Appendix A

Material Used for the Verification Process

Example letter to Assessment Director and Special Education Director.

Re: NCEO verification request for public reporting

[Name],

The National Center on Educational Outcomes is examining states’ public reports for the 2012-2013 school
year assessment results. Our goal is to:

(a) identify all components of each state’s testing system;
(b) determine whether each state reports disaggregated test results for students with
disabilities and English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities; and
(c) describe the way participation and performance information is presented.

As in previous years, we are looking at assessment department reports and the equivalent of report cards
used for ESEA.

We have reviewed your Web site for this information and have enclosed tables summarizing that review. Please
verify all included information. Specifically, please return the tables that we have attached,
noting your changes to them. Also, if there is additional publicly reported information available
for your state, please provide us with the public document and/or website that contains the
information. Address your responses to Deb Albus via email albus001@umn.edu.

If you have any questions about our request, please email Deb Albus or call at (612) 626-0323. Please respond
by August 1, 2014.

Thank you for taking the time to provide this information.

Martha Thurlow, Director NCEO

Deb Albus, Research Fellow, NCEO

2012-2013 Example Verification Tables Sent to a State

Disaggregated Data for Students with Disabilities on Regular Assessment

Table 1. Disaggregated Data for the Regular Assessment

State	Regular Assessment	Grade	Subject Areas	Disaggregated Data				Inside ESEA (Y/N)
				Special Education		ELLs with Disabilities
				Participation	Performance	Participation	Performance
Alabama	AL Reading and Mathematics Test (ARMT+)	3-8	Reading, Math	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
	AL Science Assessment (ASA)	5,7	Science	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
	AL High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE)	11, 12	Biology, Language, Math, Reading, Social Sciences	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes

How States Reported Participation Data for Students with Disabilities for Regular Assessments (In ESEA)

Table 2. Ways States Disaggregated Participation Rate

States	Participation Rate Reported				Number of Approaches Used	Denominator for the Participation Rate
States	By Grade and by Test	Merged Grades; By Test	By Grade; Merged Tests	Merged Grades and Tests	Number of Approaches Used	Denominator for the Participation Rate
Alabama	Yes	No	No	No	1	No

Table 3. How Participation was Reported

State	Participation Data Reported On Regular Assessments
State	Number Enrolled/Eligible to be Tested	Number of Students Tested	Number of Students Not Tested	Percent Participating in Test	Percent of Students not Tested	Number of Students with Scores	Number of Students with No scores	Percent of Students with No Scores
Alabama	No	Yes	Yes	Yes¹	No	Yes	Yes	No

¹ The state reports percent tested and percent of tested students the group represents

How States Reported Performance Data for Students with Disabilities for Regular Assessments (In ESEA)

Table 4. Ways States Disaggregated Performance Data

States	Reporting Some Data by Grade and Test	Grades Merged for One or More Tests	Merged Tests for One or More Grades	Merged Grades and Test	Number of Approaches Used
Alabama	Yes	No	No	No	1

Table 5. How Performance was Reported

State	Performance Data Reported for Regular Assessments
State	Percent Proficient	Percent Proficient Derived	Percent Not Proficient	Number Proficient	Number Not Proficient	Number by Achievement Level	Percent by Achievement Level	Percentile Rank
Alabama	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes (by accom status only)	Yes	NA

Participation and Performance Data for Students with Disabilities, Alternate Assessment on Alternate Achievement Standards

Table 6. Disaggregated Data for the AA-AAS

State

AA-AAS

Grade

Subject Areas

Disaggregated Data

Inside
ESEA
(Y/N)

Special Education

ELLs with Disabilities

Partici-
pation

Perform-
ance

Partici-
pation

Perform-
ance

Alabama

AL Alternate Assessment (AAA)

3-8, 11

5,7,11

Reading, Math
Science

Yes

How States Reported Participation and Performance Data for Students with Disabilities on AA-AAS (In ESEA)

Table 7. How Participation was Reported

State	Participation Data Reported On AA-AAS
State	Number Enrolled/ Eligible to be Tested	Number of Students Tested	Number of Students Not Tested	Percent Participating in Test	Percent of Students not Tested	Number of Students with Scores	Number of Students with No scores	Percent of Students with No Scores
Alabama	No	Yes	No	Yes¹	No	Yes	No	No

¹ The state reports percent tested and percent of tested students the group represents

Table 8. How Performance was Reported

State	Performance Data Reported for AA-AAS
State	Percent Proficient	Percent Proficient Derived	Percent Not Proficient	Number Proficient	Number Not Proficient	Number by Achievement Level	Percent by Achievement Level
Alabama	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

Participation and Performance Data for Students with Disabilities, English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA)

Table 9. Disaggregated Data for the English Language Proficiency Assessment

State	ELPA Name	Grade	Disaggregated Data for ELLs with Disabilities
State	ELPA Name	Grade	Participation	Performance
Alabama	ACCESS for ELLs	K-12	No	No

Accommodations Data

Table 10. Number of States Reporting Participation and Performance by Accommodated Condition for Any Student Population

State	Test	Accommodation Data Reported
State	Test	States with Participation Only	States with Performance Only	Both Participation and Performance
Alabama	Regular Assessment, with and without accommodations and Alternate Assessment without accommodations	No	No	Yes

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