Ed. Dept. Policing ESSA Rules on Portfolio Assessments for Students with Disabilities
April 18, 2018
By: Christina Samuels
Source: Education Week
The U.S. Department of Education has started informing a small group of states that they will have to make changes to the way they test students with severe cognitive disabilities, because of accountability changes brought about by the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Students with the most severe cognitive disabilities are permitted to take an alternate assessment aligned to alternate achievement standards. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the predecessor to ESSA, that assessment could be in the form of a portfolio, or collection of student work.
But ESSA states that student assessments for accountability can only “be partially delivered in the form of portfolios, projects, or extended performance tasks,” meaning that states relying solely on portfolios have to make a change.