SRI is working with a consortium of states to design alternate performance tasks that advance how the learning of students with significant cognitive disabilities is assessed. The projects are funded by the U.S. Department of Education through two Enhanced Assessment Grants.

The projects, Alternate Assessment Design–Mathematics and Alternate Assessment Design–English Language Arts, integrate recent work in the pedagogy of special education for students with significant cognitive disabilities, alternate assessment design, and Universal Design for Learning with evidence-centered assessment design. Working on the projects are experts from several disciplines, including assessment, special education, and specific content areas. Underlying these projects are the federal guidelines for alternate assessment design that specify that “all students, including students with disabilities, be held to grade-level achievement standards when taking assessments.”

SRI's goals are to:

• Extend the conceptual framework of evidence-centered design (ECD) to include alternate achievement standards using the Principled Assessment Design for Inquiry (PADI) system
• Integrate the principles of Universal Design for Learning with ECD to develop tasks accessible to all learners
• Identify standards of common critical areas of learning for all consortia states, using the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Principles and Standards for School Mathematics and the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts
• Develop design patterns, task templates, task specifications, and task examples that address state-priority academic standards for students with significant cognitive disabilities
• Evaluate the exemplar assessment tasks produced using ECD through review by a panel of experts
• Evaluate exemplar assessment tasks through pilot-testing in all consortium states
• Provide state departments of education with procedural guidelines on how to use ECD to design and develop assessment tasks for use with students with significant cognitive disabilities
• Support state department of education staff and teachers in developing additional tasks to expand the task bank for each assessment
• Provide participating states with a library of design patterns, task templates, and task specifications that are reusable and extendable
• Disseminate products and findings through a website, presentations, and publications