Project Advisors and Partners Eileen Ahearn, NASDSE Martha Thurlow, NCEO June 23, 2010

 What We Know from data on accommodations policies and use of accommodations  Importance of state participation in accommodations studies  Considerations for state participation in multi-state studies  Resources on accommodations studies 2

3  Cross-state data on accommodations policies and the use of accommodations across states highlight variability  Question is whether this much variability makes sense

4 Read-Aloud Questions (2007)

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To assist the state in setting its accommodations policy To support the validity of the state’s test results for students with disabilities 6

77  Funding Issues  Relevance  Timing  Project Activities  Other

88  Whenever accommodations research is conducted we learn important things with implications for practice  We need to find better ways to share what we have learned (see CT-EAG Lessons Learned as step in right direction)

999  For a text to speech accommodation, voice quality is very important Human voice better than computer voice, but has drawbacks  Highlighting is a useful addition to text to speech

10  Learn about characteristics of accommodation (e.g., voice quality)  Discover that some accommodations may be very important to some students but not others (e.g., finding that more students with disabilities than students without disabilities indicated it is easier to think while listening to text read to them

11  Not all students need the same accommodations  Good decision-making process supported by good training is critical

12 During research, as well as during administration of actual state or district assessment