The Who, What, Why, and How

Excerpted from chapter 1 of Alternate Assessment: Measuring Outcomes and Supports for Students with Disabilities, by Harold L. Kleinert, Ed.D., & Jacqui Farmer Kearns, Ed.D., with invited contributors.

Copyright © 2001 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Why assess? As with all forms of assessment, the most central question regarding alternate assessments is their purpose. A central tenet of IDEA '97 is that special education must be directly linked to school reform for all students. The question of the assessment's purpose, then, should always be framed in the context of comprehensive statewide general education reform, in which schools are increasingly held accountable for clearly delineated student outcomes. The purpose of the alternate assessment should mirror the purpose of the regular assessment. Thus, if the purpose of the regular assessment is to give schools a "report card" on what students are learning and the ways that learning can be improved, then the alternate assessment should provide similar information for students with significant disabilities. Their performance on the alternate assessment should "count" toward their school or district accountability index in the same way that the performance of any other student counts in the regular assessment.

Lost in the Accountability Landscape

It should be noted here that IDEA '97, although requiring that all students be included in state- and districtwide educational assessments, does not specify that their scores be included in school and district measures of accountability. That is to say, IDEA does not mandate how the scores of students with disabilities will be used, or whether their scores will be used at all, in determining school rewards or sanctions. This is an important point, and for many who advocate for improved results for students with disabilities, it represents a limitation in the scope of the law. We would agree; to exclude the assessment scores of students with disabilities specifically from school accountability measures, though technically not prohibited under IDEA, seems to violate the principle of equal treatment while excluding students with disabilities from the public visibility of the "accountability landscape."

Who Should Be Eligible for Alternate Assessments?

IDEA '97 requires that states develop alternate assessments for those students who cannot participate in large-scale general assessments, even with accommodations. How should those students be defined? Is this strictly a decision to be made by the student's IEP team? Clearly, IDEA '97 places the ultimate authority for the decision of how a student will participate in state or district assessments with the student's IEP team. Yet, what eligibility criteria should IEP teams use to ensure consistent application? Should this decision be based solely on diagnostic labels (i.e., those diagnostic categories representing students with the most significant cognitive disabilities)? Yet, as has been noted elsewhere, a criterion for participation in the alternate assessment based solely on diagnostic labels would violate fundamental principles of due process and individualization because individual student decisions can never be based solely on such categorical labels (Kleinert, Haigh, Kearns, & Kennedy, 2000).

Should the decision be based on the student's course of study, such that the alternate assessment would be used for those students not earning a general high school diploma (e.g., those students in a certificate-of-completion program)? This criterion also presents a number of issues. First, how do you (or should you) determine for elementary-age students the likelihood that they will earn a general diploma? Furthermore, some educators have forcefully argued that all students who complete their prescribed course of studies should receive a general diploma (Shapiro-Barnard et al., 1996; Tashie, Malloy, & Lichtenstein, 1998).

Finally, should eligibility for the alternate assessment be based on decisions about whom we think would do poorly on the general assessment? Such a subjective criterion presents even more fundamental problems. IDEA '97 speaks of the alternate assessment as being specifically for those students for whom the regular assessment cannot be accommodated. There are students, however, who can take the regular assessment with reasonable accommodations but who nevertheless will do poorly for a multitude of reasons, including poor teaching and lack of exposure to the general curriculum. A criterion based on how educators think students would perform in the regular assessment would give schools an incentive to place into the alternate assessment those students they had failed to teach.

Individual states, of course, have approached eligibility policies in a variety of ways. For example, Kentucky chose to define eligibility in terms of student instructional needs occurring as the result of the severity of cognitive disability. Alternate assessment eligibility criteria in Kentucky include students whose limitations in cognitive functioning prevent the completion of the state's regular program of studies (mastery of a required set of Carnegie units) even with extended school services and other program modifications and adaptations, and who require extensive instruction in multiple, community-referenced settings to ensure skill acquisition, maintenance, and generalization to "real-life contexts." (Kleinert et al., 2000, pp. 53-54) Kentucky's eligibility requirements also state that the students in the alternate assessment at the high school level cannot pursue a general high school diploma.

Maryland, another state with extensive experience in large-scale alternate assessments, has approached eligibility somewhat differently. In Maryland, students eligible for the alternate assessment are those students "who are not pursuing the state's general education outcomes as specified" (i.e., students in Maryland's alternate assessment require significant alterations in the outcome itself or in the indicators for measuring that outcome) (Kleinert et al., 2000, p. 53). Students participating in the alternate assessment in Maryland are permitted to work toward a general diploma. As noted elsewhere, "Maryland's approach also has the distinct advantage of not establishing or reinforcing an existing duality of high school students — those pursuing general diplomas, and those who will only receive a Certificate" (Kleinert et al., 2000, p. 53).

Issues of eligibility for alternate assessments will be, unquestionably, at the forefront of educational policies for students with significant disabilities for years to come. These issues are complex and relate not only to the characteristics of each student's disability and the impact of that disability on performance but also to the nature and format of the assessments themselves. For example, it would appear far more problematic to accommodate students with disabilities in more traditional, multiple-choice achievement tests than in assessments that involve collections of the student's best work, such as portfolio assessments. Authorities also have argued extensively about students in the "gray area" who are learning the same content as other children, but who often "need a different way to show what they know" (Elliott et al., 1998, p. 26). We agree that such "gray area" students should be included, with appropriate accommodations, in the regular assessments, but we do not underestimate the challenges of doing so. Other authorities (Kearns et al., 1998) have noted that, based on a student's particular strengths, limitations, and learning profile, it might be very appropriate for that student to participate in the regular assessment in certain areas (e.g., math), but to participate in the alternate assessment in other content areas.

