In Testing, One Size May Not Fit All

By TAMAR LEWIN
March 18, 2002
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

PITTSBURG, Calif. — Kyle Stofle, a 10th grader at Pittsburg
High School who has dyslexia and virtually unreadable handwriting,
has been in special education since second grade. But Kyle, 15,
has always expected to get his diploma along with the rest of
the class of 2004.

So he and his mother became worried when they learned that,
starting with his class, every California student would have to
pass a statewide language and math test to graduate.

"When the exit exam first came up, last year, I went to
a meeting and asked what would happen to kids with learning disabilities,"
said Kyle's mother, Karen Bruno. "They kept saying that they
didn't know, that it would end up in court."

So it has. An Oakland-based advocacy group challenged the graduation
exam under federal disability laws.

On Feb. 21, two weeks before Kyle and other 10th graders were
to take the test, Judge Charles R. Breyer of Federal District
Court ruled that students with learning disabilities had the right
to special treatment, through different assessment methods or
accommodations like the use of a calculator or the chance to have
test questions read aloud.

It was the first time a state had been ordered to adjust the
conditions for its graduation exams for students with learning
disabilities, most of whom are dyslexics with reading problems.

The question of how far to accommodate students with learning
disabilities on college entrance tests like the SAT has become
a familiar one, as requests for special accommodations proliferate,
especially from affluent white families.

But with more than a dozen states putting graduation exams
into effect in the next three years — and others requiring
new tests for promotion to the next grade — the debate has
become broader and more urgent, with some education experts predicting
that new legal challenges are inevitable.

"As these laws are phased in and kids really start to
be denied diplomas, it'll go to lots of courts, and lots of legislatures,"
Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, a group in Cambridge, Mass., that
is critical of standardized testing. "This is a great unexplored
weakness of the whole high-stakes testing thing."

Some education experts say they worry, however, that as more
students seek special accommodations, the whole notion of standardized
testing may break down. What is a diploma worth, they add, if
students who cannot read, write or do arithmetic are allowed to
pass academic tests?

With more than 12 percent of the nation's schoolchildren now
identified as disabled — some with physical problems, but
most with learning disabilities — concern is growing that
some students say they have learning disabilities just to win
easier testing conditions.

In recent years, half the states have enacted laws requiring
that high school students pass standardized exams to graduate.
High failure rates on the tests have prompted some states to delay
putting them into effect or lower the score for passing.

These so-called exit exams create a particularly tough hurdle
for students with learning disabilities. When California gave
its first exit exam last year, on a voluntary basis, 9 of 10 students
with learning disabilities failed.

Kyle failed the language and math sections, and because his
handwriting was so bad, his essay questions were never scored.

"A lot of the questions made no sense to me," Kyle
said. "Some of the math was on things I've never learned."

Kyle said he thinks he did better this year because his teacher,
apparently on her own decision, read the questions to him. To
earn his diploma, Kyle must pass the test by his senior year.

Many states, including New York, already allow a broad range
of options for disabled students. Instead of taking the regular
test, they can give oral presentations or present portfolios of
their work.

But the clash between disability rights and educational standards
is profound. States devised graduation exams to measure all students
by the same yardstick. In contrast, the disability laws were designed
to ensure that disabled children receive educations tailored to
their needs. Moreover, there is little scientific data on precisely
which accommodations help which learning disabilities.

"The equities here are not clear," said Lawrence
Feinberg, assistant director of the group that administers the
National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal test
that rates school performance.

"Standardized tests came in because of variations in testing
and grading and the notion that it's only fair if you test everyone
the same way," he said. "It turns that whole idea on
its head, if you treat some people differently because it's fairer
to them."

Many state education officials say that including disabled
students in statewide testing is a good thing.

"A student who's tested is a student who's taught,"
said Kit Viator, an assessment official in the Massachusetts education
department.

Advocacy groups for the disabled do not disagree. But they
say that making a learning disabled student take a standardized
test without accommodations is as unfair as requiring a physically
disabled child to run a race without a wheelchair.

"Standardized tests test students' disabilities, not their
abilities," said Sid Wolinsky, a lawyer with Disability Rights
Advocates, the Oakland group that challenged the California law.
"No matter how well they master the content that's being
tested, they will fail the exam if they have real problems with
reading or handwriting."

As enacted, California's graduation exam policy prohibited
calculators or test readers on the grounds that reading and calculating
were so fundamental that students should not graduate without
demonstrating those skills.

In December, that policy was amended to let disabled students
who used such accommodations receive a diploma if their district
won a waiver from the state, a process the judge said was still
too restrictive.

While the judge's order allowed students to use accommodations
on the latest exam, it left open, until a later hearing, the question
of whether scores earned with such accommodations will be treated
the same as those earned under regular conditions. So students
who used accommodations do not yet know if a passing score will
earn them a diploma.

"The dilemma we find ourselves in is this fairness issue,
where to draw the line with students who have some disability
that makes it impossible to pass this test," said Phil Spears,
director of California Department of Education's Standards and
Assessments Division.

"If you say that a student who doesn't have the ability
to read or compute can still pass, that sends a message that isn't
acceptable to the world out there," he said. "When special
ed kids get out of school, they don't go to special ed town, they
go out and compete with all the rest of us."

Mr. Spears added that California and other states had not yet
resolved a basic question. "There's no clear understanding
of what we're supposed to be doing," he said. "Are we
creating tests of different content, at a lower level of rigor,
for kids with disabilities? Or are we seeking other ways to assess
their mastery of the same skills? I don't know the answer."

For now, California's learning disabled 10th graders remain
confused about how to handle the test. In Fair Oaks, at Del Campo
High School, Katie Culpepper, who has a neuroprocessing disorder,
skipped it altogether. But at Petaluma's Casa Grande High School,
another learning disabled student, Sabrina Shired, took it with
no accommodations.

"It's been kind of tense and awful," Sabrina said.
"But I wanted to try the test under regular conditions, since
it would be even worse if I took it with accommodations and passed,
and then later they said that invalidated the test and I still
couldn't get my diploma. If I pass this way, I'll feel great."

Many parents of disabled 10th graders hope the state will delay
the exit-exam requirement — but are quietly making backup
plans.

"If she hasn't passed by senior year, we'll think about
a transfer to a Catholic school, where the exam isn't required,"
said Sabrina's mother, Eileen Shired. "Somehow, she's going
to get a diploma."