Inclusive Assessment and Accountability: A Guide to Accommodations for Students with Diverse Needs (The Guilford Practical Intervention in Schools Series)

177 Pages·2008·1.29 MB·English

by  Sara E. Bolt

Inclusive Assessment and Accountability
The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series
Kenneth W. Merrell, Series Editor
Books in this series address the complex academic, behavioral, and social–emotional needs of children
and youth at risk. School-based practitioners are provided with practical, research-based, and readily
applicable tools to support students and team successfully with teachers, families, and administrators. Each
volume is designed to be used directly and frequently in planning and delivering educational and mental
health services. Features include lay-flat binding to facilitate photocopying, step-by-step instructions for
assessment and intervention, and helpful, timesaving reproducibles.
Recent Volumes
School-Based Crisis Intervention: Preparing All Personnel to Assist
Melissa Allen Heath and Dawn Sheen
Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students: A Practical Guide
Robert L. Rhodes, Salvador Hector Ochoa, and Samuel O. Ortiz
Mental Health Medications for Children: A Primer
Ronald T. Brown, Laura Arnstein Carpenter, and Emily Simerly
Clinical Interviews for Children and Adolescents: Assessment to Intervention
Stephanie H. McConaughy
Response to Intervention: Principles and Strategies for Effective Practice
Rachel Brown-Chidsey and Mark W. Steege
The ABCs of CBM: A Practical Guide to Curriculum-Based Measurement
Michelle K. Hosp, John L. Hosp, and Kenneth W. Howell
Fostering Independent Learning: Practical Strategies to Promote Student Success
Virginia Smith Harvey and Louise A. Chickie-Wolfe
Helping Students Overcome Substance Abuse: Effective Practices for Prevention and Intervention
Jason J. Burrow-Sanchez and Leanne S. Hawken
School-Based Behavioral Assessment: Informing Intervention and Instruction
Sandra Chafouleas, T. Chris Riley-Tillman, and George Sugai
Collaborating with Parents for Early School Success: The Achieving–Behaving–Caring Program
Stephanie H. McConaughy, Pam Kay, Julie A. Welkowitz, Kim Hewitt, and Martha D. Fitzgerald
Helping Students Overcome Depression and Anxiety, Second Edition: A Practical Guide
Kenneth W. Merrell
Inclusive Assessment and Accountability: A Guide to Accommodations for Students
with Diverse Needs
Sara E. Bolt and Andrew T. Roach
Inclusive Assessment
and Accountability
A Guide to Accommodations
for Students with Diverse Needs
SARA E. BOLT
ANDREW T. ROACH
Foreword by Rachel F. Quenemoen
THE GUILFORD PRESS
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© 2009 The Guilford Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bolt, Sara E.
Inclusive assessment and accountability: a guide to accommodations for students with diverse
needs / Sara E. Bolt, Andrew T. Roach.
p. cm. — (The Guilford practical intervention in the schools series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60623-019-0 (pbk: alk. paper)
1. Children with disabilities—Education—United States. 2. Children with disabilities—
Education—United States—Evaluation. 3. Special education—United States. I. Roach,
Andrew T. II. Title.
LC4031 .B65 2009
371.9—dc22
2008038824
To my parents, Martin and Nancy; brothers, Dan and Mike;
and sister, Laura; all of you have been an important source
of support for my work on this project
—S. E. B.
To my parents, Dave and Lois,
and my sister, Jennifer,
for their love and support
—A. T. R.
About the Authors
Sara E. Bolt, PhD, is Assistant Professor of School Psychology at Michigan State University
in East Lansing. She has a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Min-
nesota. While completing her graduate studies, she worked as a research assistant at the
National Center on Educational Outcomes and as a school psychologist at Heartland Area
Education Agency. Dr. Bolt currently conducts research on testing accommodations for
students with disabilities as well as on educational assessment practices for special popula-
tions generally.
Andrew T. Roach, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling and Psy-
chological Services at Georgia State University in Atlanta. His research focuses on alternate
assessments and the alignment between standards, assessments, and classroom instruction.
Dr. Roach received the 2007 Early Career Publication Award from the Council for Excep-
tional Children—Division of Research for an article on the effects of curricular access on
students’ alternate assessment performance. He has conducted alignment and related valid-
ity studies for alternate assessments in Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, and Wisconsin,
and currently serves as coinvestigator on two federally funded investigations of the validity
of alternate assessments based on modified achievement standards. Before completing his
doctorate, Dr. Roach taught elementary and middle school for 9 years.
vi
Foreword
Inclusive Assessment and Accountability: A Guide to Accommodations for Students with
Diverse Needs is an important contribution to the tools available for educators at all levels
of the public school system in the United States. Sara E. Bolt and Andrew T. Roach share
not only their academic expertise but also their experience working directly with state and
local educators on policy and practice issues related to large-scale assessment for system
accountability. Their grounding in the field and understanding of current state and local
practice make this book a practical and powerful resource.
Drs. Bolt and Roach caution that this is a “point-in-time” analysis, and it is impor-
tant for readers to understand that caution. The policies and mandates that surround test-
ing for accountability and define the purpose and uses of testing programs have every-
thing to do with the options available to practitioners. In that context, the authors have
provided resources that do change with the times—such as links to many dynamic Web-
based tools—that the reader can tap. By incorporating multiple and varied resources such
as extant research citations and practical tools for immediate use, along with resources that
will evolve with the advent of new policies, research findings, and practice discoveries, they
invite the reader to learn with them into the future and to join their virtual community of
practice around the important topic of inclusive assessment.
A foundational assumption in the use of these marvelous resources is that the large-
scale tests the authors discuss are designed for the purpose of system accountability. Mak-
