Federal

Common-Core Group Details Test Accommodations

By Christina A. Samuels & Lesli A. Maxwell — July 09, 2013 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A group of states designing tests to measure how well students are mastering the common standards last week approved a slate of testing supports that includes read-aloud accommodations on the English/language arts assessment for students with disabilities and written word-to-word translations to some English-language learners’ native languages.

The 21-state Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, signed off on its first edition of an accommodations and accessibility manual for students with disabilities and English-learners. The testing supports—which also include interpreting the English/language arts assessment for students who use American Sign Language—will be field-tested in the 2013-14 school year, and adjusted as needed before the tests debut in 2014-15, PARCC officials said.

Expanding Access

Overall, PARCC’s policies are meant to expand access to tests beyond what may be currently available for students in some states. Some accommodations once linked to students with special needs—such as repeating instructions aloud or magnifying text—are now among the test’s “embedded supports” available to any student, even those who are not formally identified as ELLs or students in special education.

But allowing a read-aloud accommodation for students with disabilities will be a major shift in testing policy for most states in the PARCC consortium; only Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Tennessee currently allow text passages on language arts state tests to be read aloud, though read-aloud can be used for tests measuring other academic areas.

That prompted state leaders from Colorado—who said allowing the accommodation on the English/language arts test would not be a true measurement of reading—to vote against approving the manual. It was the only dissenting vote.

Students who use the read-aloud and American Sign Language accommodations will have notations on their score reports indicating that no claims can be made about their ability to demonstrate foundational print skills such as decoding and fluency.

Joyce Zurkowski, the executive director of assessment for Colorado, told her PARCC colleagues that she had talked with the original writers of the English/language arts standards, who said “if kids can’t access that text independently, they can’t be considered proficient readers.” Oklahoma’s schools chief, Janet Barresi, voiced reservations about allowing American Sign Language interpretation unless it can be “literally word-for-word” and said that students would have need to have already had that kind of support leading up to the test in order for their scores to be comparable.

The read-aloud portion of the accommodations manual had been one of the most-debated sections of the document, drawing thousands of responses to earlier policy drafts. Some special education advocacy groups argued in favor of a broad use of multiple ways of accessing text, including read-aloud, unless the test was specifically a measurement of decoding.

Among the groups taking that stance is the Center for Applied Special Technology, a Wakefield, Mass.-based research organization that promotes universal design in instruction and test development. Chuck Hitchcock, CAST’s chief officer of policy and technology, said the current manual is better, from his perspective, than earlier drafts that took a more restrictive approach to the use of read-aloud.

However, in an email to PARCC leaders, he said he still had concerns with the organization’s plan to put a notation on student score reports indicating that where read-aloud is used, no claims can be made about a student’s foundational print skills.

English-Learners

PARCC’s policy for ELLs calls for accommodations to be available, in large measure, by the level of an English-learner’s language proficiency. Students at beginning levels of proficiency, for example, can have test directions “clarified” by a test administrator in their native language for both the math and English/language arts exams, though that accommodation is not recommended for ELLs with advanced proficiency. Beginning ELLs will also be allowed to have their oral responses to math test items transcribed to text.

Written word-to-word translations from English to an ELL’s native language are recommended for those with intermediate and advanced proficiency levels. The manual states that students at the lowest proficiency levels generally benefit more from oral test supports than written ones.

Extended time will also be available to all English-learners, regardless of proficiency.

PARCC has not yet addressed the issue of native language translations of the assessments. With member states like Arizona, an “English-only” state, and New York, which provides assessments in multiple languages, PARCC staff members said that issue will take more time to resolve.

A version of this article appeared in the July 11, 2013 edition of Education Week as PARCC Gives Details On Testing Supports

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School Climate & Safety Webinar
Investing in Success: Leading a Culture of Safety and Support
Content provided by Boys Town
Assessment K-12 Essentials Forum Making Competency-Based Learning a Reality
Join this free virtual event to hear from educators and experts working to implement competency-based education.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Substitute Teacher Staffing Simplified: 5 Strategies for Success
Struggling to find quality substitute teachers? Join our webinar to learn key strategies to keep your classrooms covered and students learning.
Content provided by Kelly Education

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Trump's Push to Expand Choice, Nix the Ed. Dept. Takes on New Momentum
Trump’s decisive victory doused accelerant over his plans to dismantle the Education Department and expand school choice.
5 min read
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, with Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, right, at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
President-elect Donald Trump, left, with Vice President-elect JD Vance at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. Trump's education policy priorities of expanding school choice, cutting federal education spending, and abolishing the Education Department have taken on new energy with his decisive victory Tuesday in the presidential election.
Evan Vucci/AP
Federal How Trump’s Second Term Will Affect Education: 4 Things to Know
Trump has spent little time discussing education, but schools could feel the impact of his administration's policymaking and enforcement.
4 min read
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Evan Vucci/AP
Federal What's at Stake for Schools as Trump Returns to the White House
The former president has pledged major changes to education policy, but much of his agenda for schools is a political longshot.
4 min read
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves as he walks with former first lady Melania Trump at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Donald Trump waves as he walks with former first lady Melania Trump at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. He has pledged to abolish the Department of Education and expand private school choice when he returns to the White House.
Evan Vucci/AP
Federal Opinion What's Really at Stake for Education in This Election?
What a Harris or Trump presidential victory might mean for federal education policy, according to Rick Hess.
5 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week