Officials at Kerrville Independent School District are concerned about a growing conflict between state standardized testing and federal accountability standards that could cause the school to be penalized for having a high enrollment of special education students in the district. The concern over accountability measurements revolves around a national 3 percent cap established by the No Child Left Behind Act on the number of students who can take alternative tests within each school district. Superintendents from several area districts say the federal standard penalizes schools with strong special education programs, such as KISD, because it requires some special education students to take regular exams instead of those designed for their skill level.

Since 2002, the federal government has uniformly and steadily increased the number of students required to pass state standardized tests for every school district in the nation. Right now, the standards sit at 73 percent passing for reading and 67 percent passing for mathematics. These standards are to be ratcheted up over the next three years until 100 percent of state test takers are required to pass in the 2013-14 school year — a standard schools exceeding the special education-cap say can’t possibly be met, because those students would be counted as statistical “automatic failures.”

At a board of trustees meeting Tuesday night, Deb Wells, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, shared her concerns with the board about the federal government’s means of measure school performance, the Adequate Yearly Progress ratings.

“The problem is that by 2013-14, students with severe learning disabilities — ones who we are just trying to teach fundamental life skills to — will technically be forced to take the regular (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test, which they could not possibly pass,” Wells said.

Wells said KISD’s student enrollment consistently exceeds the 3 percent cap, because the district has become known for its high-quality special education programs, and many parents choose to move their children into the district because of it.

The problem for the district arose with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. The bill, intending to raise standards for public schools across the country, set a 3 percent cap for the number of students allowed to take alternative testing. In Texas, only 1 percent of test takers in a district are allowed to take the TAKS-Alt — a test designed for students with the most severe mental disabilities — and 2 percent are allowed to take the TAKS-M — a more difficult, but still below grade-level test, designed for students with severe learning

disabilities.

KISD currently exceeds the alternative-test-cap by 65 students for the reading test and 80 students for the mathematics test district-wide.

These students who are over the limit still take the alternative tests, but because they are over the limit, they are counted as failures on the regular TAKS test by the U.S. Department of Education, when it determines AYP ratings.

Although KISD and other districts whose special education populations exceed 3 percent have been able to absorb these statistical failures so far, they will run into a problem when 100 percent of TAKS-takers are expected to meet the federal standard.

“The standard will eventually reach a point that these students can’t possibly meet,” Wells said.

A failure to meet AYP standards because of excessive special education students could result in several rounds of sanctions against school districts, potentially culminating in the forced “reconstitution” of staff and transfer of students out of district.

It’s a problem not only facing KISD, but other large school districts like Boerne Independent School District and Alamo Heights Independent School District as well.

“Larger districts like ours become special education hubs,” said KISD superintendent Dan Troxell.

The AYP special-education test cap is intended to keep districts from attempting to improve AYP performance by allowing poor performing students to take alternative tests, but Troxell and other area superintendents say it represents a poorly executed “redundancy in accountability.”

“Personally, I pay a lot more attention to state accountability ratings than the federal system,” said John Kelly, superintendent at Boerne ISD, whose district has

7.81 percent of its students in some form of special education classes. “Our teachers are instructed to put the child in the appropriate test. The state system is designed for Texas schools. The federal system is more arbitrary.”

The AYP standards have long been a source of friction between the U.S. Department of Education and the Texas Education Agency. The TEA had an appeal against the special-education test standards denied in 2004 shortly after the No Child Left Behind Act was

implemented.

Now, TEA and Texas school districts have adopted a “wait and see” approach to the conflict, said Suzanne Marchman, a spokeswoman for TEA.

“There has been talk from the (Obama) administration about revisiting No Child Left Behind, but nothing specific yet,” Marchman said. “Texas certainly isn’t the only state looking to change the special-education cap.”

While Texas schools wait for federal reform, Wells outlined KISD’s plan to help the district maintain its passing AYP levels as standards increase during the next three years. Next year, schools nationwide will be expected to earn an 80 percent passing rate on state reading tests and 75 percent on state math tests.

In order to help students meet the increasing standards, the district will assign teachers as student mentors, increase tutoring programs and continue the Saturday School class to provide extra instruction, among other intervention programs.

“Right now, we are meeting AYP and intend to keep meeting it,” Wells said. “But there needs to be a change at the federal level at some point, because these standards will eventually become impossible for KISD to meet in several years.”

SOURCE:

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