High-Stakes Testing for Students with Special Needs

Abstract

A serious concern for Alaskan parents of students with disabilities is the difficulty that their children will almost surely have in qualifying for a diploma that requires them to tests that measure specific skills at levels beyond their reach, the authors point out. IN 1997 the Alaska legislature mandated that the Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) prepare and have administered the High School Graduation Qualifying Examination (HSGQE). The examination would consist of tests in mathematics, reading, and writing -- and only these areas. High school diplomas would be awarded only to those students who succeeded in meeting the minimum required pass scores on all three tests, which soon became referred to as the The genesis of the requirement is interesting. No hard data were gathered or analyzed. The impetus, according to a strong legislative advocate of the tests, came from complaints registered with legislators by parents, students, businesspeople, and university administrators. When questioned about the data gathered to justify the exit exam requirement, the legislator replied that he had acted on anecdotal evidence. This anecdotal evidence overlooked or ignored the fact that Alaska high school graduates have for years been attending and graduating from some of the most prestigious universities in the world. These graduates have returned to Alaska to staff hospitals, law offices, engineering firms, schools, and universities and to engage in any number of other professions requiring postsecondary education. A serious concern for parents of students with disabilities was the difficulty that their children would almost surely have in qualifying for a diploma that required them to tests that spoke only to specific skills at levels beyond their reach. A committee of parents and educators worked with the Department of Education and Early Development to recommend accommodations for students with disabilities. Sadly, the accommodations were to be available to only 2% of the special education population. Parents found this allocation less than munificent. To be fair, it must be noted that some parents of students with disabilities were not in favor of postponing or revising the exit exams for their children. These parents felt that their children should somehow be prepared by the schools to the regular examinations. Others had found unique and very expensive individualized programs that helped their children make greater progress than they had made in their classrooms. While citing such cases, legislators were in no way hastening to make such individualized tutoring available to the general population of students with disabilities. The original legislation set the year 2002 as the time when graduates' diplomas would be determined by test results. When the first administration of the exams proved disastrous for many students, especially in the area of mathematics, educators began to have second thoughts about the reasonableness of the tests. Rewrites were very much the order of the day, causing test zealots to bewail the abandonment of standards and opponents of high-stakes testing to gloat in smug satisfaction. Cooler heads seem to have prevailed, despite the indignation of some members of the Alaska House of Representatives, and the state senate passed a bill (S.B. 133) that both delayed the implementation of the diploma/no diploma provision and offered an alternative route to the diploma for students in special education classes. Under this provision, special education students who cannot the exit exams as they stand can earn a diploma by meeting the standards set down in an individualized education program (IEP). To this point we have made no mention of any data supporting either side in the debate over the exit exams. There is good reason for this, because the DEED has not disaggregated the data so that conclusions can be drawn about whether or not the tests are realistic for students in special education. …