Simplified exams OK'd for more students
Law change is aimed at children with disabilities
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is letting more children with disabilities take simplified tests under the No Child Left Behind education law.
The change, outlined in final regulations yesterday, could triple the number of children who can take tests that are easier than those given to most students under the 2002 law.
Roughly 10 percent of special education students -- those with the most serious cognitive disabilities -- currently can take simplified alternative tests and have the results count toward a school's annual progress goals.
Under the new rules, about an additional 20 percent of children with disabilities could take alternative tests and have those count toward a school's progress goals.
The new tests are for children who are not severely disabled but who have been unable to work on grade level at the same pace as their peers because of disabilities, such as some forms of dyslexia.
The new tests will not be as easy as those given to the children already exempted from the regular tests. But the tests will not be as hard as those given to typical students. Federal officials said the new tests would provide educators with a more meaningful way to measure what some students with disabilities know and can do.
"It's an option for those children whose needs are not being met under the current system," the deputy education secretary, Raymond Simon, said yesterday.
The change means that 3 percent of all children -- about 30 percent of all children with disabilities -- will be tested on standards geared for them.
The No Child Left Behind law is up for renewal in Congress this year and lawmakers, educators, and the public have pushed for changes.
Simon said the administration would like to see the new rules written into law when No Child Left Behind is updated.
Some lawmakers gave the new rules high marks.
"It's essential to fully include children with disabilities in No Child Left Behind's guarantee that every student counts. Today's regulation is an important step forward in helping to address that challenge by ensuring better assessments for children with disabilities that recognize their progress and ability to achieve at high standards," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who heads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
The administration is responding to pleas from states for more flexibility in how they test special education students.
The department said $21 million would be available to help states come up with the new tests.
