Alignment has been defined as the extent to which curricular expectations and assessments are in agreement and work together to provide guidance for educators' efforts to facilitate students' progress toward desire academic outcomes. The Council of Chief State School Officers has identified three preferred models as frameworks for evaluating alignment: Webb's alignment model, the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum model, and the Achieve model. Each model consists of a series of indices that summarize or describe the general match or coherence between state standards, largescale assessments, and, in some cases, classroom instruction. This article provides an overview of these frameworks for evaluating alignment and their applications in educational practice and the research literature. After providing an introduction to the use of alignment to evaluate large-scale accountability systems, the article presents potential extensions of alignment for use with vulnerable populations (e.g., students with disabilities, preschoolers), individual students, and classroom teachers. These proposed applications can provide information for facilitating efforts to improve teachers' classroom instruction and students' educational achievement. C 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.The current zeitgeist surrounding school reform and increased student achievement has created an environment where the curriculum, instruction, and assessments used in classrooms are under increased scrutiny. Accountability and large-scale assessment systems are based on a theory of action that assumes increased information about student achievement, coupled with salient incentives for increased performance (and corresponding punishments for lack of improvement), will motivate educators and produce improved student outcomes (Baker & Linn, 2002). Thus, the development and implementation of large-scale assessment and accountability programs are viewed by advocates of standards-based reform as one potential policy "lever" for improving classroom instruction and increasing equity across the educational system (Resnick, Rothman, Slattery, & Vranek, 2003). Many researchers, however, have suggested that the theory of action underlying these accountability systems may be overly simplistic in its understanding of educational improvement (Elmore, 2003;Fullan, 2003; O'Day, 2002).Overload and fragmentation are major barriers to the successful implementation of accountability and standards-based educational reform (Fullan, 1993(Fullan, , 2003. The content of instructional programs, state content standards, and assessments designed to measure student achievement may contradict each other, creating increasing levels of stress and pressure for educators and students. Accountability systems posit that to ensure effective schooling, the design and implementation of three components of the educational environment-curriculum, instruction, and assessment-must be coordinated (Elliott, Braden, & White, 2001;Webb, 1997Webb, , 2002. The degree to which these components work together to facili...
UniversityThis study examined the effects of testing accommodations on the mathematics and reading test scores of a sample of 119 fourth graders and 78 eighth graders. The sample included 49 fourth-grade students diagnosed with a disability and 39 eighth-grade students diagnosed with a disability. The study used a 2 (Disability Status) x 2 (Testing Condition) ¥ 2 (Grade) ¥ 2 (Test Content Area) ¥ 2 (Order) mixed design. All students were tested under two conditions (i.e., accommodated or nonaccommodated) on equivalent forms of research editions of mathematics and reading tests from an achievement test used in many statewide assessment systems. Testing conditions were randomized to control for potential order effects. Results indicate that fourth-grade students with disabilities (SWD) benefited from testing accommodations more than students without disabilities (SWOD); this differential benefit was greater on the reading tests (effect size for SWD = .42, effect size for SWOD = .13) than on the mathematics tests (effect size for SWD = .46, effect size for SWOD = .27). Furthermore, a higher percentage of SWDs improved at least one proficiency level than SWODs. Both SWDs and SWODs in eighth grade gained slight benefits from the testing accommodations. More eighth-grade SWDs improved at least one proficiency level on the reading tests, but more SWODs improved at least one proficiency level on the math tests. The article discusses implications of these findings, limitations of the study, and directions for future research.
The inclusion of students with disabilities in large-scale assessments, typically by using testing accommodations, for statewide accountability systems became a legal reality with the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1997, and the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. These legal mandates and best assessment practices are imperatives for special educators to develop a greater understanding of key issues surrounding testing accommodations to facilitate the meaningful participation of all students in assessments. This article briefly describes the legal and educational context of testing accommodations, current issues in testing accommodations, and the rationale for this special issue. It then introduces readers to the special series in Assessment for Effective Intervention on Testing Accommodations: Research to Guide Practice.
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