June 2022

Welcome

In this issue, we highlight several new products available from NCEO including the updated guide to universally designed assessments, an analysis of how states include students with disabilities in test security policies, and the findings of a survey on how states monitor alternate assessment participation decisions. There is also an article about two resources that address the role of related service providers in making accessibility and accommodations decisions.

This issue includes a summary of all the sessions in which NCEO is participating during the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA). Finally, there is an article on the forum that follows NCSA on assistive technology interoperability with online assessment platforms, and other technology and services. It includes information on how to register for this event.

– Sheryl Lazarus, NCEO Director

An Updated State Guide to Universally Designed Assessments

An Updated State Guide to Universally Designed Assessments

NCEO recently published An Updated State Guide to Universally Designed Assessments. The Guide is an update of a 2006 NCEO publication. That guide provided an early set of recommendations for developing universally designed assessments. Much has changed since then, including new technologies that can provide accessibility options for students within the test itself. The update addresses the changes, while keeping the philosophies that guide universal design.

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Balancing Test Security and Accessibility

Test Security and Students with Disabilities: An Analysis of States’ 2020-21 Test Security Policies

Test security is a vital component of ensuring exam score validity. Another vital component of score validity is the provision of accessibility features and accommodations for students who need them. States have test security policies and procedures that are designed to ensure fairness, validity, and confidentiality, and to prevent cheating. However, there is a need to consider the ways in which test security measures may affect accessibility for some students with disabilities.

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New Report on State Approaches to Monitoring Alternate Assessment Participation Decisions

State Approaches to Monitoring AA-AAAS Participation Decisions

Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams determine how students with disabilities will participate in statewide assessments. Most will take the general assessment, with or without accessibility features and accommodations. A small number of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities will take an alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS) because they are unable to take the general assessment even with allowable accommodations.

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Two Resources on the Role of Related Service Providers in Making Accessibility and Accommodations Decisions

Related Services Providers: Important Contributors to the Accommodations Decision-making Process

Related service providers (e.g., speech-language pathologists, audiologists, psychologists, and physical and occupational therapists) play an important role in making accessibility and accommodations decisions. The expertise of related services providers enhances student access, active participation, and progress in learning the grade-level general education curriculum. Two new NCEO resources address topics related to related service providers.

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NCEO at the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA)

NCSA 2022 logo

The Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) annual National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) provides an opportunity for assessment practitioners to learn and reflect upon current and emerging trends in education and educational assessments. This year’s NCSA theme will be Fueling Acceleration: How Meaningful Assessment Systems Can Drive Student Learning. NCSA will take place in Atlanta, Georgia on June 27-29, and NCEO staff members will participate in several sessions.

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Forum on Assistive Technology Interoperability with Online Assessment Platforms and Other Technology Products and Services: Making it All Work!

Educators and students continue to face challenges when students use their personal assistive technology supports to participate in online assessments. On June 29, 2022, from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (EDT), NCEO and the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) Assessment, Standards, and Education of Students with Disabilities (ASES) collaborative will jointly hold a forum on issues surrounding the use of personal student assistive technology and online assessment participation. This in-person forum will be held immediately following the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) in Atlanta, Georgia.

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February 2022

Welcome

We are pleased to highlight a few of NCEO’s new products and activities in this newsletter. The year 2022 is just beginning, but already there is lots to share. In this issue, there is information about a participation communication toolkit that NCEO recently released. It contains customizable resources, sample social media posts, and other resources that can be used when communicating about why it is important for students to participate in state tests. This issue also highlights a new series for school leaders on including students with disabilities in assessments, as well as two new resources on the assessment of English learners with disabilities. Additionally, there is an article about including deaf students in assessments.

This issue includes information about an article that several NCEO staff wrote for the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) on ensuring students with disabilities leave school ready to succeed, as well as information about how to register for a related webinar on improving postsecondary success for students with disabilities.

Finally, in this issue, we provide information on sessions at the annual conferences of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), and National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) that include NCEO staff.

– Sheryl Lazarus, NCEO Director


Participation Communications Toolkit

Participation Communications Toolkit

State test participation has benefits for students, their families, and their schools. NCEO recently developed a participation communications toolkit that provides customizable resources that state education agency staff, district and school administrators, and parent centers can use when communicating with educators, policymakers, families, and students about why it is so important that students participate in state assessments.

