Kansas Alternate Assessment
Eligibility Criteria
Link to
State Alternate Assessment - You can find the Teacher's Guide and
Fact Sheet for Alternate Assessments here.
Kansas Alternate Assessment
Frequently
Asked Questions
1. What has changed/been clarified about the
Alternate Assessment?
History/Government & writing assessment is not required for the 2009-10 school year.
The 2009 Kansas state assessment window for the alternate assessment is
December 30,
2009
through
April 13, 2010.
Evidence for the alternate assessment indicators
should be collected during the assessment window. Scoring must be
submitted online to CETE by May 1, 2010.
An evidence label
should be used on all pieces of evidence. The evidence label
must be downloaded from the CETE website.
Evidence submitted to document a student’s performance on any given
indicator is limited to three pieces. More than three pieces of
evidence may NOT be included for scoring for any individual
indicator.
Data sheets to document collection of data as either “correct” or
“incorrect (i.e. “+” and “-“recording) must include a minimum of
five trials for each piece of evidence.
For high school students taking alternate
assessments, the determination of when a student participates is to
be determined solely by a student’s grade level assignment—NOT by
age (refer to question 6).
The Teacher’s Manual has been updated for the school year
2009-10. See link above. All indicators are available for the
2009-10 school year.
-
Who can serve as a scorer for the alternate assessment? Is the
case manager/teacher allowed to be one of the three scorers?
As stated in the
2009-10 Teacher’s Guide, a student’s current special education teacher
is a required scorer. It is recommended that the other two scorers
should be professionally licensed educators, who do not work
directly with the student. This will ensure a more objective review
of the evidence. However, if only limited numbers of professional
staff are available, then staff members who work directly with the
student may be used.
Scorers may be general education teachers, related
service providers, special education teachers, and administrators.
Scorers should be trained in the review, evaluation and scoring of
student data folios. KSDE will provide statewide scorer training
and will make materials available for district use. Training and
checking for inter-rater reliability are important components of the
process.
-
Does each scorer rate the same material OR do the
scorers review different materials?
Each scorer individually rates each of the three pieces of evidence
for each of the five selected indicators. Thus, each scorer will
make 15 ratings for a reading alternate assessment and 15 ratings
for a mathematics alternate assessment and 15 for science alternate
assessment. In total, each student’s alternate assessment will have
a total of 45 scores per content area being assessed.
-
Will the selected indicators and the ratings be
entered on-line in a manner similar to last year?
Yes. The local district can register (identify) on
the CETE website those reading, mathematics and science
indicators selected for a student’s alternate assessment. The plan
is that prior to the assessment window, CETE will make available
online the evidence data labels and scoring data collection forms
that will contain the individual student’s identifying information
and selected indicator identification. Once data are collected and
scored,
return scoresheets to your district test coordinator to enter.
Teacher or scorers cannot enter scores.
5.
What are the grade levels for the alternate
assessment?
Students in grades 3 through 8, inclusive, will take
an assessment in reading and an assessment in mathematics each year.
This is true for students who are taking alternate assessments
also.
In high school, students requiring an alternate
assessment in mathematics will complete this assessment by the 11th
grade. A student requiring an alternate assessment in reading will
complete this assessment by the 11th grade and will complete a writing
alternate assessment in 11th grade.
It is no longer an option that high school student participation in
an alternate assessment be determined by the student’s age.
Alternate assessments will be given in science - grades 4, 7 & 11.
District
staff must ensure that the assessment grade and the grade used in
the Special Education Management Information System (MIS) are
consistent. Contact the special education data clerk for your
district, or Mason Vosburgh at
mvosburgh@ksde.org
or by phone: 785-296-4945.
6. When are the data for the alternate assessment to
be collected?
The data for the data folio are to be collected during the
assessment window. The scoring of the data folio by the selected
scorers must be completed and submitted online to CETE by the close
of the assessment window. The assessment window is the same for the
Kansas general state assessment and the Kansas alternate assessment.
This year, the window extends from December 30, 2009 to April 13,
2010.
7. How do we choose indicators for the alternate
assessment?
