What does the most recent state-reported data tell us about the assessment experiences of 8th-grade students with disabilities? NCEO’s 2022-2023 APR Snapshot 32: State Assessment Participation, Performance, and Assigned Accommodations for Students Receiving Special Education Services provides a national analysis of participation and performance data for both general and alternate assessments (AA-AAAS) in reading/language arts and mathematics. Drawing from state Annual Performance Reports (APRs), this resource provides a picture of how students receiving special education services participated in the state assessment system and how they performed.

The report describes 8th-grade student participation and performance across general and alternate assessments. In addition, it documents wide state-to-state variability in the assignment of testing accommodations for general assessments. These rates ranged from less than 1% to over 96% of 8^th graders with disabilities who took the assessments. AA-AAAS participation calculations are based on both the standard method, using the total tested students, and an alternate method, referenced in an appendix, that includes students with disabilities who were also English Learners and who took an English language proficiency assessment in lieu of the state reading assessment. Because public data on the total number of tested students was unavailable, NCEO used enrollment data as a proxy to calculate that approximately half of the states exceeded the cap in both subjects.

This snapshot serves as a practical tool for comparing state participation, performance, and accommodation rates against national averages. While this brief uses unidentified data to illustrate national trends for grade 8, identified state-specific results for all tested grades are available through the NCEO APR Snapshot Data Page.