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New School Leader Series

School Leader Series

NCEO recently published a School Leader Series. This series of four briefs is designed to provide guidance to school leaders about  the inclusion of students with disabilities in assessments in a quick and easy-to-read format.

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New Resources on Assessment of English Learners with Disabilities

NCEO Report #426

NCEO recently published two products on the assessment of English learners with disabilities. As states focus on educational equity issues, these documents provide suggestions for ensuring English learners with disabilities are appropriately included in state assessments. 

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Equitably Including Deaf Students in Assessments

NCEO Brief #25

The National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Education and NCEO recently co-published a brief titled, Steps to Equitably Include Deaf Students in Assessments (Brief #25).  It describes three key steps to support deaf students in standardized testing. The Brief provides details about each of the steps and how to accomplish them.

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Ensuring Students with Disabilities Leave School Ready to Succeed

Ensuring Students with Disabilities Leave School Ready to Succeed

Federal policies have attempted to ensure that students with disabilities are ready for post-secondary education and employment when they leave school, yet too often they lag behind their peers. NCEO’s Martha Thurlow, Kristin Liu, and Sheryl Lazarus recently had an article titled Ensuring Students with Disabilities Leave School Ready to Succeed published in the January, 2022 issue of The State Education Standard: The Journal of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE). The entire issue focused on supporting learning for students with disabilities.

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Upcoming NCEO Presentations (CEC, NABE, NCME)

NCEO staff will present at the annual conferences of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), and National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).

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The Center is supported through a Cooperative Agreement (#H326G210002) with the Research to Practice Division, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. The Center is affiliated with the Institute on Community Integration at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. Consistent with EDGAR §75.62, the contents of this report were developed under the Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Education, but do not necessarily represent the policy or opinions of the U.S. Department of Education or Offices within it. Readers should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Project Officer: David Egnor

October 2021

Welcome

NCEO is gearing up for Fall. This issue highlights the news of NCEO’s continued funding. We are also excited to announce NCEO’s new website. It is easier to navigate and very user-friendly. We are pleased to introduce NCEO’s new accommodations toolkit which provides easy to use research summaries and policy analyses for select accommodations. This issue also summarizes a report on the 95% state assessment participation requirement, and provides an overview of a brief that contains frequently asked questions (FAQs) on testing children with disabilities during the 2021-22 school year. Enjoy!

– Sheryl Lazarus, NCEO Director


NCEO Work to Continue

NCEO logo

NCEO has been awarded a five-year grant by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, to continue its work as a national technical assistance center. Starting October 1, 2021, NCEO’s knowledge development and technical assistance activities will focus on building the knowledge of States, districts, national policymakers, and parents about assessment issues related to students with disabilities.

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New Accommodations Toolkit

Accommodations Toolkit

NCEO recently published an accommodations toolkit. This toolkit provides easy-to-use summaries of the academic research literature on specific accommodations for students with disabilities as well as companion accessibility policy analyses.

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NCEO’s New Website

NCEO website

We are pleased to announce the launch of NCEO’s new website, which is still at https://nceo.info/. The website has an entirely new look, and was designed to be more user friendly. As part of the redesign process, NCEO worked with the University of Minnesota’s Usability Lab and conducted usability testing with typical users of the website. By analyzing how people used the website, we pinpointed areas for improvement. The biggest change is the new Resources page where users can better search the website for what they are looking for. This page is organized by topics, content type, and other categories.

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New Report on the 95% State Assessment Participation Requirement

NCEO Report 429

NCEO recently published The 95 Percent State Assessment Participation Requirement: Current Landscape, State Challenges, and Recommended Strategies (NCEO Report #429). This report provides an overview of federal statutory language on student participation in state summative assessments used for accountability as well as the participation requirements for states requesting waivers from the 1% threshold on participation in the alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). It also includes a review of why it is important that students participate in testing, the reasons why some states have found it challenging to meet the 95% participation rate, and the extent to which states have met federal testing participation requirements.

