CA goes it alone on special ed testing
(Calif.) California is moving forward with a plan to develop and administer its own assessment for cognitively disabled students after learning barely a month ago that it would not be allowed to test drive a new national model being launched this spring.
The California State Board of Education took no formal action on the alternate assessment issue Wednesday but it did sign off on a three-year, $33 million testing contract with the group taking over administration of its statewide standardized testing program. These computerized assessments – developed by the state consortium Smarter Balanced for alignment with new education standards – were practice-tested earlier this year and go live next spring.
Transfer of the testing contract had been in the works for over a year and was mostly a foregone conclusion, but news that California was being excluded from the launch of a new alternate assessment came as somewhat of a surprise.
Upon learning July 30 that the National Center and State Collaborative would not allow California’s 39,000 cognitively disabled students to field test its new alternate assessment this spring, state Department of Education staff began exploring other alternatives.
Options, they said, include looking at alternate assessments already being used in other states, as well as continuing participation in the NCSC’s pilot test of its assessment, which wraps up in October. The state could then choose to use an existing assessment, or piece one together using a combination of items that meet the needs of the California students.
Federal law requires that all students with disabilities – including those identified as severely cognitively impaired – be held to grade-level achievement standards as measured by an alternate form of state standardized testing.
Up to now, the state has used the California Alternate Performance Assessment to measure academic achievement of this special group of students. But implementation of the Common Core education standards required the development of new tests designed to assess whether students are CA goes it alone on special ed testing :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: