Equity for Students with High-Incidence Disabilities in Statewide Assessments: A Technology-Based Solution

One of the most significant challenges facing policy makers in education today is to ensure that state assessments designed to measure student performance across specified grade-level curriculum content standards will allow all students to demonstrate what they have learned. This challenge is made complex by the varied attributes of students with disabilities and the curriculum these students .receive. The scope of the complexity became particularly evident with passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the 2001 revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which mandates that schools, districts, and state departments of education be held directly accountable for the progress of all students, including students with disabilities (Allbritten, Mainzer, & Ziegler, 2004). Thus, school districts must demonstrate that students are making ongoing progress toward proficiency, and that all students reach the designated proficiency level by the year 2014. Attendance centers, districts, and states that fail to meet the stated requirements must provide supplemental services. Further, continued failure to make progress toward proficiency will result in drastic changes and sanctions. According to the 24th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2002, more than 2.5 million children ages 6-17 with disabilities were served under IDEA in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This represented 11.05% of the school population (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). Given the stringent accountability mandates and the growing diversity of the nation's students, including students with disabilities in general education classrooms, school districts and state departments of education face an urgent need for assessment tools that allow them to effectively and accurately report the proficiency level for all of their students. Moreover, results of these tools should be available at a speed that will allow them to modify instruction quickly and continue to make the changes necessary to meet proficiency levels. In addition, tools for accommodations specific to the attributes of these learners are urgently needed.