Implementing Modified Achievement Tests: Questions, Challenges, Pretending, and Potential Negative Consequences

Abstract

As we write, thousands of educators across the country are working with Individual Education Program teams to determine the testing fate of their students enrolled in special education. The teams must decide which students will be required to participate in the challenging, rigorous, and lengthy regular accountability assessment (either with or without accommodations) and which students will be given the chance to demonstrate grade-level proficiency on a possibly less-challenging, shorter, alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAS). In the previous few years, hundreds of people, including staff from state departments of education, educators, test developers, parents, and advisors, have spent numerous hours debating the merits of a modified exam and working to develop an appropriate assessment and to select the correct group of students for whom this test would be most appropriate and beneficial. The purpose of this chapter is to consider whether the potential benefits of creating a different test—the AA-MAS—outweigh the possible negative consequences. While we are highly supportive of both the value of enhancing access to the general education curriculum and assessment for students in special education and the work of colleagues aimed at achieving this goal, we feel that a further examination of the benefits and consequences of the AA-MAS may be helpful to state leaders and test developers as they move forward in its development. More specifically, we address questions that are currently being raised related to the AA-MAS: Will more students be able to demonstrate 'proficiency' on a modified exam? Will fewer schools be penalized on adequate yearly progress now that an additional 2% of students in special education may be counted as proficient? Will instruction change for students who are now going to be held accountable for something other than full grade-level academic standards? Will all of the time and money spent to create this modified test actually have been worth it? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)