NCEO - Synthesis Report 60 - Dealing with Flexibility in Assessments for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities

2012

This report examines the tension between flexibility and standardization in assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) are necessarily less standardized than general assessments in several key aspects because of who the students are who participate in these assessments and how they learn and demonstrate their skills and knowledge. Most alternate assessments reflect state choices of varying degrees of flexibility for different components of the system. As states develop these alternate assessments to meet federal accountability requirements, states must articulate and defend their choices. The report is meant to assist states in recognizing what aspects of their system should remain flexible and what might be more standardized, in the context of a framework for helping states conceptualize the evaluation of technical quality.

Reports and monographs

Professionals

Electronic (disc, CD, 508 compliant web posting)

http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/onlinepubs/synthesis60.pdf

N/A