State Technical Manual Forum:
Alternate
Assessments for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities
Introduction
States must document the technical adequacy of alternate
assessments based on alternate achievement standards just as
they do for other assessments. Yet, many state assessment
offices and their technical advisory committees (TACs) struggle
to understand how to do so.
The struggle to document technical adequacy of alternate
assessment based on alternate achievement standards reflects
concerns that the assessments may not “fit” well with
traditional methods of documenting reliability and validity that
are identified in the Standards for Educational and
Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, NCME, 1999). This is due, in
part, to the unique and heterogeneous characteristics of the
students who are held to alternate achievement standards
(estimated at under 1% of the total population of students). It
also relates to the difficulty of defining what the targets of
measurement are, requiring that special education, curriculum,
and assessment experts form new alliances to understand how
these children build competence in the academic content at grade
level and show what they know. It includes the very real
difficulty of defining, for the first time “how good is good
enough” for academic achievement for students with significant
cognitive disabilities.
This page provides a forum for sharing state technical
manuals for alternate assessments based on alternate achievement
standards. Through this forum, states can describe the current
status of alternate assessments based on alternate achievement
standards and demonstrate how traditional approaches to
technical adequacy apply to these assessments, including
documenting how they have reconceptualized traditional
measurement terms if necessary. We welcome submission of state
reports from any state.
Posting of the manuals does not imply endorsement from NCEO
or approval from our funding agency, the U.S. Department of
Education. The manuals are posted only for discussion purposes.
Our policy is that any state that wants to post its manual may
do so, although we reserve the right to suggest edits for
clarity, brevity, or to ensure Web site format compatibility and
accessibility.
We will provide state contact information so that the readers
can contact states directly for more information, or you may
contact our technical assistance staff with questions or
comments.
As a result of work done through the New Hampshire Enhanced
Assessment Initiative and the National Alternate Assessment
Center, we have provided a set of materials developed for the
October 2006 Seminars on Inclusive Assessment in Denver and
Alexandria. These include an annotated guide to technical
documentation of alternate assessments based on alternate
achievement standards, and PowerPoint presentations on several
key topics.
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NCEO and NAAC Resources
Note : This information is meant to solely provide a quick
introduction to each of these topics. For more in-depth
information, please contact us or staff at the National
Alternate Assessment Center.
See:
http://www.naacpartners.org/products.aspx for additional
resources.
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State Technical Manuals
Colorado
Colorado Contacts:
Terri Rogers Connolly
Assistant Director, Exceptional Student Leadership
303-866-6695
connolly_t@cde.state.co.us
Dena Coggins
Principal Consultant, Student Assessment
303-866-6709
Coggins_d@cde.state.co.us
Connecticut
Connecticut Contacts:
Janet Stuck
Education Consultant for Special Populations
Bureau of Research, Evaluation and Student Assessment
Connecticut Department of Education
Joseph Amenta
Education Consultant for Special Populations
Bureau of Research, Evaluation and Student Assessment
Connecticut Department of Education
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