Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Special Education Challenges
Question: Are the accountability systems present in the reauthorization of IDEA, mainly the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests at the year end, the most appropriate method for measuring the progress of special education students? Are there other methods of measuring adequate yearly progress and growth other than standardized testing that might be more beneficial?
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I believe that there are better ways to measure academic growth of children. The SOL tests currently used a the end of the school year are not necessarily an adequate or appropriate measure of information learned. I teach in a elementary setting, with testing occurring at the end of the third grade. SOL tests include information from Kindergarten through the third grade. I do not believe that this is an appropriate way to measure growth. There are no SOL tests in the previous years, providing no data for teachers about prior knowledge. For special eduacation students in particular, I do not feel that testing four full years of learning at the end is not feasible. It may show some strengths and weaknesses, but fails to show evidence of knowledge gained from the onset of learning.
ReplyDeleteI also agree. There are so many various methods of assessment available at this time, it seems obvious that teachers should be using something other than a single test score. The results of a single test, such as the SOL test, is not a true indication of growth. In order to measure growth throughout the year is to gather information at the start and completion of a program, as well as throughout the grading period. It is my hope that changes to the SOL's, VGLA, etc will be beneficial to all educators and students.
ReplyDeleteI do not feel that the standardized tests currently used to assess students is most appropriate for those students in special education. Although a special education student may not receive a passing score on this type of standardized assessment, he/she may have made great gains since the start of the educational career. I feel that it is more important when dealing with these students to focus on the progress and growth of the individual rather than on a single score. Students could be tested after shorter increments of time and on smaller chunks of information. Their successes could be measured through the observation of the educator in correlation with the report card.
ReplyDeleteAs a special education teacher I feel that testing of a special education student with SOL single score is not fair. The attention apan of many of these students are extremely short and to test by these methods is hard on the students.
ReplyDeleteTesting in shorter amounts of time (testing every
6 months instead of years at a time);as it is now they will not succeed. Observations of students as well as objectives on IEP's could be helpful to determine success.
As a retired teacher I did not while teaching and still do not think the SOL testing is a way of assessing regular students but especially not special ed students. There are many other forms of measurement that can be used. Performance from the whole year as it is going on will give much more results. Also special ed students should not be tested as regular students. They are not in the regular program for a reason so why expect them to perform in the same way.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that the SOL's are the be all and end all in measuring student progess and growth. Yes, the SOL's are a way to measure adequate progress of most students; that is, students who can reasonably expect to make a year's worth of progress in one year. However, in the world of special education, there are very different factors to consider; not every student will make a year's worth of progress in one year, or maybe they will, but not in every skill measured by the SOL's. But this does not mean that they are not learning or that they are not being taught; it just means they learn differently and sometimes more slowly than the general popuation. The growth model and RtI offer some new ways to take assessments ongoing throughout the year in order to measure progress and then tailor instruction accordingly. This seems a valuable tool that can be used for all students.
ReplyDeleteAs an IEP meeting individualizes instructional methods and accommodations for students with special abilities, it should also allow the team to fully individualize the testing that the students require to demonstrate what they have learned. I do feel NCLB has focused us on assessment which has improved in the special education area from when NCLB was initially signed into law. The assessment area needs to be improved further.
ReplyDeleteSOL testing seems to be an accurate measure of a student's knowledge at the time the test is being given. Many students, special education students included, but not exclusively the students with the special needs, may feel pressured upon entering the testing site (especially since students are taking SOLs online) to complete tests more quickly, may focus more on the environment and provide inaccurate answers due to not paying attention, may be concentrating on a personal illness, or an event that occurred at home the night before, etc. If given the exact same test at another time the same child may perform much better or could perform worse depending on one or multiple factors listed just above. To gather an understanding of what a student's progress is throughout the year, various types of assessments should be given at the beginning of the year and the same various types repeated at year end and evaluate the progress/decline made upon the average of multiple assessments. Yes, this would take much more work and time, however, many students perform much better in hands on demonstrations than on a "bubble test." Also, in my experience, I have had students do much better if they did not realize that what I was having him/her do was going to be counted as a test score. The child would gather anxiety and perform much more poorly if he had heard it was a "test." I wish all of us educators good luck as we attempt to educate our children despite all of these situations, stumbling blocks, changes in curriculum, disabilities (diagnosed and undiagnosed), etc. to perform his/her best and graduate from high school with yet a desire to continue into a college education despite the "standardized testing to death" they received in public education.
ReplyDeleteI am not a special ed teacher so will address this from a "regular" classroom teacher's perspective. I do not think the SOLs are a fair measure of what a child has learned in a year(or for 3rd graders in 4 years). I think there are other means of assessing growth such as pre/post testing in every grade. I do not think that sp ed students should be held to the same standards as "regular" classroom students; I do think the accommodations that are allowed in testing are a step in the right direction. I'm sure, if asked, sp ed teachers could suggest many ways to assess learning. Sometimes in our educational system, I think we forget to ask the people on the "front lines" of education what they think and fail to give them an opportunity to participate in all phases of the learning process.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to rock the boat a little bit :-) SOL's are supposed to be the most basic knowledge a student is supposed to know. If we look at Bloom's taxonomy, SOL tests only focus on those first three levels. Yeah, teachers are supposed to teach through those first three levels, but they're also supposed to teach beyond those to levels four, five and six where kids make real connections with the material, not just comprehension. I know teachers work SO hard to get to the real connections, but lets face it - in an era of SOL testing most only focus on the comprehension. What if we really taught things all the way through Bloom's taxonomy? Don't you think kids would do better on SOL tests because those things would be easy compared what they've been doing in class? SPED kids are just like regular ed kids in that they want to go beyond the mundane comprehension to make real connections too. The SOL testing format may not be the best for SOME SPED kids so alternate formats do need to be offered, but again SOL's are meant to test basics. There are a LOT of sped kids who do just fine on SOL tests so to say they should not be given to sped kids is wrong. Some sped kids, on the other hand, should not be made to take a test that they will fail over and over again. It should be taken on a case by case basis and there needs to be some flexibility when it comes to standardized state testing.
ReplyDelete