The Alternate Assessment Based on Alternate Achievement Standards Eligibility Decision-Making Process

Before the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 97) students with significant intellectual disabilities (ID) were often excluded from statewide, high-stakes assessment accountability systems. IDEA 97 created a provision for students with significant ID to participate in these high-stakes statewide assessments by allowing them to take alternate assessments (AA). The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) reinforced the use of AA for students with significant ID by allowing AA scores to be included in adequate yearly progress (AYP) calculations. As a result, AA are now aligned with general education academic content standards. However, the United States Department of Education (USED) allows for the academic achievement standards used in AA to be reduced in depth and complexity (2005). These reduced achievement standards are intended to address all domains within the grade-level academic content areas of reading, math, and science, but do not require the depth or breadth of knowledge required of students achieving on grade level. The USED has placed a cap on the number of proficient AA scores that a school district or state may include in AYP calculations at one percent. As AA have evolved since their inception in 1997, they have become known as alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). Students with Significant Intellectual Disabilities The Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities (2006) defines intellectual disability (ID) as "...significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child's educational performance" (pp. 46, 756). Students with the most significant ID represent about one percent of the total population of school children. AA-AAS are designed to assess the individual academic achievement of students who have the most significant ID. Students considered appropriate participants in AA-AAS (a) have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or one in development; (b) have an intellectual disability; (c) need instruction in multiple settings or in multiple ways to generalize their learning across environments; and (d) participate in a curriculum with functional skills instruction (Towles-Reeves, Kearns, Kleinert, & Kleinert, 2009). Students with significant ID are found eligible to take AA-AAS by an IEP team. Statement of the Problem Under IDEA 97 and NCLB, students with the most significant ID are allowed to take AA-AAS as a participation option in a state's high-stakes assessment accountability system. Up to one percent of passing AA-AAS scores may be included in AYP calculations, and AAAAS must adhere to the same quality standards required for traditional high-stakes assessments. Students with significant ID are a heterogeneous group. The AA-AAS participation criteria provided by state and federal agencies are broader than a student's IQ score and are open to IEP team interpretation, challenging IEP teams to accurately and consistently identify students as appropriate AA-AAS participants. Kohl, McLauglin, and Nagel (2006) assert that the technical quality of AA-AAS can be affected by the criteria used to identify students appropriate for AA-AAS. For example, Tindal et al. (2003) and Yovanoff and Tindal (2007) found that students from disability categories that do not include intellectual disability as a characteristic (speech/language impairment or specific learning disability) are sometimes taking AA-AAS. This evidence suggests that IEP teams inconsistently and sometimes inaccurately apply established participation criteria in finding students eligible to participate in AA-AAS. Research examining the decision-making process for finding students with significant ID eligible to participate in AA-AAS appears to be absent from the literature. …