Virginia to launch standardized test for disabled students

[tonysam]

More insanity:

Virginia education leaders moved this week to introduce a standardized test for students with disabilities and phase out a widely used alternative that many officials say is undermining the state's accountability system.

The modified multiple-choice test is expected to be more objective than the flexible, portfolio-style exam that thousands of students in Northern Virginia are assessed with now. The online test will be implemented statewide in the 2011-12 school year in math and the following year in reading. A small sample of schools will try it this spring.

Critics have charged that the portfolio test inflates passing rates and obscures data the public relies on to understand gaps in student achievement. This winter the Virginia General Assembly approved a law to phase out the portfolio "as soon as is feasible."

This "is the first step in carrying out the will of the General Assembly and addressing my own concerns about overuse and misuse of the VGLA," Virginia's superintendent for public instruction, Patricia I. Wright, said in a statement, referring to the Virginia Grade Level Alternative, or portfolio test.

Washington Post

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Actually, this could be a good idea.

The NYS alternate assessment portfolio is the most colossal, most convoluted, most idiotic waste of time ever conceived. It has to be seen to be believed.

Most mild and moderately handicapped kids could be objectively tested on such as California Achievement Test or ITBS with modifications here and there.

Severely handicapped kids should not be tested. Period.