Presented at ISEC 2000

Inclusive Accountability in the USA – Transforming Access to Education into An Educational System Responsible for the Learning of All Students

Martha Thurlow - National Center on Educational Outcome (NCEO), Minnesota, USA

Abstract

The right to a free and appropriate education in the USA is being transformed into the right to belong to an educational system that is responsible for the learning of all students, including students with disabilities. This transformation is occurring as a result of the 1997 re-authorisation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In that law, which governs special education services to 50 states and 10 other educational units, states and districts are required to (a) include students with disabilities in their assessment programs, (b) develop an alternate assessment for those students for whom the regular assessment is not appropriate, (c) report the number of students in the regular and alternate assessments, and (d) report the performance of students with disabilities in the same way and with the same frequency as scores of other students have been presented, both in aggregation with other students and disaggregated. These requirements must be met for each state to qualify for its special education funds from the federal government. How this law is playing out in the states, and moving the USA educational system from rights, to policy, and then into practice, will be addressed in this paper.

The push for educational reform in the United States of America has increased in intensity during the past decade. The cry for improvements in the public education system came from many different perspectives. Businesses complained about the lack of knowledge and skills in high school graduates. Institutions of higher education increasingly had to provide remedial coursework to bring the knowledge and skills of many students up to par with basic requirements. Further, policymakers were worried about the competitiveness of the United States in the global marketplace because of the poor performance of its students compared to students in other countries. All of this set the stage for dramatic pressure for change in the focus of education in the United States.

Several education laws were passed in the mid 1990s that reflected similar educational reform themes. A primary theme was that there must be accountability for the results of education, not just for the process of education. Prior to the push for educational reform, the process of education was the focus of accountability – where students are educated, whether their teachers are certified, how much money is spent per pupil, and so on. In contrast, the results of importance in the push for educational reform include the attainment of knowledge and skills needed for success in a global economy.

A second theme was that “all students” really did mean all students – including students with disabilities as well as students with limited English proficiency. These groups of students were ones that historically had been excluded from aspects of educational accountability systems (August & Hakuta, 1997; McDonnell, McLaughlin, & Morison, 1997). Many negative consequences of their exclusion had been posited or demonstrated, from not receiving the benefits of educational reforms, to depressed expectations for learning, to an inaccurate overall picture of the educational system (Thurlow, Elliott, & Ysseldyke, 1998).

Several laws consistent with these themes were enacted. First, the Goals 2000, Educate America Act (Goals 2000; Public Law 103-223, 1994) supported the development of standards and aligned assessments. Then, the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA; Public Law 103-382, 1994) required the implementation of a standards-based evaluation system and the use of data from statewide assessments for demonstrating adequate yearly progress in reading and math. Finally, the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 97; Public Law 105-117, 1997) required accountability for the performance of students with disabilities on state and district-wide assessments. The assessment provisions in IDEA 97 represent a dramatic shift for students with disabilities – from a process-based accountability system, to one based on both process and outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the assessment provisions in IDEA 97, the law which governs and provides funding for special education services to students with disabilities in the 50 states and 10 other educational units that receive special education funds from the U.S.A. (such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and so on). In addition, I explore the changes that have occurred in the past 10 years in each of the key provisions of IDEA 97. Finally, I address several issues and challenges that exist as the U.S.A. moves toward more inclusive accountability systems, in which the right to access to education has been transformed into responsibility for the learning of all students, including students with disabilities.

IDEA 97 Assessment Provisions

The assessment provisions in IDEA 97 are linked to other provisions requiring that students with disabilities have access to the general education curriculum and be held to standards that are consistent with the goals and standards for all children. Standards and assessments are state-driven components of the educational system. Currently, all states except one have standards that define the knowledge and skills students are to gain from their education (American Federation of Teachers, 1999), and all states except two have statewide assessments designed to test students’ knowledge and skills (Olson & Andrews, 1999).

