DRCNH Home > News > 11-24-03 school test results

Testing mandates spotlight schools' disability hurdles

From the Concord Monitor:

By KRISTIN PROULX
Monitor staff

News last week about less-than-adequate state test results in 30 percent of New Hampshire public schools has cast a spotlight on a problem many educators and disabilities rights advocates say has been around for years.

As a group, students with educational disabilities did not score as high as their classmates on the statewide math and reading tests given last May to students in third, sixth and 10th grade. The difference in scores illustrated a significant statewide gap in performance that New Hampshire schools will have to close to comply with federal education laws.

At one time, some students enrolled in special education programs were exempt from taking the annual statewide tests. But under current federal education laws, including No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, every student must participate and every student's scores must be counted.

In 1997, amendments to the disabilities education law required that, by the 2000-01 school year, schools in every state would test every child with disabilities, either with an alternative assessment or the regular statewide test with special accommodations. In New Hampshire, fewer than 1 percent of students in the state (about 320 students with severe or multiple disabilities) complete a portfolio of work rather than taking the regular test.

For three years, the state has collected the test scores of students with disabilities, but until now, schools have not been held accountable for the results.

No Child Left Behind, however, requires that states rate the annual success of whole schools and districts as well as various smaller groups of students. This year, for the first time under the new law, the low test scores of special education students can count against a school in which the majority of students score average or better. If one group within the school doesn't meet the state's standards, the whole school is designated as not making progress.

Statewide, kids with disabilities were just one group of students who didn't fare well on the tests. African-American and Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students and students learning English as a second language also scored low as a group. But students in special education programs showed the most widespread lack of progress, according to the Department of Education.

And for many of the 140 elementary, middle and high schools designated by the state as not making "adequate yearly progress" this year, the low test scores of students with disabilities meant the difference between making progress and falling short. Schools that don't make adequate improvement for several years in a row can be required to change their curricula, replace teachers and other staff members and offer parents the chance to send their kids to another school in the district.

Though advocates say the gap in scores between students with disabilities and those without disabilities is not inevitable, some educators say standardized tests are not the best way to measure the accomplishments of a student who has difficulty learning.

"Kids with cognitive delays are not learning as quickly as everyone else. For kids with emotional disabilities, it depends on the day and their stress level," said Jo Ellen Divoll, the special education director for the Franklin School District. "It's hard for a student who has a language learning disability to be required to compete in reading. We're making them take a test they can't do."

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Making accommodations
Before the state began testing all students in May 2001, school districts could choose not to test certain students with disabilities. In some districts, 2 or 3 percent of kids weren't tested. In other towns, as many as 10 percent of students were exempted.

"The playing field for comparing schools was not even at all, and nobody was questioning whether schools were exempting too many (students)," said Susan Izard, a special education consultant with the Department of Education.

To even things out and help kids with special needs improve their chances of testing success, students with disabilities are allowed the same accommodations for the state test that are used when they complete other tests, quizzes and daily school assignments, as outlined in their individual education plans.

The accommodations permitted by the state include letting a student complete the test in a separate room (alone or with a small group of other students) or at a different time of day. Students can be allowed extra testing time or frequent breaks during the test period. Some students can use additional equipment (calculators, word processors, special pencils, dictionaries for kids who know limited English or multiplication charts for kids with math learning disabilities), or different versions of the test (a Braille version or a version in the student's native language, if he or she is not an English-speaker). In some cases, a teacher or classroom aide can read the test directions aloud or read portions of the math section aloud if a student has limited literacy skills. Students without disabilities can also take advantage of certain accommodations approved by their school district.

And two years ago, in order to comply with the disabilities education law, the state created its alternative assessment program. Instead of administering an exam, teachers gather examples of a student's work in each subject over several months and submit the portfolio to the state for review.

These special testing circumstances, particularly the portfolio collection, require extra time and extra teachers.

"On paper it makes sense, but in reality it's a lot of work for staff," said Bill Carozza, principal at Harold Martin School, an elementary school in Hopkinton.

Despite extra time, special equipment and privacy during the test period, some educators say there's no denying that many kids with educational disabilities have a tough time on the test.

