Student Test Accommodations: A Work In Progress

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) continues to work on a plan to accommodate students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs) in student standardized testing.  Connecticut, as a member of this consortium along with 24 other states and the Virgin Islands, expects to administer tests using SBAC’s accommodation plan beginning in the 2014-15 school year.

 

SBAC’s plan would include student accommodations in the design of the tests, which will be given online.  The tests will be “designed for all students” with built-in “accessibility tools and accommodations,” which include:

1. foreground and background colors,
2. tactile presentation of content (e.g., Braille), and
3. translated content in signed form and select languages.

The consortium pledges to work with experts to design and test the assessment system for students with special needs.  For information on SBAC’s advisory panels (e.g., English Language Learners Advisory Committee; Students with Disabilities Advisory Committee), see:  http://www.smarterbalanced.org/work-groups/.  A state-led Accessibility and Accommodations Work Group is also informing the design and testing of SBAC’s system. 

Additionally, SBAC has posted detailed reports from experts that summarize research on accommodations for ELLs and students with disabilities.  It appears that SBAC aims to use this research to inform its design of a detailed accommodation plan.

Education Week reports that the other multistate assessment consortium, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), issued a comprehensive policy document addressing test accommodations. The first edition of the PARCC Accessibility Features and Accommodations Manual advises districts to allow students to use:

1. read-aloud accommodations and American Sign Language interpretation on the language arts test,
2. a dictated (rather than written) response format, and
3. calculators on portions of the math test.

On June 26, 2013, the PARCC Governing Board approved the manual, which will be revised through spring 2014 after field testing.