Considerable evidence had accumulated before the enactment of IDEA 97 that students with disabilities were being inappropriately excluded from state assessment systems (McGrew, Thurlow, Shriner, & Spiegel, 1992; “Why Johnny Stayed Home,” 1996; Zlatos, 1994). As a result, little data existed to inform education systems about how well students receiving special education services were performing. Furthermore, students were being excluded from important instructional opportunities because they were “exempted” from testing. IDEA 97 was designed to address these issues. The law brought out the assessment requirements in sections on (1) participation in assessments, (2) public reports related to assessments, and (3) reporting to the Secretary of Education. In addition, sections on Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), supported the requirements.

Participation. The specific wording of IDEA 97 related to participation in assessments is provided in Table 1. It reflects the position that all students with disabilities must be in the assessment system, either by taking the same assessment (with accommodations or modifications, if needed) as other students in the state take, or by taking an alternate assessment developed especially for those students unable to participate in the regular state or district assessment.

Accommodations. Changes in the way that a test is presented, in the materials that are used during testing, in the timing or scheduling of the test, and in the way that the student responds to the test are “assessment accommodations.” Common examples of accommodations are Braille or large-print editions of a test, extended time, frequent breaks during testing, reading of directions, repeating directions, and a variety of others. IDEA 97 mentions assessment accommodations only in reference to participation in assessments and the content of the IEP.

Reporting. Public reporting is a significant part of the assessment provisions in IDEA 97. The reporting requirements reflect the importance of knowing how well students are performing and the extent to which they are meeting standards, as well as the extent to which they are participating in the assessments. Reporting is the first step toward being accountable for the performance of students. Without data to know who is included in assessments and how they are performing, it is difficult to know whether they are learning what they should be learning. The specific wording of IDEA 97 related to public reporting is provided in Table 2. IDEA 97 also details specific requirements for reporting back to the U.S. Secretary of Education. These requirements are provided in Table 3.

Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). IEPs are the basis for making decisions about the way in which students participate in assessments (in the general assessment, with or without accommodations, or in an alternate assessment). IEP teams determine alignment of students’ goals and objectives with the general education curriculum and document needed instructional accommodations and assessment accommodations. The assessment-related requirements of IDEA 97 are shown in Table 4.

Changes in Practice in the Past Ten Years

IDEA 97 reflects a surge of interest in the participation of students with disabilities in state assessments, which started in the early 1990s. The National Center on Educational Outcomes has been instrumental in tracking the status of students with disabilities in state assessments, and in identifying ways to best include them in existing assessments. NCEO also has worked to identify the nature of inclusive assessment practices. The progress in moving toward inclusive assessment that has occurred over the past 10 years is reflected in NCEO’s analysis of written guidelines, both the extent to which they exist and the nature of the guidelines, and in the actual evidence of rates of participation, use of accommodations, and reporting practices. These are highlighted here.

Participation. All states with active state assessment systems now have written guidelines about the participation of students with disabilities in their assessments (Thurlow, House, Boys, Scott, & Ysseldyke, 2000). This compares to fewer than half of the states having written participation guidelines in the early 1990s (Thurlow, Ysseldyke, & Silverstein, 1993; Thurlow, Ysseldyke, & Silverstein, 1995). While this finding says nothing directly about what the participation policies are, it does reflect a dramatic change, driven to a large extent simply by the attention that has been given to the exclusion of students with disabilities from assessments.

The policies reflected in states’ written guidelines about the participation of students with disabilities in assessments also have changed over time. In 1993, when we first analyzed states’ participation guidelines, we found that state policies often indicated that participation in assessments was contingent on the type of disability the student had (e.g., mental retardation, learning disability) or the educational placement of the student (e.g., self-contained setting, < 50% time general classroom). Now, written guidelines more often refer to the decision-making process (e.g., involves IEP team and parents) and to various options for participation (e.g., partial participation, alternate assessment for those not able to participate in regular statewide assessment).

In terms of actual participation rates of students with disabilities in state assessments, the data are still somewhat difficult to gather and interpret. In part, this is due to the complexities involved in obtaining consistent data (see Erickson, Ysseldyke, & Thurlow, 1996). Some of the difficulties in obtaining accurate rates reflect problems created by general education and special education being treated as two separate systems. This means, for example, that the special education enrollment is based on December 1 child counts required for federal reporting, but the number of special education students at the time of testing is different, making it difficult to obtain an actual rate of participation for students with disabilities.