What Should Be Assessed?

To what extent can the content standards (or learning outcomes) for all students form the basis for the development of the alternate assessment? Can these same learning outcomes — or a modified set or subset of those outcomes — be used in constructing the alternate assessment? If the same content standards do apply to all students, can we specify differential benchmarks or performance indicators for each of these outcomes for students in the alternate assessment? Or, conversely, should alternate assessments be based on a different, more "functional" set of learner outcomes, and even more specifically, on the individualized learning objectives in the student's IEP itself? These questions affect the extent to which students with significant disabilities are active learners and participants in the general curriculum (Kleinert et al., 2000; Kleinert & Kearns, 1999).

States are again taking a wide range of approaches to this question. For example, Kentucky's alternate assessment is based on a subset of the state's Learner Outcomes (since renamed Academic Expectations) for all students. An important step in this process was identifying for each Academic Expectation a critical function conveyed by that outcome, so that students with significant disabilities might show the targeted outcomes in a variety of adapted ways. For example, a student with significant disabilities could demonstrate the expectation of "using patterns to understand past and present events and predict future events" by managing his or her own daily printed or pictorial schedule of activities. This approach has the advantage of aligning the alternate assessment with the content standards for all students. However, care must be taken not to limit the learning of students with significant disabilities only to the functional interpretations or critical functions underlying the content standards (see Kleinert & Kearns, 1999).

Other states, such as Maryland, have worked from a merged set of adapted academic and skills outcomes, addressing a comprehensive set of life domains. This approach likewise grounds the alternate assessment in the core content standards, yet provides an additional set of life outcomes that may lie outside the priorities of the core academic standards.

A third approach being considered by several states is to base the alternate assessment directly on the IEP; students who are achieving high percentages of their individual short-term objectives would score higher than students who had made little progress on their specific objectives. This approach certainly makes the alternate assessment directly relevant to the student's educational program, but in no way does it ensure that the student's learning will address the content standards underlying the general curriculum for all students.

Similar to the question of whom to assess, the question of what to assess poses considerable challenges. This question cannot be divorced from the context of the state or district content standards that are the framework for the general curriculum and the regular assessment. As noted previously in this chapter, broadly stated content standards — focused on the broad application of core content to "real-life" contexts — are clearly more suited to inclusion in the alternate assessment than are more narrowly written standards that focus on only a prescribed set of academic content.

Though it is not always easy to articulate the relationship of a state's learning standards for all students to the requirements of its alternate assessment, we find ourselves very much in agreement with the position of Elliott et al.:

Let us be clear — it is not the intent of the new IDEA for district and state assessment requirements to have students eligible for an alternate assessment working toward a different set of standards or learning expectancies. The best of all worlds is to have a broad set of standards for all students. Creating a second set of standards for students who take the alternate assessment simply perpetuates a fractured system of service delivery to students with disabilities. (1998, p. 25)

How Should Assessment Be Done?

A key issue for states and local districts in the development of alternate assessments is, of course, what these assessments will look like — how they will be structured, and what the sources of data will be. Ysseldyke and Olsen (1999) described a range of possible options, including performance "event" tests (e.g., structured problems that require a student to create a solution or develop a product), adaptive behavior skills or performance checklists (i.e., a listing of standardized or criterion-referenced critical skills that a student has mastered), interviews with significant others knowledgeable about the student's performance, analyses of progress on current IEP objectives, portfolios (collections of student work that reveal what students can do), or some combination of these measures. We believe very strongly that alternate assessments should be performance-based ("testing methods that require students to create an answer or product that demonstrates their knowledge or skills," U.S. Congress, 1992, p. 18), as opposed to more "paper-and-pencil"-based measures (e.g., multiple choice, reiteration of academic facts). Because alternate assessments, according to IDEA '97, are for those students for whom the regular assessment is not appropriate, even with modifications and accommodations, more traditional, paper-and-pencil assessments hardly seem appropriate as accurate gauges of learning for these students.

A number of states (e.g., Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Tennessee, South Carolina, New York) are developing and/or implementing portfolio methods of assessment for students with significant disabilities. Portfolio assessments, which are performance-based collections of student products, are especially suited for alternate assessments because 1) portfolio assessment enables the student to showcase what he or she can do and is not a delineation of what the student cannot do, 2) portfolio assessment enables students and teachers to use multiple measures (e.g., student products and student self-evaluations, instructional programming data, peer and family reflections), and 3) portfolio assessment can provide a broadly defined assessment structure capable of accommodating a very diverse student population. Given the heterogeneity within the population of students with significant disabilities, a broad and flexible structure for collecting student learning samples over time is very important for demonstrating student performance (Kleinert, Kearns, & Kennedy, 1997). Elliott et al. have further noted that the portfolio approach "allows several components or entries to be included that directly reflect the standards and the curriculum that the students are learning" (1998, p. 25). Finally, as Ezell, Klein, and Ezell-Powell (1999) have observed, portfolio assessment can provide opportunities for students to take more control over their own learning and to gain critical practice in skills related to self-determination. For all these reasons, this book reflects examples of student work that are easily adaptable to a portfolio assessment format. It is hoped that the examples in this text are helpful to any teacher whose state or district alternate assessment is performance-based, however, even if that work is not collected specifically within a portfolio format.