Phillyburbs.com, 9-16-09

Tests changing for special ed students

By: JOAN HELLYER

The Intelligencer

Special education students generally perform below their biological grade level, officials said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education is changing the way schools test special education students to determine their learning levels, officials said. The modified tests "will be less cognitively complex and shorter" than the regular standardized tests, according to state education officials.

Schools officials have argued for years that special education students often don't learn at the same rate as mainstream students, and therefore their scores shouldn't be used to determine if a school deserves Adequate Yearly Progress status.

The state uses results from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment mathematics and reading tests to determine whether schools achieved AYP, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Low-performing schools face a variety of corrective actions including eventual takeover by the state if PSSA results do not improve.

Locally, the high schools in the Bensalem, Centennial, Council Rock, Neshaminy and Morrisville school districts received a warning or landed in corrective action status after their special education students did not demonstrate proficiency in at least one of the 2009 exams. In addition, Bensalem's two middle schools and Samuel K. Faust and Benjamin Rush elementary schools did not earn AYP status because of their special education students' performance on the tests.

Once the modified PSSA tests are used beginning in 2010, there will be no limit on the number of special education students who can take the exams in each school. However, only 2 percent of the satisfactory scores from the modified tests will count toward the school's proficiency rating when AYP status is being determined, state education officials said.

The remaining results, regardless of how well the special education students performed, will be factored in with the scores of mainstream students who scored in the below basic range, officials said. Below basic suggests a student is performing below his or her grade level.

Given the limitations on how results from the modified exam will be used, local educators wonder if the changes will really make a difference.

"At this point, it's more of a gesture than a solution," Council Rock Superintendent Mark Klein said. "I don't know if it goes far enough and takes into consideration the significant difficulties the special education students face."

Bristol Township School District officials have similar concerns, spokeswoman Eileen Kelliher said.

"We worry that these tests will only set new standards for failure for a vulnerable population," she said.

Until now, only severely handicapped students have been exempt from taking the PSSA tests, despite the fact that many special education students don't learn at their biological grade level. That fact was illustrated in the recently released 2009 PSSA results in mathematics and reading.

At Bensalem High School, for instance, only 11.9 percent of the 42 special education students who were tested demonstrated proficiency on the PSSA 11th-grade math test. That compares to an overall proficiency rate of 57.3 percent for the 403 Bensalem juniors who took the exam.

The proficiency rate is the number of students who scored proficient or advanced on the standardized tests. Students who score in either of those categories are learning at or above their grade level, officials said.

Council Rock High School North in Newtown Township, for example, had an overall proficiency rate of 69.2 percent for the 553 students who took the 11th-grade math exam. But only 6.4 percent of the 62 CR North special education students who took the PSSA math test demonstrated they're learning at their grade level.

State Education Department officials say they're developing the modified tests to better determine how well special education students learn. They explained the revisions earlier this month prior to the release of the 2009 AYP results.

The modified math test will be used beginning in 2010, said John Weiss, director of the Education Department's assessment and accountability bureau. The reading test will be used starting in 2011.

However, "not every (special education) student will take the modified assessment," Weiss said.

That will be determined when a student, his or her parents and school representatives craft an Individual Education Program for the child. The IEP will spell out whether "the student is qualified to participate in the modified assessment," Weiss said.

To qualify, a student needs accommodations and modifications made to their learning environment, including additional teachers and teaching assistants, to give them a chance to perform at the same level as their peers, PDE officials said. But even with those extra supports, those students must demonstrate "persistent academic difficulties" to qualify for the modified exams.

"On the surface, the (modified PSSA tests) look much better at meeting the needs of that group of students," said Bristol Superintendent Broadus Davis, a former special education teacher. "But its impact is still to be determined."

Joan Hellyer can be reached at 215-949-4048 or jhellyer@phillyBurbs.com.