In the early 1990s, the majority of states reporting participation information to the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) indicated rates between 0% and 10% (Shriner & Thurlow, 1992). Today, reports of participation rates are much more specific. Many states are able to indicate the number of students with disabilities taking specific tests at specific grade levels (Erickson & Thurlow, 1997; Thompson & Thurlow, 1999). Furthermore, for most states, these numbers are not estimates. The states have altered their data collection systems so that they know how many students with disabilities actually took the state test. And, they know how many students were on their special education rolls on the day of testing.

Accommodations. The term “assessment accommodation” is used here to refer to a change in the testing materials or procedures that enables the student to participate in an assessment in a way that allows abilities or skills to be assessed rather than disabilities or language deficiencies (Thurlow, Elliott, & Ysseldyke, 1998). The problem with terminology that existed in the early 1990s remains today, with some states making distinctions between accommodations and modifications (the former being acceptable, and the latter resulting in changes in the meaning or comparability of scores), and others not making that distinction. Some states have lists of acceptable accommodations, with no others allowed. Some states have lists of accommodations, some of which produce scores that can be aggregated with other scores and some of which produce scores that cannot be aggregated with other scores.

All states with active state assessment systems now have written guidelines about accommodations allowed during the assessments (Thurlow, House, Boys, Scott, & Ysseldyke, 2000). As for participation guidelines, this compares to fewer than half of the states having written accommodations guidelines in the early 1990s (Thurlow, Ysseldyke, & Silverstein, 1993; Thurlow, Ysseldyke, & Silverstein, 1995).

The policies reflected in states’ written guidelines about accommodations also have changed over time. Guidelines are becoming more specific, and are reflecting much wider arrays of accommodations than they did in the early 1990s (Thurlow, House, Boys, Scott, & Ysseldyke, 2000). In addition, written guidelines now more often refer to the process of making decisions (e.g., involvement of the IEP team) and some of the criteria that must be considered in determining which accommodations are appropriate for a specific student (e.g., linking testing and instructional accommodations).

In all analyses of written guidelines that have been conducted by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) and related projects (cf. Thurlow, Ysseldyke, & Silverstein, 1993; Thurlow, Erickson, Spicuzza, Vieburg, & Ruhland, 1996; Thurlow, House, Boys, Scott, & Ysseldyke, 2000; Thurlow, Scott, & Ysseldyke, 1995; Thurlow, Seyfarth, Scott, & Ysseldyke, 1997), and in reports of state assessment directors about what is allowed (Bond, Braskamp, van der Ploeg, & Roeber, 1995; Bond, Roeber, & Braskamp, 1997; Bond, Roeber, & Connealy, 1998; Olson & Andrews, 1999; Roeber, Bond, & Braskamp, 1997), there are several findings that have remained consistent over time. One consistent finding is that there is considerable variability from one state to the next. Presentation accommodations, such as large print and Braille, continue to be the most frequently approved accommodations over time. States also continue to disagree about the acceptability of certain accommodations, such as extended time and reading a test aloud to the student. There continues to be some agreement about accommodations being acceptable under certain conditions, but not under others. For example, use of a scribe may be deemed appropriate for a test of math skills, but not appropriate for a writing exam. Similarly, certain accommodations may be considered acceptable for certain disabilities but not others. For example, allowing the test to be read to the student may be considered appropriate if the student is blind, but not if the student has a learning disability.

States are only recently beginning to keep track of what accommodations students are using (Thompson & Thurlow, 1999). Before this, there was considerable discussion about the large numbers of students requesting accommodations, the tendency to request all possible accommodations for individual students, and the logistical problem created by accommodations policies. In part, states beginning to collect information on the extent to which students are using accommodations and the scores that these students obtain may be a response to prompting from NCEO and others to do so. As states obtain this information, they are better able to determine how decisions are being made, whether appropriate decisions are being made, and, to some extent, how students who receive accommodations perform compared to students who do not receive accommodations (Elliott, Bielinski, Thurlow, DeVito, & Hedlund, 1999; Trimble, 1998).

