There is a need to develop greater clarity on the implementation of speech-to-text and scribing during instruction and assessment. On June 26, 2018 NCEO and the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) Assessing Special Education Students (ASES) State Collaborative on Assessments and Student Standards (SCASS) held a joint forum on issues surrounding the use of speech-to-text. This pre-session, which was held prior to the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) in San Diego, California was attended by more than 50 individuals, including State education agency (SEA) representatives, technical assistance (TA) providers, and vendors.

The purpose of the pre-session was to discuss current and emerging issues with the use of speech-to-text for all students. Among the questions addressed in the forum were those related to the evidence of the validity of results when speech-to-text is used by different students. A major question posed was how states can work with vendors to develop speech-to-text systems that more smoothly interface with the test delivery system. Further, what guidance is needed about student use of their own devices for speech-to-text during testing? Related questions included how to address potential security issues and when it is appropriate for human scribes to scribe the speaking portion of an English language proficiency assessment to produce a transcript.

The forum format allowed participants to hear the perspectives of two states and two vendors on speech-to-text for all students. Breakout groups then discussed speech-to-text further, with conversations focusing on three groups: general education students, English learners (ELs), and students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or 504 plans.

A full report of the forum is available at https://nceo.umn.edu/docs/OnlinePubs/2018ForumReport.pdf.