Education Week - Moving Beyond the Mainstream - October 30, 2013 - S21

could be more legally sound than drawing attention to an
accommodation. The Educational Testing Service, which
administers the SATs, was sued by a student for its policy
of flagging tests that were taken under an extended-time
accommodation. The testing company agreed to end flagging
in 2001.
"My prediction is that [PARCC] thinks it's getting out
of the problem," Mr. Zirkel said. "If this gets challenged,
they will likely follow the ETS approach."
Policy Differences
Since 1990, the National Center for Educational
Outcomes, based at the University of Minnesota-Twin
Cities, has been tracking accommodations policies for
students with disabilities. It found that while the readaloud
accommodation on test reading passages may be
controversial, it is not rare. Several states currently
allow text passages to be read aloud to students with
certain disabilities, though in some cases, that accommodation
results in the test being invalidated for accountability
purposes.
Kentucky is an example of a state with an expansive
read-aloud policy, "on the premise that the intent of
reading is to measure comprehension." Hawaii's guidelines
for the read-aloud accommodation are much more
strict: It allows the use of text-to-speech on its online
assessments, but only if the student is a nonreader who
will never be able to read any words at any grade level
throughout the student's lifetime. The student must
also receive all printed material for every subject in an
audio format, at all times.
Somewhat more widely used were read-aloud accommo-
dations for test instructions and for math tests, the center
found. PARCC and Smarter Balanced have both decided to
leave that particular use of read-aloud accommodations
up to the school-based special education team working
with a given student.
In allowing the use of read-aloud accommodations,
even with some caveats or limitations, the common-coretesting
consortia are striking a different path from the
National Assessment of Educational Progress, which examines
a nationally representative sample of students at
grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP allows a wide range of accommodations,
but does not allow passages to be read aloud
to students. That restriction has led to large student exclusion
rates in some states.
The National Center for Educational Outcomes has suggested
that the common-core assessments offer an opportunity
for states to develop a coherent, and in its view necessary,
multistate policy.
Such a policy should take into account that some stu-
dents may be able to draw inferences from a text, or answer
questions based on its main idea, even if they struggle
with translating letters into sounds, also known as
decoding. Requiring those students to decode to answer a
question based on text comprehension is an "artificial barrier,"
according to a report researchers at the center wrote
as guidance for the testing consortia.
"Ensuring that common standards have addressed ac-
we create items
that will test
comprehension,
that will test
decoding? That
is a failure, to me,
of the promise
of the exams."
"
LINDSAY JONES
National Center for Learning Disabilities
Why can't
WA
MT
OR
ID
WY
NV
UT
CA
AZ
NM
TX
AK
CO
NE
KS
OK
AR
MS AL
LA
FL
GA
IA
IL
MO
IN OH
KY
TN
SC
ALLOWED with
implications for scoring
ALLOWED in certain
circumstances
ALLOWED with implications
for scoring and in certain
circumstances
HI
SOURCES: National Center for Educational Outcomes; Education Week
WV
SD
ND
MN
WI
MI
PA
VA
NC
ALLOWED
NJ
MD
DE
DC
PROHIBITED
NY
VT
NH ME
MA
RI
CT
Moving Beyond the Mainstream: Helping Diverse Learners Master the Common Core > www.edweek.org/go/diverse-report | S21

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

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