In addition to state efforts to begin to gather information on accommodations, several studies are underway to examine the effects of specific accommodations on score comparability. In addition to studies that may have been undertaken by federal agencies, such as NCES, and by test developers, there are several studies that have been supported either by the Office of Special Education Programs or by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. These studies are just now beginning to produce some findings. For example, Tindal, Heath, Hollenbeck, Almond, and Harniss (1998) reported on two accommodations – marking on the bubble sheet versus marking in the test booklet, and having the math test read aloud in its entirety to the class versus typical administration procedures (students reading silently). The findings of this study highlight the complexity of conducting group-level research on accommodations. In part, the complexity is due to the relatively small numbers of students with disabilities, combined with the individual nature of their disabilities and the associated individualization of need for accommodations (see Thurlow, McGrew, Tindal, Thompson, Ysseldyke, & Elliott, 2000).

Reporting. NCEO first collected education accountability reports from states in 1996. In an analysis of the information on students with disabilities included in these reports (Thurlow, Langenfeld, Nelson, Shin, & Coleman, 1998), we found that only 11 states provided test-based outcome data on students with disabilities, other than child count data (i.e., how many students were receiving special education services). Five states reported data on the performance of students with disabilities in separate documents.

In another analysis (Ysseldyke, Thurlow, Langenfeld, Nelson, Teelucksingh, & Seyfarth, 1998), we found that 12 states disaggregated data on the performance of students with disabilities on statewide assessments. These states, of course, used a variety of assessment instruments, at different grades, and in different content areas. Nevertheless, we attempted to produce a common indicator of how these students performed. We looked at the results in terms of the percentage of students meeting state-defined standards in the area of reading. This analysis revealed that the percentage of students with disabilities meeting the defined standards was consistently about 30% to 50% less than the percentage of general education students doing so (see Figure 1).

Our most recent analysis of 170 state reports (Thurlow, Nelson, Teelucksingh, & Ysseldyke, 2000) conducted after the enactment of IDEA 97, showed that 17 states had disaggregated data on the performance of students with disabilities on statewide assessments. The data in these results were very similar to those in previous reports, with the performance of students with disabilities below that of other students. Only 14 states reported participation data, with their rates varying from 33% to 97% of students with disabilities.

Accountability. Although accountability is not addressed directly in IDEA 97, making sure that all students count the same way is a critical step in pursuing an inclusive assessment and accountability system. Accountability here refers to those systems that have consequences for schools, educators, and administrators. High stakes accountability systems are ones in which schools lose funding, receive cash awards, are designated for reconstitution, and so forth. Naturally, there is some resistance to including students with disabilities, who are often perceived as among the lowest performing students, ones likely to pull down scores and reflect poorly on those who experience the consequences of the accountability system.

Challenges Toward Achieving Truly Inclusive Accountability Systems

Despite federal laws that require the inclusion of students with disabilities in state and district assessments, there continue to be challenges to reaching this goal. These challenges can be identified within each of the four areas – participation, accommodations, reporting, and accountability.

Participation. The inclusion of students with disabilities continues to be challenged at the local level in many locations. In part this is due to a lack of sufficient professional development for practitioners so that they understand the benefits to be derived from including students with disabilities in assessments. The challenges also are due in part to continued low expectations for students with disabilities and to undue concerns about the trauma created in students required to participate in large-scale assessments.

As the stakes associated with school accountability increase, there is an unrelenting pressure to exclude the students who are not expected to perform well. Many of these students are students receiving special education services. Thus, it is important to have a federal law that counteracts that pressure. It is important both for the students (so that they will receive the benefits that are associated with participation in assessments) and to keep the system honest. It is hoped that eventually, the countervailing forces will push schools to address teaching and service needs, so that the education provided to students is that which maximizes the learning of each and every student.

