- Students with special educational needs
reason why we give tests and assignments, for example, and why we listen carefully to the quality of students’
comments during class discussions. For students with disabilities, however, such traditional or conventional
strategies of assessment often seriously underestimate the students’ competence (Koretz & Barton, 2003/2004;
Pullin, 2005). Depending on the disability, a student may have trouble with (a) holding a pencil, (b) hearing a
question clearly, (c) focusing on a picture, (d) marking an answer in time even when he or she knows the answer,
(e) concentrating on a task in the presence of other people, or (f) answering a question at the pace needed by the
rest of the class. Traditionally, teachers have assumed that all students either have these skills or can learn them
with just modest amounts of coaching, encouragement, and will power. For many other students, for example, it
may be enough to say something like: “Remember to listen to the question carefully!” For students with disabilities,
however, a comment like this may not work and may even be insensitive. A student with visual impairment does
not need be reminded to “look closely at what I am writing on the board”; doing so will not cause the student to see
the chalkboard more clearly—though the reminder might increase the student’s anxiety and self-consciousness.
There are a number of strategies for modifying assessments in ways that attempt to be fair and that at the same
time recognize how busy teachers usually are. One is to consider supplementing conventional assignments or tests
with portfolios, which are collections of a student’s work that demonstrate a student’s development over time, and
which usually include some sort of reflective or evaluative comments from the student, the teacher, or both
(Carothers & Taylor, 2003; Wesson & King, 1996). Another is to devise a system for observing the student regularly,
even if briefly, and informally recording notes about the observations for later consideration and assessment. A
third strategy is to recruit help from teacher assistants, who are sometimes present to help a student with a
disability; an assistant can often conduct a brief test or activity with the student, and later report on and discuss the
results with you.
If you reflect on these strategies, you may realize that they may sometimes create issues about fairness. If a
student with a disability demonstrates competence one way but other students demonstrate it another, should they
be given similar credit? On the other hand, is it fair for one student to get a lower mark because the student lacks an
ability—such as normal hearing—that teachers cannot, in principle, ever teach? These ethical issues are legitimate
and important, and I therefore return to them in Chapters 11 and 12, which discuss assessment in much more
detail.
Least restrictive environment
The IDEA legislation calls for placing students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment (or
LRE), defined as the combination of settings that involve the student with regular classrooms and school programs
as much as possible. The precise combination is determined by the circumstances of a particular school and of the
student. A kindergarten child with a mild cognitive disability, for example, may spend the majority of time in a
regular kindergarten class, working alongside and playing with non-disabled classmates and relying on a teacher
assistant for help where needed. An individual with a similar disability in high school, however, might be assigned
primarily to classes specially intended for slow learners, but nonetheless participate in some school-wide activities
alongside non-disabled students. The difference in LREs might reflect teachers’ perceptions of how difficult it is to
modify the curriculum in each case; rightly or wrongly, teachers are apt to regard adaptation as more challenging at
“higher” grade levels. By the same token, a student with a disability that is strictly physical might spend virtually all