Inclusion of Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners

It is important for NAEP to assess as many students selected to participate as possible. Assessing representative samples of students, including students with disabilities (SD) and English language learners (ELL), helps to ensure that NAEP results accurately reflect the educational performance of all students in the target population, and can continue to serve as a meaningful measure of U.S. students’ academic achievement over time. 

In March 2010, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), working with the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), adopted a new policy to maximize the participation of students with disabilities (SD) and English language learners (ELL). 

Today, NAEP continues to explore ways to ensure consistent, inclusive assessment and reporting across all jurisdictions and student populations.

• NAEP Testing and Reporting on SD and ELL

  Current inclusion policy for SD and ELL students.

• History

  Evolution of NAEP inclusion policies and practices into every aspect of the assessment process.
  

Accommodations in the testing environment or administration procedures are available for SD and ELL students to support their participation in the assessment. Some accommodations are actually built-in features—or Universal Design Elements--of the digitally based assessments that are available to all students. Other accommodations, such as additional test time, are available upon request. Every jurisdiction decides what accommodations the students in that jurisdiction are eligible to receive.

• Accommodations Used

  See accommodations requested for the most recent NAEP assessments.

• Percentages of Students Accommodated (Excel)

  Download an Excel spreadsheet to see the percentage of SD and/or ELL students assessed with accommodations.

In order to study the effects on the assessment, NAEP collects information about accommodations needed for SD and ELL students by asking the school staff most familiar with each student to complete the appropriate SD or ELL questionnaires. The information gathered in this way has informed research for several years. Below are listed numerous studies, discussions, publications, and working papers from this area of research and related areas.

• How Exclusion and Accommodation Rates Affect Results

  Review research exploring the potential impact of change in exclusion rates on assessment results.

• Full Population Estimates

  Explore statistical scenarios that have been proposed, based on different assumptions, about how excluded students might have performed on an assessment.
  

• Inclusion Studies

  Read Measuring Status and Change in NAEP Inclusion Rates of Students with Disabilities, a series of studies that focuses on developing a methodology for measuring state inclusion rates of students with disabilities.
  

• Publications

  Varied publications and working papers about inclusion research and related areas released by NCES.

• Investigation of Factors

  Read An Investigation of Factors Affecting SD/ELL Inclusions/Exclusions in NAEP published in 2007 by the American Institutes for Research.

• Decision-Making Practices620KB

  Read Decision-Making Practices of Urban Districts for Including and Accommodating ELL in NAEP.