High stakes for students is beginning to create a challenge to the field of special education. Assuming that students with disabilities should be required to meet the same standards as other students to receive a high school diploma (which they are not in many places; see Guy, Shin, Lee, & Thurlow, 1999), how can schools fairly assess that this has occurred? If tests are used to determine receipt of a high school diploma, as they are in 20 states (a number increasing each year), then how can we be sure that students have equal access to the test (i.e., that the needed accommodations are allowed during these tests)? How can we be sure that the students’ instruction over time has provided the same access to information as the instruction of other students? It may take a complete revamping of how services are provided to do this (since students with disabilities may miss entire courses, such as science, because they are scheduled to receive resource room services during the time they would have received science instruction). What does it mean for student outcomes if different diploma options are used (Thurlow & Thompson, 1999) or if they must use accommodations designated as non-approved (Thurlow & Wiener, 2000). I have only touched the tip of this iceberg. There are many challenges to face in the participation of students with disabilities in high stakes student accountability systems.

Accommodations. Accommodations will continue to challenge states, particularly since states use different assessments, which makes it difficult to simply take another states’ policies and apply them to their own tests. To some extent, a partial solution to this problem lies with the test developers. Up to now, most of the tests used by states are taken from item pools that are kept by major test development companies. Although some states develop their own test items, or have test items developed that reflect their own state standards, most states use either only items developed by testing companies, or they use a combination of their own items and items that have been developed by the test developers. Thus, we must turn to test developers to (1) include item developers who know about the needs of students with disabilities, (2) have their items reviewed for disability bias, and (3) allow needed accommodations to be used during field testing, throwing out items that do not perform well for these students as well as for the overall sample of students in field-testing.

Another challenge is for states to recognize the importance of continuing to collect data on the accommodations that are used during assessments. The goal here is both to inform them about what accommodations are being used, and possibly whether there are signs of “over-accommodation,” an indication that the IEP team decision-making process needs to be improved (see Fuchs, Fuchs, Eaton, Hamlett, & Karns, in press) and to determine how well students who use various accommodations are performing.

Reporting. States are just beginning to report on the participation and performance of students with disabilities as required by federal law. Several states have already done so, showing both the continuing challenges and the possibility that it can be done and done in a way that informs the field. For example, data from Kentucky have shown that while students with disabilities may perform below students without disabilities, the gap between the two groups can be reduced over time (Trimble, 1998). Data from other states reinforce the importance of carefully examining the makeup of groups when looking at changes in performance over time (Bielinski & Ysseldyke, 2000). It is important for states to begin to report data in a way that will inform their instructional policies. Simply reporting the number of students participating in assessments, and how they are performing is the first step down this road.

Accountability. For the most part, states have a long way to go here. Most states are first holding students accountable for learning, despite the warnings of a National Research Council study (Heubert & Hauser, 1998), which indicated that there should be no student accountability requirements until system accountability is well established). Those states with statewide accountability systems generally are not yet including students with disabilities in the same ways that other students are included (Krentz, Thurlow, & Callender, 2000).

To move toward truly inclusive accountability systems, states will need to accept that their educational systems are responsible for the learning of all students, and that this “all” includes students with disabilities (as well as other groups, such as students with limited English proficiency). Second, states will need to clarify their assumptions about how to reflect accountability for all in what typically reduces to a number – some type of accountability index. How will the state handle those scores from alternate assessments? How will the state handle those scores from students who have used accommodations that it has determined change the meaning of a score (Thurlow & Wiener, 2000)? How will the state deal with students who the IEP has determined will be too stressed by the test, or for whom parents have declined the opportunity for their child to take a test? The nature of the decisions that are made in response to these kinds of questions will determine the extent to which students with disabilities really are included in state assessments, and included in a way that gives the message that all students count. Several states now have plans for how they will count all students in their accountability systems, an important step toward creating an educational system responsible for the learning of all students.

References

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Table 1. IDEA 97 Requirements for Participation in Assessments

Table 2. IDEA 97 Requirements for Assessment Reporting

Table 3. . IDEA 97 Requirements for Performance Goals and Indicators

Table 4 IDEA 97 Requirements for the Individualized Education Program

Index