If you plan to attend this year’s National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) annual meeting (April 2-6, 2014), American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting (April 3-7, 2014), or Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) annual convention (April 9-12, 2014) all held in Philadelphia, PA, you are invited to attend conference sessions delivered, moderated, or chaired by NCEO staff members. The following are the highlights :

 “Providing Access: Selecting and Implementing Frequently Used Accommodations on Statewide Assessments” (CEC, Sheryl S. Lazarus and Aleksis Kincaid, poster presentation)
It is often challenging to make appropriate accommodations decisions for the Read Aloud, Scribe, Word Prediction, Spell-Check, and Calculator accommodations. The results of an analysis of state policies will be presented. The session will include practical suggestions that will help educators confidently select, implement, and evaluate these accommodations.

“The Characteristics of Non-Proficient Special Education and Non-Special Education Students on Large-Scale Assessments” (AERA, Yi-Chen Wu, Kristin K. Liu, Martha L. Thurlow, and Sheryl S. Lazarus, paper presentation) 
The purposes of this study were to explore whether the demographic characteristics of persistently non-proficient (PNP) special education students are different from the characteristics of PNP students not in special education, and whether low performing special education students in the first year are more, or less, likely to move out of the low performing group than non-special education students.

NCEO staff are also scheduled to be moderators and chairs for the following sessions at the NCME and AERA annual meetings:

“Invited Symposium – Diversity and Testing Issues” (NCME, Moderator: Martha L. Thurlow)
Growth models provide evidence of whether students are on-track to target proficiency levels, but there is a need to examine the impact for specific student subgroups. The purpose of this symposium is to present current research that explores the variations among growth models when applied to students with disabilities and English Learners.

“Determining Academic Profiles and Characteristics of At-Risk Learners” (AERA, Chair: Laurene L. Christensen)

“Issues in Value Added Models for Teacher Accountability” (AERA, Chair: Laurene L. Christensen)

“Informing Policy through Innovative Approaches” (AERA, Chair: Laurene L. Christensen)

“Broadly Conceptualizing Inclusion and Accommodation: A Survey of the Field” (AERA, Chair: Vitaliy Shyyan)

You are also invited to join the AERA special interest group, Inclusion & Accommodation in Educational Assessment (SIG #96).

We look forward to insightful discussions in Philadelphia!