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Brief on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Testing Children with Disabilities During the 2021-22 School Year

NCEO Brief #26

NCEO recently published Getting Ready for the 2021-22 School Year: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Testing Children with Disabilities (NCEO Brief #26). This brief addresses six common questions about testing children with disabilities and provides links to related resources. As the 2020-21 school year was unprecedented and many normal procedures were disrupted, with some schools engaging in virtual learning and others shifting between in-person and virtual learning, many questions arise for the upcoming school year about testing children with disabilities.

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NCEO’s National Assessment Center is supported through a Cooperative Agreements (#H326G160001, #H326G210002) with the Research to Practice Division, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. The Center is affiliated with the Institute on Community Integration at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. The contents of this report were developed under the Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Education, but do not necessarily represent the policy or opinions of the U.S. Department of Education or Office within it. Readers should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Project Officer: David Egnor

June 2021

Welcome

Greetings from NCEO! In this issue, we highlight several new resources on using interim assessments to measure what students with disabilities know and can do. We also provide information on NCEO presentations at the upcoming National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) conference and the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA). Also highlighted in this issue is a new accommodations literature review report and an annual performance report (APR) snapshot report on students in special education assigned assessment accommodations, as well as four new videos which were recently added to the series of videos for parents of students with significant cognitive disabilities. Information is also provided about a project where NCEO is working as the accessibility lead called the Collaborative for the Alternate Assessment of English Language Proficiency (CAAELP) project.

As always, we welcome your ideas and suggestions for newsletter articles as we work to improve the instruction and assessment of all students, including students with disabilities, English learners, and English learners with disabilities.

Sheryl Lazarus
NCEO Director


Measuring What Students with Disabilities Know and Can do Using Interim Assessments

Cover of Report 427

Many states and districts are interested in using interim assessments. Interim assessments are used for a variety of purposes including measuring growth or progress, for instructional decision making, predicting summative assessment performance, and measuring whether a student meets a grade-level goal. Additionally there is interest in potentially using interim assessments to measure learning losses that may have occurred because of schooling disruptions that occurred as a result of the pandemic.

NCEO recently published three resources which address interim assessments.

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NCEO at the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Conference

NCME logo

The National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) is a professional organization for individuals involved in assessment, evaluation, testing, and other aspects of educational measurement. This year NCME is holding its annual conference virtually from May 18 through June 11. NCEO staff members will present several sessions.

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NCEO at the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA)

NCSA logo

In 2021, the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) celebrates more than 50 years of innovation, spanning five decades of tremendous change in the field of student assessment. NCSA is the premiere forum for assessment practitioners to discuss what is happening in the real world of educational assessment—what is new, what is going on at the state and federal level, what works, and what does not. This year, NCSA will take place virtually on June 21-23, and NCEO staff members will participate in several sessions.

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New Accommodations Research Literature Review

Cover of Report 423

NCEO recently published A Summary of the Research on the Effects of K–12 Test Accommodations: 2018 (NCEO Report 423). This report summarizes the research on test accommodations for U.S. elementary and secondary students (K–12) published in 2018. The academic literature described here encompasses empirical studies of performance comparability, investigations into accommodations use, implementation practices, and perceptions of the effectiveness of accommodations.

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New APR Snapshot Report on Students in Special Education Assigned Assessment Accommodations

APR Brief 23 cover

A new Annual Performance Report (APR) Snapshot report titled, Students in Special Education Assigned Assessment Accommodations (APR Snapshot Brief 23), provides information on the number of students with disabilities assigned accommodations and the performance of these students on the general statewide assessment used for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) accountability. Using federally submitted data from the 2017-2018 school year, this APR Snapshot presents information on accommodations for general reading and mathematics statewide assessments.

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Videos Added to Parent Video Series

Parent Video

NCEO and the TIES Center, both funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, have jointly published four additional videos in a series for parents of K-12 students with significant cognitive disabilities. The videos, available on NCEO’s YouTube Channel, address simple ways for parents of children with significant cognitive disabilities to support their child’s reading and math development at home.

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Project on Assessment Accessibility for English Learners with Significant Cognitive Disabilities

CAAELP logo

NCEO is working with the Collaborative for the Alternate Assessment of English Language Proficiency (CAAELP) project as the accessibility lead. CAAELP is a federally funded 4-year project (2019–2023) awarded to the Iowa Department of Education, and is a collaboration with nine other states (Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia)  and the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Additional partners include Cognia, HumRRO, and CAST. The project will develop an alternate summative English language proficiency assessment for English learners with the most significant cognitive disabilities; it will be based on alternate performance expectations for English language proficiency development.

