionals. The law requires that schools and other agencies give tests to children that show both their strengths and their weaknesses. This is called nondiscriminatory testing. All tests must be given to children in their own language and in such a way that their abilities and their disabilities are accurately displayed. Children will be placed in special education based upon several tests, not upon one single test or test score. Nondiscriminatory testing ensures that children who do not need special education will not be placed there, and that children who need special school services will get them. (Parent Educational

The right of entry to education resources is more than uncomplicated admission to a college. The right to use means to provide students with the devices they will need to be victorious in higher learning. Students with a recognized disability ought to be no omission. In reality, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, “ensure that all qualified persons have equal access to education regardless of the presence of any disability.” Objective replacement, class waivers, and revision of classroom management, testing and course necessities are all illustrations of behavior to supply access for the learner with a disability. A break down to the creation of such practical adjustments can place schools in breach of federal and state statutes, ensuing expensive fines.

The first key principle of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is that any student regardless of their disability is entitled to a free and appropriate public education. The term zero reject is commonly used to summarize this principle. An important component of zero reject is for school administrators to understand that the state is responsible for locating, identifying, and providing for students with disabilities from birth through age twenty-one. School officials play an important role in carrying out the state responsibility under the zero reject principle. This principle both implies and specifies the concept that no matter how severe the disability may seem, all children can learn, benefit from, and are entitled to a free and appropriate public education.

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

Every state is different, but in Ohio we require students with learning disabilities to take the same test as their other peers that don’t have a learning disabilities. They are allowed to have extra time and accommodations when testing. Stated in the article Implications of High Stake for Students “It is a challenge, however, for the students to pass the courses and particularly the related high stakes tests that may be involved” (Landers). Students that have a learning disability should be taken into more consideration and have a separate test made for them. They aren’t going to be going at the same paste as their other peers so it is wrong to give them the same test. Data shows that students with disabilities fail large-scale tests at higher rates than other students, which cause them to start dropping

The first article, Predictors of Assessment Accommodations Use for Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing by Cawthon & WurtzBest (2010), is a regression study aimed to explore whether student characteristics, teacher perspectives, and contextual factors predict accommodations use with students who are deaf or hard of hearing (Cawthon & WurtzBest, 2010). The article is very relevant to special education assessment because it discussed implications for assessment policies and practices with students who are deaf or hard of hearing, particularly during an era of accountability reform (NCLB accountability).

There are a few ways to try and minimize the label of disability placed unjustly on students due to diversity. When compiling individual assessments more extensive background information needs to be gathered pertaining to school attendance, family structure, cultural beliefs, household changes and moves, and medical, developmental, and educational histories (Ralabate, & Klotz, 2007). If there is a possible language barrier then a dual language assessment evaluation should be given. Also included in an individualized comprehensive evaluation is how a student responds to scientific evidence-based interventions.

Students with disabilities are increasingly being included in large scale, high-stakes testing programs despite inadequate accommodations. In recent years, the school system has increased pressure on students in regards to testing. In the past, Kentucky has done a poor job of including impaired students in its statewide assessments; mainly in failing to provide the mandated accommodations for disabled students. In order to help these students with their learning skills, test scores, appropriate testing accommodations and the performance of students with disabilities. Results indicate that most Kentucky students have been included in the CATS assessment, but many the scores obtained from disabled students may not be reliable due to

High Stakes Testing has been overly integrated in the education systems. High-stakes testing are used to determine grade retention, school curriculum, and whether or not students will receive a high school diploma (Myers, 2015). Since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, high stakes testing has become the norm and mandating that students must pass a standardized test before moving up in grade. As a special education director, the focus is to ensure the student’s accommodations are being followed. Accommodations help increase students’ academic performance. “Both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) call for students with disabilities to participate in the general education curriculum and in testing programs to the maximum extent possible for each student (Luke and Schwartz, 2010).” Throughout the years, high stakes testing is becoming more common than ever before. The reality is high stakes testing is one indicator in evaluating children with specific needs. This paper will discuss, the violation of the statutory language regarding assessment based on IDEA, the strategies and goals of a remediation, staff training, common Core and PARCC assessment, and funding for the remediation plan under IDEA.

High stake test means that the results test can have major consequence for a student (Armstrong, Henson, & Savage, 2015). This is part of the reason the ESSA wants to change standardized testing. The ESSA wants to change standardized testing because high stakes testing is nerve racking for student and for teachers. The ESSA has proposed that schools should break these high stakes test, into parts that will be taken throughout the year. At the end of the year the separate test scores will be added up and averaged. Whatever the average score will then turn into their final score. Another one of the changes that the ESSA wants to put into place is to put a limit on the amount of alternative assessments that are given to students with disabilities (Strauss 2016). The ESSA states that they will “cap at 1 percent the proportion of students in a state who can be administered an alternative assessment for students with the most sever cognitive disabilities” (Strauss 2016). The ESSA, however will be lineate in the amount of students that need an alternative assessment as long as the state seeks a wavier to expand the amount of students that can take alternative assessments (Strauss

Disproportionate identification of minority students in special education is a major concern in schools today. This paper describes the issues in the assessment process with minority students and how we have arrived at a situation where minorities are being misdiagnosed into special education programs. Additionally, several legal cases are mentioned which show numerous actions and rulings that have tried to correct the disproportionate identification in special education. Some of the legal cases discussed include Larry P. v Riles, Diana v. State Board of Education, and Guadalupe v. Tempe Elementary School, which all significantly impacted special education today. Additionally, the Individual with Disabilities Education Act has enforced

Once a child is labeled a slow learner because of standardized test results their educational opportunities narrow and become less challenging. A questionably high proportion of children in special education and lower level tracks come from low socioeconomic populations and minority families. In addition to minority biases, gender biases are rampant in standardized testing. In a recent case, Sharif v. New York Education

In today’s educational environment, all students expect to receive the same level of instruction from schools and all students must meet the same set of standards. Expectations for students with learning disabilities are the same as students without any learning difficulties. It is now unacceptable for schools or teachers to expect less from one segment of students because they have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, discipline problems, or come from poor backgrounds. Standardize testing has resulted in making every student count as much as their peers and the most positive impact has been seen with the lowest ability students. Schools have developed new approaches to reach these previously underserved students while