Horace Buddoo
Title
Fair and Unfair Testing Accommodations
Author
Lynn Fuchs and Douglas Fuchs
Summary of Article and Relationship to our DPR
This article address the question: "Is it fair for an individual with a disability to take a nonstandard administration of a standardized achievement test when students without disabilities don’t have this option?"  The 1997 amendments to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act require states and districts to include students with disabilities in accountability programs. The rationale for the IDEA amendments is based on the fact that performance of students with disabilities has not always counted.   The issue, as states see it, is that students with disabilities have not fully participated in state and district assessments.
Accommodations is also addressed in this article.  Not allowing appropriate accommodations prevents students with disabilities from demonstrating their competence but an overly permissive accommodation policy may very well inflate scores. 
This article also proposes a solution to the issue of how accommodations are not necessarily congruent with what a child needs, which in turn could be a reason why the test may not be adequately capturing the child's progress.   Because of difficulties associated with relying solely on teacher judgment there has been an objective diagnostic procedure developed that is call the Dynamic Assessment of Testing Accommodations, or DATA. With DATA, teachers administer brief tests, with and without accommodations. Then for each student they calculate the performance-boost (score on the accommodated test minus the score on the standard administration) associated with each accommodation.
The reason why this is relevant to our DPR is because it is providing a possible solution to helping to make standardized tests for equitable for those who may have learning disabilities.  This may not necessarily speak to the validity of the test itself, but it may address the issue of reliability.  
Reference: 
Fuchs. L. & Fuchs, D. (n.d.) . Fair and unfair testing accommodations. AASA. https://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=14932

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