WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration wants to loosen the rules so that many more disabled children can take tests that are simpler than those required by the president's signature No Child Left Behind law.
The changes would triple the number of those children who could take simplified tests.
Roughly 10 percent of special education students -- those with the most serious cognitive disabilities -- currently can take easier, alternative tests and have the results count toward a school's annual progress goals under the law. Under final rules the administration was to unveil Wednesday, about another 20 percent of children with disabilities would be allowed to take alternative tests.
The No Child Left Behind law is up for renewal in Congress this year and lawmakers, educators and the public have pushed for many changes. The law imposes sanctions on schools that don't meet certain goals.
The new tests are for children who are not severely disabled but who have been unable to work on grade level because of disabilities, such as some forms of dyslexia.
The new tests won't be as easy as those given to the children already exempted from the regular tests, but they won't be as hard as those given to typical students.
Put together, the change means 3 percent of all children -- or roughly 30 percent of all children with disabilities -- will be allowed to be tested on standards geared for them.
"No Child left Behind has put the needs of students with disabilities front and center, and this regulation helps continue to drive the field forward in developing better tests for students with disabilities," Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in a statement.
The department said $21 million would be available to help states come up with the new tests.
The administration is responding to cries from states for more flexibility in how they test special education students.
The 2002 No Child Left Behind law requires that all students be tested in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school. When enough students miss annual progress goals, schools can face consequences such as having to overhaul their staffs. Schools can face sanctions even when just one subgroup of children, such as those with disabilities, fails to meet the benchmarks.
That has focused more attention on the progress of children with disabilities, says Doug Fuchs, a professor of special education at Vanderbilt University.
"It includes them in the same accountability framework as kids without disabilities," Fuchs said. "Educators feel as compelled to work with kids with disabilities as they are compelled to work with kids without disabilities."
Several advocacy groups for children with disabilities have raised some concerns about the change, saying they worry it could weaken the promise to leave no child behind.
"Most of these kids surprise us in what they can do," said Katy Neas, a lobbyist for Easter Seals. "When we set the bar higher, more kids do better than we ever thought they could."
Neas said she hoped the federal government would provide states and districts a lot of help in coming up with high-quality tests as well as help in implementing the new policy to ensure the right students are given the right tests.
"That's one place where the department really needs to step up to the plate," she said.
Lawmakers have said there needs to be more flexibility in how special education students are tested and accounted for under the law.
Lawmakers also are considering loosening the testing rules for students learning English and are considering giving states more flexibility in how they measure student progress. Schools that fail to meet progress goals by just a little are treated the same as schools that miss those goals by a lot, something lawmakers say is unfair.
Testing service cancels plans for new GRE exam
(AP) -- The makers of the GRE graduate school entrance exam have scrapped an extensive makeover of the test, citing concerns they wouldn't be able to accommodate enough students at test centers.
The Educational Testing Service, which designs the exam, had already delayed planned revisions by a year, including lengthening the exam from two-and-a-half to four hours. ETS also was planning substantive changes such as eliminating antonym and analogy questions and emphasizing more critical reading.
Most students already take the current version of the GRE on a computer, but ETS had hoped to switch to a more secure Internet-based system that would eventually expand the number of sites where the test could be taken.
The new version, however, was to be offered only about 30 times per year, whereas students are free to schedule the current test at almost any time.
On Monday, ETS and the Graduate Record Examination Board said they did not have the capacity to make the planned switch this fall and would stick with the old test and the centers where it was already being administered. The test had been in development for about five years, said ETS spokesman Tom Ewing.
"In the last three months we've looked very carefully at the issue of access and whether there were enough Internet-based testing centers available to ensure that every student who wanted to take the test could," he said. "It became clear that there were not enough domestically."
The GRE is taken by between 550,000 and 600,000 applicants to graduate programs annually.
The change involves very different issues than the scoring errors on the SAT college entrance exam that surfaced last year. But Monday's announcement could contribute to concerns that the standardized testing industry, busy with dozens of national and state-level standardized exams, has too much on its plate.
The announcement confirms ETS "has repeatedly tried to rush computerized exams into the marketplace before they were ready for prime time," said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the group FairTest, which has been critical of the testing industry. "They pushed these flawed products to increase test-maker income, not improve assessment quality or meet students needs."
Even though it scrapped the planned changes, ETS said it is still considering whether to increase the price of the exam. It had previously announced the cost would rise but had not said by how much. The current exam costs $130 in the United States and $160 in most other places.
"We're still evaluating whether the price is going to go up," Ewing said. "We suspect it will but we just don't know at this point."
The Educational Testing Service, which designs the exam, had already delayed planned revisions by a year, including lengthening the exam from two-and-a-half to four hours. ETS also was planning substantive changes such as eliminating antonym and analogy questions and emphasizing more critical reading.
Most students already take the current version of the GRE on a computer, but ETS had hoped to switch to a more secure Internet-based system that would eventually expand the number of sites where the test could be taken.
The new version, however, was to be offered only about 30 times per year, whereas students are free to schedule the current test at almost any time.
On Monday, ETS and the Graduate Record Examination Board said they did not have the capacity to make the planned switch this fall and would stick with the old test and the centers where it was already being administered. The test had been in development for about five years, said ETS spokesman Tom Ewing.
"In the last three months we've looked very carefully at the issue of access and whether there were enough Internet-based testing centers available to ensure that every student who wanted to take the test could," he said. "It became clear that there were not enough domestically."
The GRE is taken by between 550,000 and 600,000 applicants to graduate programs annually.
The change involves very different issues than the scoring errors on the SAT college entrance exam that surfaced last year. But Monday's announcement could contribute to concerns that the standardized testing industry, busy with dozens of national and state-level standardized exams, has too much on its plate.
The announcement confirms ETS "has repeatedly tried to rush computerized exams into the marketplace before they were ready for prime time," said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the group FairTest, which has been critical of the testing industry. "They pushed these flawed products to increase test-maker income, not improve assessment quality or meet students needs."
Even though it scrapped the planned changes, ETS said it is still considering whether to increase the price of the exam. It had previously announced the cost would rise but had not said by how much. The current exam costs $130 in the United States and $160 in most other places.
"We're still evaluating whether the price is going to go up," Ewing said. "We suspect it will but we just don't know at this point."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
