Common core or SMARTER Balanced? Maybe it’s neither
(Calif.) As the state steps back to revise its assessment of the school accountability system with the advent of common core and SMARTER Balanced assessments, there is an opportunity for legislators and officials to reconsider policies related to testing students with disabilities.
For most SWD – those in the mild to moderate range (who in the Golden State have been taking the California Modified Assessment) – a fundamental change is already a forgone conclusion. The U.S. Department of Education issued a “Notice of Proposed Rule Making” last August announcing its intent to mandate the inclusion of that group in the standard assessment measures used by any state.
When setting forth the background to the proposed regulation, the Education Department stated: “More accessible general assessments…can promote high expectations for all students, including students with disabilities, by encouraging teaching and learning to the academic achievement standards measured by the general assessments.”
In other words, these learners deserve to be tested and held to high expectations the same as everybody else.
And that’s a good thing.
If teachers and administrators want to see student performance measures improve, they will need to make sure the special education curricula, at least for most of the high incidence disabilities, match the curricula being provided the mainstream population. And they will also need to treat these pupils as part and parcel of the overall student body rather than an undervalued subgroup.
But that raises a question: what about the even smaller subset of pupils with severe cognitive impairments, a percentage that is probably about 9 to 10 percent
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