In July, the NSCI will be hosting a Thought Leader Forum on Measuring and Assessing Progress toward SIMRs, at WestEd’s headquarters offices in San Francisco, CA. As states work to make to progress and demonstrate results for students with disabilities who are targeted in systems of Results Driven Accountability, they are likely to face some significant challenges in effectively measuring student growth.
NCSI will bring a spotlight to this issue at a meeting whose purpose is to lay-out the potential challenges and identify best practice recommendations for states to consider as they work with local districts and schools to improve academic outcomes for student with disabilities.
The focus of this thought leader forum will concentrate on measuring and assessing academic outcomes in reading and math for school-age students with disabilities, and will include issues associated with:
- Implementation fidelity;
- Appropriate tools to assess short-term outcomes;
- Methods for aggregating progress monitoring data;
- Considerations when using state assessments, test sensitivity, and alternatives for assessing and measuring long-term outcomes; and
- Assessment issues related to sub-groups of students and cross-sectional vs. longitudinal data.
Participants will include NCSI senior staff and nationally recognized experts in assessment and measurement, who have experience working with students with disabilities in multiple roles including state and district administration, university settings, evaluation and measurement methodology, and organizational leadership.
Following the meeting, NCSI will work collaboratively with these national experts to compile best practice recommendations generated by the group, and will develop a white paper to be shared with states and technical assistance providers working with states on implementation of SSIP and measuring progress on SiMRs.
For more information, contact NCSI@wested.org.