The National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) and the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment (NCIEA) jointly published a Brief titled Guidance on Examining District Alternate Assessment Participation Rates. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) places a 1% cap on the participation of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities in the alternate assessment aligned with alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). This assessment is intended for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Because many states report more than 1% of their student population taking an AA-AAAS, there is a need to identify effective and technically defensible practices for monitoring participation rates for alternate assessments.

Question addressed by this Brief include:

• What are some approaches for dealing with the uncertainty associated with small student populations (i.e., n-sizes)?
• What are some appropriate analytical approaches for monitoring AA-AAS participation rates?
• What are the strengths and limitations of various methods?
• What criteria could be established for defining “expected” versus “exceptional” fluctuations in district participation rates?