Students with disabilities are increasingly being included in large scale, high-stakes testing programs despite inadequate accommodations. In recent years, the school system has increased pressure on students in regards to testing. In the past, Kentucky has done a poor job of including impaired students in its statewide assessments; mainly in failing to provide the mandated accommodations for disabled students. In order to help these students with their learning skills, test scores, appropriate testing accommodations and the performance of students with disabilities. Results indicate that most Kentucky students have been included in the CATS assessment, but many the scores obtained from disabled students may not be reliable due to inappropriate accommodation.
What are Accommodations?
To allow for accurate assessment of disabled students, “accommodations are intended to provide fairer and more valid estimates of performance by removing disability related barriers to performance that are irrelevant to the construct the assessment is designed to measure” . Sadly, research on the effects of accommodations on impaired students is fairly scant; however, the amount of investigation into the subject is increasing as the importance of test scores rise.
“Tidal and his colleagues, for example, found that special education students perform better when a test was read to them than when they had to read it themselves.” While this observation seems to be something any competent teacher could discern, it is important for accommodations to simply level the playing field,—they are not meant to give impaired examinees an advantage—and as such, specific measurements must be taken. The Kentucky Department of Education collected and ana...
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...ildren into the mainstream classrooms, teachers are now expected to alter there lesson plans and teaching styles to accommodate differentiated instruction. For some teachers this change is seen as a positive experience to create a better environment and accommodate the individual needs of all of their students.”
The inclusion of disabled children into the general populace poses a new challenge to many teachers as they have not dealt with such children before. Furthermore, experience with impaired children may help teachers determine whether a struggling student is simply lazy or disabled. Schools should attempt obtain information about students’ strengths and weaknesses with the help of their parents and materials furnished by developmental experts. Such information would be vital to the identification, instruction and testing of children with special needs.
Wedl, R. J. (2005). An alternative to traditional eligibility criteria for students with disabilities. In Response to Intervention (pp. 1-19). Education Evolving.
It is required that the student be placed in the setting most like that of typical peers in which they can succeed when provided with needed supports and services (Friend, 2014). In other words, children with disabilities are to be educated with children who are not disabled to the maximum extent appropriate. Removal may only occur when education in regular classes, with the use of supplementary aids and services, cannot be achieved satisfactorily (Yell, 2006).
Since U.S. education has taken different actions for improving the education opportunities for disabled students. Considering that aspect, the number of admissions in such schools and institutions has increased since now educators have recognised the challenges that ableist still pervade the culture (Biklen et al., 2013).
What do we do with children with disabilities in the public school? Do we include them in the general education class with the “regular” learning population or do we separate them to learn in a special environment more suited to their needs? The problem is many people have argued what is most effective, full inclusion where students with all ranges of disabilities are included in regular education classes for the entire day, or partial inclusion where children spend part of their day in a regular education setting and the rest of the day in a special education or resource class for the opportunity to work in a smaller group setting on specific needs. The need for care for children with identified disabilities both physical and learning continues to grow and the controversy continues.
Standardized tests are used to measure academic success, but they are not a fair or accurate measurement tool. If a student is achieving good grades in class but fails to pass a state test, there is obviously a flaw in the system. Many of today's standardized tests are written so that only middle-class, English-speaking students can succeed. Standardized tests are often multiple-choice and rely on mental tasks rather than on spatial or visual abilities. As a result, these tests often reflect a student's disabilities. For example, standardized tests assume that each student will read each question in the same manner. However, research proves that each student processes words differently (Kohn, 2000). The case against standardized tests is not new. Banesh Hoffman, professor of mathematics, stated, "Multiple choice tests pena...
Standardized testing is an unreliable measure of schools and should not be used to measure student learning, achievement gaps,and/or teacher student quality. They are unfair and discriminatory towards students from low income and minoritygroup backrounds; english language learners and students with disabilities. According to W. James Popham, an expert on educational assessment, “if children come from advantaged families and stimulus rich environments, then they are more apt to succeed on items in standardized achievement tests than other children whose environments don't mesh as well with what the tests measure” (W. James Popham). Lowscoring students are not given the attention they need and they are not challenged or supported. Instead they are given “dumbeddown” curriculum which only causes the students to fall further behind. Meanwhile children with average scores
Students with disabilities have several delivery models that are made available to them. These students that have been identified as having a disability are to be given an equal opportunity to be the recipients of a fair and public education just as their non-disabled classmates. It is a legal requirement that the students are placed in an LRE (Least Restrictive Environment). The needs of the students and the resources available to them play an important factor in the placement of those individuals who has been identified as disabled. The following information was derived through classroom
The true purpose of school is to prepare children for their future in becoming lifelong learners and global citizens. For children with special needs, special education services prepare and provide support for them in dealing with the challenges they face daily. Laws such as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has enforced schools to provide education to all children and reinforces the purpose of the school, which is to provide children the Least Restrictive Environment to help them develop to their optimal potential. There are myriad of concerns regarding inclusion’s effect on typical developing students, yet a research done by Bui, Quirk, Almazan, and Valenti shows that “[p]resence of students with disabilities results in greater number of typical students making reading and math progress compared to non-inclusive general education classes” (p. 3). Therefore, inclusion not only benefits children with disabilities, but it also benefits typical developing student’s academic skills and allows them to learn acceptance and respect for students with disabilities.
The majority of students with disabilities should be in an inclusive setting. These students are generally placed based on the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). Furthermore, the majority of these students are able to keep up academically with their peers, even
The main obstacle faced by students with disabilities in the attempt to achieve educational equality is the continuing debate over the In...
By determining the connection between testing bias and academic achievement, it will justify the need for a future reform that would address the existing forms of educational discrimination. While a certain extent of unfairness in standardized tests is nearly impossible to avoid due to such issues as measurement errors, it is important to eliminate systematic institutional discrimination that continues to affect entire groups of students, not only individual cases. Therefore, there is a need in a large-scale educational change that may transform testing as we know it. This study may serve as one of the arguments in support of this future
Weigert, S. C. (2012). Aligning and Inventing Practices to Achieve Inclusive Assessment Policies: A decade of work toward optimal access for US students with disabilities 2001–2011. International Journal Of Disability, Development & Education, 59(1), 21-36. doi:10.1080/1034912X.2012.654935
The topic of assessment alone raises many debated discussions, among teachers, and to add Special Education students into the polemical dialogue intensifies the debate. As a result, there are several alternative methods in assessing Special Education students within the learning environment. Professionals have created specifically designated techniques in helping these and all students achieve academic success.
Education is a profession which requires a teacher to be able to communicate with a multitude of students on a variety of levels. There is not a class, or student for that matter, that is identical. Therefore, teachers must be able to identify and help educate students from all different types of backgrounds and at different levels. Teaching a singular subject presents difficulties, but teaching students with disabilities should not be one. There are three main teaching areas that need to be focused on when teaching a student with a learning disability. Teachers need to focus on the strategies that will assist students with reading comprehension skills, writing skills, and maintaining appropriate behaviors in a classroom setting.
Accommodations will help students achieve these academic goals, which can be instructional or environmental changes that help students to successfully understand and respond to the regular curriculum. These kinds of accommodations may be a change of seating in the classroom, sitting up front during story time or allowing more time on an exam. For example, a child who may have dyslexia needs to have an additional 20 minutes on exams, or have test questions and answers read to them aloud. These are accommodations made in order for the student to have the best chance of success. A student, who does not have a learning disability, doesn’t need those accommodations and would not necessarily benefit if they were given to