Abstract
This book examines the manner of inclusion of students with disability in educational accountability. Chaps. 1 and 2 explored the rationales and overall legislation and policies that have developed for both inclusive education of students with disability and educational accountability in the US, England and Australia. In Chap. 2, the predominant use of standardized tests for educational accountability and public reporting in each country was identified. This chapter examines the enactment of educational accountability practices for students with disability, including performance standard setting, assessment approaches, access and accommodation arrangements and reporting of educational outcomes, in these three countries. The overall conclusion of this chapter is that despite the rhetoric of inclusion of students with disability in educational accountability and valuing of educational outcomes for these students, educational accountability practices in the three countries create barriers for students with disability that prevent them from optimal demonstration of their educational achievements.
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Notes
- 1.
Phillips and Camara (2006, p. 743) provide a legal definition of accommodation in the US as something: “needed by a disabled person; to access the test; while maintaining valid and comparable scores,” with the last intended to “[produce] scores that have the same interpretation as scores from standard test administrations.” They also distinguish between accommodations and alterations that mean changes to testing conditions. In this discussion, the general term accommodations is used with the same intent as in educational accountability policy to mean any change to regular test conditions, while alternate assessment is used to describe a different form of assessment from the regular test.
- 2.
The dictionary definition of the adjective alternate for non-US English is “every other” or “following” while the adjective “alternative” refers to a different option. Hence, the appropriate non-US term for the proposition here is alternative assessment. NCLB legislation uses the term “alternative”. However, as alternate assessment is the term consistently used in the US policy that forms the basis for consideration of the propositions contained therein, it is used throughout this discussion.
- 3.
IDEA (2004): s 12(a)(16)(A)) “… All children with disabilities are included in all general State and districtwide assessment programs, including assessments described under Sect. 1111 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, with appropriate accommodations and alternate assessments where necessary and as indicated in their respective individualized education programs; s 612(a)(16)(C)(i) The State (or, in the case of a districtwide assessment, the local educational agency) has developed and implemented guidelines for the participation of children with disabilities in alternate assessments for those children who cannot participate in regular assessments under subparagraph (A) with accommodations as indicated in their respective individualized education programs [s 612(a)(16)(C)(i)] [which are] aligned with the State’s challenging academic content standards and challenging student academic achievement standards. Modified Achievement Standards were authorized in 2007 Regulations (34 CFR Part 200).”
- 4.
Towles-Reeves et al. (2009) review empirical studies since 2003 to evaluate progress in the area.
- 5.
In brief, cognitive load theory relates to the demands of learning tasks in terms of memory load and posits that learning can be more efficient if extraneous load is removed. The argument is that the state assessments should be assessing school learning, not cognitive load capacity of individuals (Elliott et al. 2010).
- 6.
In many educational jurisdictions, special education is also used to refer to students who are gifted and talented. The UK definition relates only to learning difficulties.
- 7.
Examples provided of children “unable to access” tests include “physical or sensory disability”, physical location away from a school or severe emotional problems (Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) 2011, p. 31).
- 8.
But note, “Pupils shouldn’t be told at the start of the test that additional time will be allowed as this may cause them to slow down their work. Pupils should be provided with two different coloured pens and should be asked to change pen at the start of the additional time allowance. It is then possible to check how the additional time has been used…” (QCDA) 2011, p. 13). Other research has queried such a research design as students will still be under pressure to complete the test in standard time which may affect performance.
- 9.
How a symbol such as ‘+’ can be read in a mathematical context without naming the operation is an interesting conundrum.
- 10.
Although elsewhere it was noted that 8 per cent of students nationally have special educational needs Statements or supported educational provision (DfE[UK] 2010a).
- 11.
The Queensland (state) Anti-Discrimination Act (1991) uses the term ‘impairment’ with a similar definition (Schedule-Dictionary) to disability in the federal DDA(Aus) (1992).
- 12.
Regulation 6(1) set the expectation that “all” students will achieve the national benchmarks.
- 13.
Use of a broader range of test item formats such as constructed response items has been identified to be three thousand times more expensive (Cunningham 2005, Kindle version location 3686). In this context, the expense reflects a focus on achieving equivalent scoring reliability to the regular test.
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Cumming, J.J. (2012). Educational Provision, Equity and Educational Accountability for Students with Disability: Intentions and Practice. In: Valuing Students with Impairment. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2935-3_3
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