Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S20

'Read-Aloud' Assistance
Puts Test-Makers on Spot
Accommodation for students with print-related disabilities
has assessment consortia taking differing approaches
F
BY
CHRISTINA A.
SAMUELS
aced with the decision of whether to allow students
with dyslexia and other print disabilities
the option of having text passages on the common-core
tests read aloud to them, the two federally
financed consortia responsible for creating
the general assessments took a Solomonic approach.
Rather than prohibit the so-called "read-aloud accommodation"
entirely or allow reading aloud with no restriction,
the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers decided to permit text passages to be read to students,
with a notation on score reports saying
no claims can be made regarding the
student's foundational reading skills.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium opted against the readaloud
accommodation for students
in grades 3-5, saying it would invalidate
the language constructs being
measured; students taking the test
in higher grades may use that accommodation.

Like many decisions that attempt to
strike a balance between two opposing phi-
losophies-those who wish to leave the use of read-aloud
accommodations to a school-based team and those who
want to prohibit its use entirely-the decisions of the testing
consortia appear to have left no one entirely happy.
And now critics on either side say the consortia's decisions
on reading aloud could be setting districts up for
violations of special education law, or could ultimately
leave a swath of students unable to read because the
read-aloud accommodation was used as a crutch.
Fierce Defenders
Richard Allington, a professor of education at the University
of Tennessee and one of the country's most recognized
experts on early literacy, calls the accommodation
"cheating."
"What special education does best is create illiterates,"
Mr. Allington said. "I know why they don't
want their kids tested on reading activity. It's because
they've done a terrible job of providing those kids with
high-quality reading instruction."
But special educators believe just as strongly that for
some children, a read-aloud accommodation is the tool
they need to demonstrate what they know.
Lindsay Jones, the director of public policy and advocacy
for the National Center for Learning Disabilities,
said she was "stunned" that Smarter Balanced chose
to ban read-aloud accommodations for elementary students,
even for visually impaired children who may be in
the early stages of learning Braille. (An official with the
consortium explained that the testing group was told
by its legal experts that it could not open up an accom-
S20 | EDUCATION WEEK OCTOBER 30, 2013
n
Patchwork of Policies
States currently vary on whether they allow text
passages on state tests to be read aloud to students.
Some prohibit this accommodation, while others
allow it in certain circumstances, such as for students
who are blind or visually impaired. Some states allow
it with implications for scoring; for example, the test
may be invalidated. Other variables are whether
states allow human readers, software-based
text-to-speech, prerecorded audio,
or some combination of these.
modation to blind children without opening it up to all
students with disabilities.)
The learning-disabilities center has argued on behalf
of restricting read-aloud accommodations only on test
items that gauge print decoding and fluency. Questions
that measure other literacy skills, such as picking out a
main idea of a text passage, should be open to the accommodation.

"There's been a lot of conjecture and anecdotes about
evidence that states overuse read-aloud. I don't know
why we would let that dominate our conversation going
forward," Ms. Jones said. "Why can't we create items
that will test comprehension, that will test decoding?
That is a failure, to me, of the promise of these exams."
The restrictions also could represent a conflict with the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which gives
broad powers to school-based teams of teachers, administrators,
parents, and others who have deeper knowledge
of a child's capabilities to determine what accommodations
may be necessary. Perry A. Zirkel, a professor
of education and law at Lehigh University in Bethlehem,
Pa., said that the approach taken by Smarter Balanced

Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013

Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S1
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S2
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S3
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S4
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S5
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S6
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S7
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S8
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S9
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S10
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S11
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S12
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S13
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S14
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S15
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S16
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S17
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S18
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S19
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S20
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S21
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S22
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S23
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S24
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S25
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S26
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S27
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S28
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S29
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S30
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S31
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S32
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S33
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S34
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S35
Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S36
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