Policy Briefs (LD News: February 2007)

2005 State Policies on Assessment Participation and Accommodations for Students with Disabilities Synthesis Report 64
The National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) has released a new analysis of states' 2005 participation and accommodation policies. Findings indicate that state policies on participations are continuing to evolve and become more specific than in previous years, with clarifications and specifications of accommodations, the "spell checker" accommodation becoming more accepted than in the past, and more states allowing "extended time" without restrictions. The analysis also finds, however, that "read aloud questions," "sign interpret questions" and "calculator" accommodations continue to be controversial, and fewer states allow the "testing over multiple days" accommodation than in the past.

Register Now for the Multiple Perspectives Conference
Registration is now available for Seventh Annual Multiple Perspectives Conference on Access, Inclusion, and Disability: Rights, Responsibilities, and Social Change. The conference, to be held on April 3 and 4, 2007, on the Ohio State University Columbus Campus, will discuss disability as a social and an individual issue as it pertains to education, employment, scholarship and service, business and government, and race, gender, and ethnicity.

Systems Change Information Bulletins Released
Robert Silverstein has joined Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC in their disability, public policy, and healthcare practice, and will add to their areas of expertise a focus in the areas of rehabilitation, employment, education, social security, and civil rights. Silverstein has worked with Allen Jensen to write a series of Systems Change Information Bulletins about State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies serving as Change Agents in order to describe the options and roles that a number of State VR agencies are playing in statewide employment-related systems change efforts for persons with disabilities and to share their initiatives with other State VR agencies and others in the disability community.

New Report on Amendments to State NCLB Accountability Plans
The Center on Education Policy has released a report summarizing the amendments to the state NCLB accountability plans that were approved by the U.S. Department of Education in 2006. The report, No Child Left Behind at Five: A Review of Changes to State Accountability Plans, also discusses the changes and expansion of state testing programs that have occurred as a response to NCLB.

The Most 'Left Behind' of All: The plight of special-needs children in Covington Independent Public Schools
A new study examining results of audits conducted by the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability in 2001 and the Kentucky Department of Education in 2006 indicates that many problems faced by Covington Independent Public School learning-disabled children remain unchanged in the past 10 years. The report calls for a number of changes to help improve the difficulties these students face, including providing new options for parents of learning-disabled students, improved state oversight of Covington schools, better management of financial resources and a differentiated teacher-pay program that would attract and retain more experienced special-ed teachers.