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STATS GROUP WILL KEEP FINE-TUNING NAEP

July 28, 1999

WASHINGTON -- As the U.S. Department of Education ushers in the new school year with a continued call for higher achievement by students, many in the special education field are wondering how students with disabilities and special needs will fit into national acheivement testing. National Center for Education Statistics Associate Commissioner Peggy Carr said today NCES will keep searching for ways to increase inclusion for special ed. students.

At "Stats D.C.," NCES' annual summer data conference, Carr presented some of the center's findings in the 1998 National Assessment of Education Progress, a standardized exam conducted in all public schools across the country every two years. The NAEP and achievement levels in general have been highly contentious issues, as disappointing national reading results on last year's test pointed to the need for tighter controls on social promotion and testing. At the same time, the new regulations for the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act released last spring require the inclusion of students with disabilities in national testing wherever possible.

As NCES prepares for the next test in the 2000-01 school year, the agency will be keeping both objectives in mind, Carr said. IDEA's guidelines for increasing the participation of students with disabilities appear to work in several instances, she said. Based on random samples from the 1998 NAEP's reading and math tests, NCES has concluded that providing certain accommodations for students with disabilities led to "greatly increased participation rates." Including the results of those students tested with accommodations did not change the overall national test results, she added.

For fourth graders taking the NAEP reading test, the exclusion rate dropped from 9 percent in 1994 to 7 percent in 1998 when students with disabilities received accommodations. The remaining 7 percent were excluded either because the necessary accommodation did not meet NCES criteria for acceptable accommodations or because even with accommodations the student was not able to take the test.

NCES plans to continue fine-tuning its criteria for acceptable accommodations, Carr said. "We're going to reassess them [as well as other factors such as test administration], because we believe this is an ongoing process," she said. However, NCES is not likely to explore soon establishing standardized alternative assessments for those who cannot be accomodated in the NAEP.

"We believe that alternative assessments are important. We have been asked to look into alternative assessments by the national academy of science, so we don't rule it out," Carr said, "but alternative assessment is not something in the immediate future."

NCES is more concerned in the immediate future with the issue of accommodations for NAEP testing, Carr said. In addition, NCES is concerned about issues such as uniformity among the variety of alternative assessments used across the country.8