The math test in particular is a challenge. The problem, said Merrimack Valley High School Principal Pam Burke, is that many 10th-graders in the special education program are still working on learning basic skills - multiplication and fractions, for instance - when they take the state test, which is based in high school algebra and geometry. In addition, students with language learning disabilities may have trouble understanding and solving the word problems that are common in advanced math. Right now, the district is hoping to add a new math series to the special education curriculum that Burke hopes will offer complex mathematical ideas in simpler formats.

"We have to look at how we can modify the regular curriculum rather than giving them a different curriculum," she said.

Though the high school met the state's standards this year, next year could be very different, Burke said.

"Let's face it, some excellent high schools are on that list. We're not on the list, but we could be tomorrow. Either way, we need to continue to close the gap."

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Advocates: It's about time
Examining the poor performance of students with disabilities can have both positive and negative consequences. Jan Nisbet, the director of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire, says schools need to use state testing data to reassess the way kids in special education programs are being taught. There are many reasons why a student who has a disability might not perform as well on a standardized test, said Nisbet. Teachers may not be adequately trained. The test itself may not be a good measure of skills. Or expectations for kids with special needs may not be high enough.

"If we don't raise the bar, if we don't expect kids with disabilities to be performing, nothing's going to change for them," said Nisbet.

But Nisbet also fears that focusing attention on special education can make scapegoats of students and their families, she said.

"The worrisome issue is that if schools take a look at their scores and they're not making progress . . . one response is to point the finger at kids who are in many ways suffering from not having decent instruction," said Nisbet.

Dick Cohen, executive director of the Disabilities Rights Center, an advocacy group based in Concord, has tracked the progress of students with disabilities both in New Hampshire and in other states. He says several school districts in the state have managed to raise the performance of kids with disabilities. Outside New Hampshire, some states - Massachusetts, New York and Minnesota, for example - have also succeeded in "closing the gap," said Cohen.

But among New Hampshire schools where the difference in scores in significant, even students who have physical or emotional disabilities but no learning disabilities have lower test scores.

"Kids with disabilities are not getting the kind of curriculum they need to do well on these tests," said Cohen. "It's been proven that these kids can do well, and it's taken something like No Child Left Behind to focus some attention on it. It's unfortunate that we need a law that has some consequences, but unless there's some reason for (schools) to focus on it, they apparently haven't."

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Fair comparisons?
Educators admit they need to address the reasons for the low test scores, but some feel the way the state uses those scores is unjust. Broken Ground School in Concord was one of the only elementary schools in the city where enough children were enrolled in special education for the state to include the scores in last week's progress report. If there are fewer than 11 kids in a group at a school, the state does not count the scores for statistical reasons. At Broken Ground, 19 children were tested.

Elsewhere in Concord, other third-graders with educational disabilities scored about the same as those at Broken Ground, said Principal Susan Lauze. Because of the numbers, though, only Broken Ground was named as not making adequate progress, despite the fact that third-graders without disabilities at the elementary school had test scores that met the state's standards.

"Obviously it's good for us to look at all of our children. It gives us an idea of what additional things we could be doing. . . . But it doesn't seem like a very fair way to do it. It's not a reflection on our students' progress or our staff," said Lauze. "My message to Concord would be that we all need to take a look at this, not just Broken Ground School."

Other teachers say when it comes to tests, some kids do get left behind despite a school's attempts to provide alternate ways to test them. Divoll says special accommodations don't equal success for every student in Franklin.

Kids with milder learning disabilities, for instance, may benefit from having more time to complete a test or having test directions read aloud by a teacher. And students who are severely disabled are better off being judged on a portfolio of data rather than a single test.

But for students in the middle of the spectrum, accommodations and practice tests can't improve skill levels that are still too low.

In Franklin, two elementary schools and the high school did not meet the state's standards for adequate progress. Divoll and other special educators in the district are looking at several supplemental programs - including extra tutoring, professional development for teachers and changes in the curriculum - they hope will make a difference for kids with disabilities in all grades.

Still, Divoll wonders how students with such a range of abilities will fit into a one-size-fits-all measure of their achievement.
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(Kristin Proulx can be reached at 224-5301, ext. 304 or at kproulx@cmonitor.com)

Monday, November 24, 2003