ing decisions about how students show us what they know on an assessment requires a clear
understanding of the intended purpose(s) for which the test was designed and the intended
use(s) of test results. When a test is designed to demonstrate how well students are being
taught the challenging content for their enrolled grade level, we have different rules for
how they participate than when we make decisions about participation in a test designed to
demonstrate specific individual skills and knowledge for diagnostic purposes. A criterion-
referenced test that appropriately measures content and achievement standards for a given
grade and content area and is otherwise accessible for students with varying disabilities or
vii
viii Foreword
language differences may indeed be “too hard” for a student who has not been taught that
content. Such a result—showing that the student did not perform well on the content he or
she had not been taught—is a valid inference for the purpose of system accountability.
That is probably the most common misunderstanding about testing for system account-
ability, a misunderstanding that gets in the way of good local implementation of state tests.
The mistaken zeal to have one test meet multiple (and sometimes contradictory) purposes
and uses among policymakers and practitioners has muddied the waters of appropriate use
across the country. A push for basic assessment literacy must have this approach as a founda-
tion—one large-scale assessment cannot and should not meet all needs for educational data.
The letter and the spirit of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the reauthorization of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 share a focus on a standards-based
reform agenda: that states can set challenging content and achievement standards that are
targets for learning for all students, and that schools then design the instruction and cur-
riculum that will ensure all students can achieve to these expectations, with the bookend
of statewide system accountability through large-scale assessment and accountability pro-
grams. The assessments that Drs. Bolt and Roach cover in this book are those designed as
part of this standards-based reform agenda.
The point the authors make—that knowledge is power—means that varied state and
local choices can be implemented within the letter and spirit of the federal education laws,
but they require informed stakeholder involvement and commitment to the ultimate goals
of high achievement for all students. To that end, this book provides an outstanding over-
view of the key issues in inclusive assessment for all students, regardless of issues of dis-
ability or language and culture. For example, Chapters 3 and 4, on the use of accommoda-
tions, provide a layperson’s interpretation of much of the current research in the context
of policy imperatives, but they assume the policymaker or practitioner has basic skills that
allow meaningful application—the materials are in no way “dumbed down”! Given that the
book provides powerful and varied resources to consult for more information, there is an
opportunity to build an understanding that may not currently be in place. It may be that a
study group approach to really mining the resources, which builds a common understand-
ing among practitioners and key stakeholders, would be a powerful way to create local
capacity to do this well. The book provides a unique “one-stop shop” for including students
with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs), as well as students with disabilities
who are also ELLs, in large-scale assessments. This is a great opportunity for a local study
group to compare and contrast how varying student needs guide accommodations choices.
The nuances of accommodations issues are challenging, whether for scaffolding instruc-
tion or for assessing learning for purposes of a standards-based reform accountability. The
issues require a deep understanding of the content to be taught and assessed—something
not all special education-trained teachers have. It is absolutely essential that any application
of the approaches suggested here be done in a collaborative team context, including per-
sonnel knowledgeable in content and in general classroom curriculum and instruction and
those with expertise in how learners with unique needs can be instructed in the same chal-
lenging content as all other enrolled grade peers. The case studies that serve as examples
throughout the book are very helpful, but no single story can give you legs under your learn-
ing. Carrying forward the study group idea, it will be important to add your own case stud-
Foreword ix
ies and collaborate on applying what you learn here to real cases. A local, real-life example
is one of the most powerful learning tools you can find, especially with a cross-disciplinary
study group team contributing to the solutions.
The information on alternate assessments in this book is less a “how to” and more a dis-
cussion of the complexities of building such alternatives for the purpose of system account-
ability, generally a state responsibility. This accurately reflects the infancy of a most promis-
ing and interesting field. A study group needs to grapple with how to teach the challenging
content to all students, including those with the most significant cognitive disabilities or
others who cannot show what they know on a traditional pencil-and-paper test. To that end,
an additional website that provides easily accessible white papers, research, and instruc-
tional examples is provided by the National Alternate Assessment Center: naacpartners.
org/products.aspx.
Ultimately these two assessment professionals come full circle. The discussion in Chap-
ters 6–8 about instruction and curriculum is the point of all this assessment talk: testing in
the context of standards-based reform is always about improving instruction and access to
the challenging general curriculum. Any study group has to start there and carefully con-
sider outdated beliefs and attitudes about what students with disabilities and ELLs should
be taught and to what level they should learn. The authors conclude with a powerful state-
ment of equity and opportunity. It may be that, in the end, not all students will master the
full range of knowledge and skills for their grade level. The issue is that we will not know
how many or which ones can unless and until we teach (and assess) them all! That, in a nut-
shell, is what testing for system accountability in standards-based reform, and this wonder-
ful book, are all about.
Rachel F. Quenemoen, MS
Senior Research Fellow
National Center on Educational Outcomes
University of Minnesota