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NCEO’s National Assessment Center is supported through a Cooperative Agreement (#H326G160001) with the Research to Practice Division, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. The Center is affiliated with the Institute on Community Integration at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. The contents of this report were developed under the Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Education, but do not necessarily represent the policy or opinions of the U.S. Department of Education or Office within it. Readers should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Project Officer: David Egnor

February 2021

Welcome

Welcome to the Winter NCEO e-newsletter. This issue highlights a new video series for parents of students with significant cognitive disabilities. The videos focus on various aspects of supporting the learning of their children at home. Currently available videos address routines at home, helping with academics at home, foundations of communications at home, and communications at home.

This issue also highlights a new Brief that NCEO published on using pre-assessment to plan instruction for students with disabilities during distance education, as well as a review of the literature on literacy assessment and instruction practices for English learners with significant cognitive disabilities. Additionally, there is an article about eight tools which were developed with states that were members of several Peer Learning Groups (PLGs) organized by NCEO on topics related to addressing the 1% threshold on participation in alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS).  Finally, if you will be participating in the upcoming virtual Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Convention and Expo, we have a list of sessions that include NCEO staff.

As always, we welcome feedback and ideas about what you would like to see in future issues of NCEO’s e-newsletter.

Sheryl Lazarus
NCEO Director


Parent Video Series to Support the Learning of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities at Home

Parent Resources Video SeriesNCEO and the TIES Center, both funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, have jointly published the first four videos in a series for parents of K-12 students with significant cognitive disabilities. The videos, available on NCEO’s YouTube Channel address various aspects of supporting the learning of children with significant cognitive disabilities at home.

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Brief on Pre-assessment to Plan Instruction for Students with Disabilities During Distance Learning

Brief on Pre-assessment to Plan Instruction for Students with Disabilities During Distance LearningNCEO recently published Pre-assessment to Plan Instruction for Students with Disabilities During Distance Learning (NCEO Brief #21). This Brief describes using pre-assessment to plan instruction for students with disabilities, and presents 10 tools that can be used particularly during distance learning. Pre-assessment to plan instruction can help guide the instructional planning process and focus on the specific content to be taught in a unit or sequence of lessons.

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New NCEO Report Reviewing the Literature on Literacy Assessment and Instruction Practices for English Learners with Significant Cognitive Disabilities

A Literature Review on Evidence-Based Literacy Assessment and Instruction Practices for English Learners with Significant Cognitive DisabilitiesNCEO has published A Literature Review on Evidence-Based Literacy Assessment and Instruction Practices for English Learners with Significant Cognitive Disabilities  (NCEO Report #422). This report summarizes a comprehensive investigation of research published between 2000 and 2018 on evidence-based literacy assessment and instruction practices for English learners with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Our goal is to provide policymakers and educators with actionable findings from the literature.

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Alternate Assessment Resources from NCEO 1% Peer Learning Groups

IEP Team Resource: Making Decisions about Participation in the Alternate AssessmentIn October 2018, more than 200 individuals gathered in Boston to develop state-action plans for meeting the 1% cap on state-level participation in alternate assessments aligned with alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). Then in 2019, states met with each other and NCEO in a series of Peer Learning Groups (PLGs) to develop resources to help themselves and other states address the 1% cap requirement. Eight tools were developed through these three PLGs. Each tool is described in brief here.

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NCEO Presentations at Council for Exceptional Children Convention and Expo

The Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC) annual conference will be held virtually from March 8 through March 13, 2021. NCEO staff will be involved in several presentations and posters. If you plan to attend this conference, we invite you to attend conference presentations and posters by NCEO staff members and affiliated projects.

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NCEO’s National Assessment Center is supported through a Cooperative Agreement (#H326G160001) with the Research to Practice Division, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. The Center is affiliated with the Institute on Community Integration at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. The contents of this report were developed under the Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Education, but do not necessarily represent the policy or opinions of the U.S. Department of Education or Office within it. Readers should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Project Officer: David Egnor