Large Scale Assessment and Accountability and Students with Special Needs

Large-scale assessments are tests or other data collection procedures administered to large numbers of students at the same time. These assessments often are used to measure student achievement for educational accountability, where either the system or individuals in the system are held responsible for student performance. Among the students taking large-scale assessments are those with special education needs. These students with disabilities may take the same assessment as students without disabilities, the same assessment with accommodations, or alternate assessments. The ways in which the test scores of students with special needs are included in accountability calculations may differ as a function of how students participated in assessments.