About the Alernative Assessment Project
The goal of the Alternate Assessment Initiative is to ensure that Kentucky's alternate assessment meets federal guidelines and is prepared for upcoming changes in Kentucky's assessment and accountability system. Kentucky was the first state to include students with severe disabilities in their assessment and accountability system through the implementation of an alternate assessment. Indeed, Kentucky has led the nation in implementing alternate assessments. However, the recent changes in federal requirements provide us with a unique opportunity to build upon a tradition of quality.
The Alternate Assessment Initiative has laid out several activities to review the present assessment system and design and pilot the assessment strategies recommended by the Alternate Assessment Advisory Committee, made up of teachers, parents and administrators from across the state. Further recommendations will be made by the GSEG Technical Advisory Committee, made up of national assessment experts, university and Kentucky Department of Education staff and general and special educators working together throughout the length of the grant.
The first activity was conducted in February. A content alignment study in Language arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies determined the extent to which students are accessing the curriculum in these areas. A stratified sample of 130 portfolios (43 from each school level) from the current accountability cycle were selected from elementary, middle and high school levels and reviewed to determine the extent to which the targeted skills evident in the student work aligned with the content in language arts, math, science and social studies. Four teams of reviewers, one team for each content area conducted the reviews. The review teams included two special educators, a general educator from each of the content areas. A data base was designed in order to conduct specific quantitative analyses and the results of this study will inform the Technical Panel discussions as well as the advisory board discussion in terms of aligning the assessment to NCLB grade requirements. The completed report will be available in late June.
The second activity will convene integrated content and alternate assessment design teams to review and define content assessed in Language arts, Math, Science and Social Studies across elementary, middle and high school grade levels. These design teams will develop twelve content maps, one for each content area for three school levels including elementary, middle, and high school. In addition to the content standards, the content maps will include appropriate learning and assessment activities that are based on the theory of Universal Design for Learning.
Specifically, multiple means of expression and representation will be addressed in the content maps (CAST, 2002). In addition, an alternate assessment design specialist will recommend instructional/assessment strategies that can used effectively with the content and design and draft the alternate achievement standards working document for each content area. There will be four content teams with three general educator content specialists, three special educators, and one assessment specialist on each team.
The third activity will conduct a field-test of the assessment and scoring strategies. A field-test of the redesigned alternate assessment will be conducted with a minimum of 72 students, 24 per school level. Teachers at each level will participate in a review of the assessment materials and focus group interviews regarding implementation with students. In addition, the assessments will be scored using the current scoring rubric and a new rubric to determine the extent of scoring discrepancies between the current instrument and the redesigned instrument. The results of the field-test would then be forwarded to both the Technical Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee for a review and recommendations for statewide implementation which will include the following;
Once all the scoring has been completed, a standard setting meeting will be convened to finalize the achievement standard sets (Basic, Proficient, and Advanced distributed across the four performance descriptors used in Kentucky (e.g., Novice, Apprentice, Proficient, Distinguished).
Finally, the Technical Advisory Panel will be convened to consider the results of the implementation and recommend validity studies to be conducted with the new data.