Harold L. Kleinert

Accountability for All Students: Kentucky's Alternate Portfolio Assessment for Students with Moderate and Severe Cognitive Disabilities

One of the keys to ensuring high expectations for all students is the requirement for inclusive measures of educational accountability. Recognizing this need, Congress enacted Title II, National Education Reform Leadership, Standards, and Assessments, calling for the development of state assessment systems that fully include all students, as a major component of the 1994 Goals 2000: Educate America Act. At present, Kentucky is the only state in the nation that fully includes all students within a statewide educational assessment and accountability system. Students with moderate and severe cognitive disabilities participate in Kentuckys assessment system via the Alternate Portfolio. This article describes the development of Kentuckys alternate assessment, including the content and scoring standards for the Alternate Portfolio. Specific examples of entries at each grade level (4th, 8th, and 12th) are given as well. Initial implementation data, including reliability, validity, and instructional impact measures, are presented. Finally, critical issues in the development of alternate statewide assessments are discussed, with recommendations for future research efforts in this area.

Characteristics of and Implications for Students Participating in Alternate Assessments Based on Alternate Academic Achievement Standards

Little research has precisely defined the population of students participating in alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). Therefore, the purpose of this article is twofold: (a) explicate the findings of a multistate study examining the characteristics of the population of students participating in AA-AAAS, and (b) discuss the implications of those findings for instruction and assessment that move us closer to understanding what these students know and can do. The article discusses the results of our study within and across these seven states, implications for practitioners, and future research directions that should be considered for both instruction and assessment.

An Analysis of the Learning Characteristics of Students Taking Alternate Assessments Based on Alternate Achievement Standards

This study examined the learner characteristics of students in alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards in three geographically and demographically different states. On the basis of the results, it can be argued that students in alternate assessments fall into at least two distinct subgroups. The first set of learners have either symbolic or emerging symbolic levels of communication, evidence social engagement, and possess at least some level of functional reading and math skills. The second set of students have not yet acquired formal, symbolic communication systems; may not initiate, maintain, or respond to social interactions consistently; and have no awareness of print, Braille, or numbers. The authors provide implications and considerations of the findings of the Learner Characteristics Inventory for states and practitioners in developing alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards.

A Validation Study of the Performance Indicators and Learner Outcomes of Kentucky's Alternate Assessment for Students with Significant Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to conduct an expert validation of Kentuckys alternate assessment for students with significant disabilities. Since 1992, this has been the only fully operational, statewide alternate assessment system in the nation. A total of 44 national authorities in best practices for students with moderate and severe cognitive disabilities responded to this validation. This study revealed a high degree of professional congruence on the core of best practices embodied in the performance criteria for Kentuckys alternate assessment. However, respondents raised concerns about the extent to which more limited learner outcomes had been identified for students with significant disabilities, and whether the alternate assessment was sufficiently aligned to the general curricular expectations for all students. Finally, we present considerations for other states and local school districts in the design of alternate assessments, as well as the specific revisions in content and scoring standards Kentucky has made to more clearly address the relationship of its alternate assessment to the states learning outcomes for all students.

Including Students With Moderate and Severe Intellectual Disabilities in School Extracurricular and Community Recreation Activities

We conducted an online statewide survey of teachers of students with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities to determine the extent to which their students were included in school extracurricular and community recreation activities. For the 252 teacher respondents who indicated that their primary caseload consisted of students with significant intellectual disabilities, we report the numbers of students participating in school and community activities and the primary type of support students required to participate in each activity. Finally, we identify implications for practitioners who want to increase the participation of students with significant disabilities in school and community activities.

Alternate Assessment: Have We Learned Anything New?

Since the first review of alternate assessment literature by Browder, Spooner, Algozzine, et al. (2003), educational research related to alternate assessment has rapidly expanded as state and federal policies have required the inclusion of students with disabilities, including students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, in state and school accountability indexes. The purpose of this literature review was to examine the empirical studies conducted since the conception of alternate assessment to evaluate the progress made in this area, using a research framework proposed by Browder et al. We discuss future research directions, particularly as these relate to recent changes in federal policy under No Child Left Behind as well as implications for teachers and practitioners.

An Introduction to Alternate Assessment.

ity for all students. The impetus for these changes started in the 1980s with A Nation at Risk, (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) and subsequent calls for educational reform. In 1989, the governors from all states met in Charlottesville, Virginia, to outline a set of national education goals. Individual states, in turn, began to develop content standards for what students needed to know and do, and to consider how to measure student knowledge and skills in ways that could be publicly reported (Kleinert & Thurlow, in press). However, policymakers soon realized that there was a very significant gap in measuring learning results for all students. Researchers (McGrew, Thurlow, & Spiegel, 1993) were reporting the exclusion of large number of students with disabilities from large-scale assess-

Models of Cognition for Students With Significant Cognitive Disabilities: Implications for Assessment

This article addresses the application of the assessment triangle developed by the National Research Council (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001), most specifically the cognition vertex of that triangle, to the unique learning characteristics of students with significant cognitive disabilities in developing and demonstrating academic competence. Given the inclusion of all students, including students with significant cognitive disabilities, in measures of large-scale educational assessment and accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act, it is essential to examine how the primary elements of knowledge representation and competence identified by Pellegrino et al. for all students have special ramifications for students with significant cognitive disabilities. It is only in the development of such a model of competence that it is possible to construct alternate assessments for these students that validly represent what these students know and can do.

Developmental disabilities: improving competence in care using virtual patients.

Nurse practitioners (NPs) have an increasingly important role in health care provision in the United States. However, most nurses report that they receive little or no clinical training in the area of developmental disabilities. A core development team consisting of NP faculty members from three universities, one physician assistant faculty member, the parents of children with developmental disabilities, and educational specialists developed two multimedia interactive pediatric instructional modules in CD-ROM format: one involving a child with Down syndrome and the other, an infant born at 26 weeks gestation. Participants were required to make decisions about proper clinical interaction throughout the cases. The modules on CD were piloted with NP students at three universities. Effectiveness study results demonstrated significant gains in both knowledge and comfort level regarding the care of patients with developmental disabilities.

“I Can” and “I Did”—Self-Advocacy for Young Students with Developmental Disabilities

include the abilities to select personal goals, plan steps toward goals, assess one’s progress, make choices, and selfmonitor and self-evaluate one’s behaviors (Wehmeyer, Palmer, Agran, Mithaug, & Martin, 2000; Wehmeyer & Sands, 1998). These are important skills in both current and future environments (Hamm & Mirenda, 2006). Unfortunately, youth with significant intellectual and developmental disabilities often lack the opportunity to participate in the decisions that affect them on a daily basis (Thoma, Rogan, & Baker, 2001). Even when opportunities for self-determined behaviors do arise, youth with significant disabilities often do not display these behaviors in the context of their school and everyday routines (Carter, Owens, Trainor, Sun, & Swedeen, 2009). How can their self-advocacy skills be strengthened? What can teachers and administrators do to support this growth? This article describes the stepby-step procedures utilized by the Kentucky Youth Advocacy Project (KYAP) team to train both students with disabilities and school personnel to increase self-advocacy and self-determination—and to support these skills with the development of strong communication systems. Communication and Self-Determination: A Fundamental Relationship