Indicators should be chosen from the current list of extended standards
available on the
www.ksde.org website.
An IEP team must choose five indicators for each of the content
areas in which a given student will participate in the Kansas State
Assessment system at the alternate assessment level. This year,
this could be five indicators in math for the mathematics assessment
and five indicators in reading for the reading assessment and five
indicators in science if tested at
student identified grade level. (Ideally these
would be chosen so that instruction could occur throughout the
year.)
When selecting indicators, an IEP team should not select an
indicator that reflects the student’s disability.
When assistive technology is used, it is considered an
accommodation.
Indicators that require maximal support, (i.e., total hand over
hand), might well be appropriate for IEP goals, but these are
generally not considered to be appropriate indicators for the
alternate assessment.
The indicators are to be chosen from the extended
indicators aligned with the assessed general indicators for that
student's grade level. An
IEP team must choose at least one indicator from each standard in
each content area for which a given student will be participating in
an alternate assessment (there are 2 extended standards in reading
and 4 standards in math and 3 extended standards in writing). The
remainder of the required five indicators may be selected from any
standard. (Thus, more than one indicator will represent some
standard(s) in a given content area.)
8. What guidance can be provided about the
collection of data for use as pieces of evidence?
When the indicator response is scored as correct/incorrect, a
minimum of 5 trials/probes is required for each piece of evidence.
Any written transcription of student’s responses must be written
verbatim.
When using worksheets as data, 3 different worksheets equal 3
different pieces of data/evidence. The worksheets could contain the
same information but they may not be identical worksheets.
When responding to 3 different individuals, tasks, or environments,
each is considered to be a different piece of evidence.
Each indicator must be represented by 3 pieces of data/evidence.
9.
May teachers provide support to the student
during the assessment period, if support is provided during
instruction?
Teachers should first ask the student to respond without support.
If the teacher provides support, it should be documented on the data
label. The support provided should not exceed the
support provided during instruction. At the point the teacher is
completing the task or leading the student to a correct response, it
cannot be considered appropriate support for assessment.
The teacher may use cues/prompts to direct the
student’s attention to the task to elicit a response, unless the
target skill in the indicator calls for student attention, e.g.,
responds to stimuli. The teacher is not to lead the student to an
answer or response with skill related cues/prompts.
10. How should data be labeled?
The data label is on
the CETE website. Each piece of evidence should
have a label. For example, for the alternate assessment in reading,
staff will be collecting 3 pieces of evidence for 5 indicators.
Therefore, there will be 15 pieces of evidence, each with a label.
11. How should the data be organized in the data
folio for the scorers? The Kansas Alternate Assessment
2009-10 Teacher’s Guide (link at the top of this page), provides guidance.
Provide a separate data folio for each curricular area being
assessed.
Include a print-out of the selected indicators.
BE SURE to have 3 pieces of evidence for each indicator, each with
its own evidence label.
Back to Top
Kansas State Alternate Assessment
Eligibility
Criteria
for Students
with Significant Cognitive Disabilities
The
student has an active IEP and the present levels of educational
performance data indicates that with regard to progress in the
general curriculum area under consideration, the student is
significantly delayed.
AND
The
student's learning objectives and expected outcomes in the academic
area under consideration requires substantial adjustment to the
general curriculum of that area. The student's learning objectives
and expected outcomes in the area focus on functional application,
as illustrated in the benchmarks, indicators, and clarifying
examples within the Extended Standards.
AND
The
student primarily requires direct and extensive instruction in the
academic area under consideration to acquire, maintain, generalize,
and transfer the skills done in the naturally occurring settings of
the student's life (such as school, vocational/career, community,
recreation/leisure and home).
AND
The
student is presented with unique and significant challenges in
demonstrating his or her knowledge and skills on any assessment
available in the academic area under consideration.
The
decision to determine a student's eligibility to participate in the
alternate assessment may NOT RESULT PRIMARILY from:
Excessive or extended absence
Any
specific categorical label
Social,
cultural, or economic difference
Amount
of time he/she receives special education services
Achievement significantly lower than his or her same age peers
Back to Top
|
