CURRICULUM BASED MEASURES: Role in Changing Regulations Overview and Rationale

1. CURRICULUM BASED MEASURES:Role in Changing RegulationsOverview and Rationale

2. Learning Disabilities Summit: Building a Foundation for the Future (Aug. 2001) • Response to quality intervention is the most promising method of alternate identification and can both promote effective practices in schools and help to close the gap between identification and treatment. • Any efforts to scale up response to intervention should be based on problem solving models that use progress monitoring to gauge the intensity of intervention in relation to the student’s response to intervention. • Problem solving models have been shown to be effective in public school settings and in research.

3. National Policy Changes • President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education (7-02) recommendations: • Focus on results-not on process: IDEA must return to its educational mission:serving the needs of every child. • Embrace a model of prevention not a model of failure: reforms must move the system toward early identification and swift intervention. • Consider children with disabilities as general education children first: discontinue use of separate educational and funding systems.

4. Focus on Reading • Reading First Program-$900 million • Evidence-based instructional strategies • Reading research centers established • Early Reading First -$275 million • Future funding tied to use of evidence-based strategies Significant impact on programs for students with mild (e.g., SLD) disabilities

5. No Child Left Behind: 4 Reform Principles • Accountability: Guaranteeing results • Improve schools through accountability measures • Set annual goals for improvement • Flexibility: • Local control and solutions to local problems • Put money where needs are • Research Based Reforms: • Use proven methods with proven results • Parental Options: • Choices for parents; hope for kids

6. Data from National Institute of Health (1999) • If students are not reading at grade level by the third grade, the odds that they will ever read at grade level are only 1 in 17. • By the 4th grade, 2 hours of specialized daily instruction is required to make the same gain that would have resulted from only 30 minutes of daily instruction if begun when the child was in Kindergarten.

7. National Research Committee Report on Minority Representation in Special Education • “…federal guidelines for special education eligibility should be changed to encourage better integrated general and special education services. We propose that eligibility should ensue when a student exhibits large differences from typical levels of performance…with evidence of insufficient response to high quality interventions…”

8. H.R. 1350 • Determination of Eligibility: “child will not be determined to have a disability if the determinate factor is lack of scientifically based instruction practices.” • LD determination: “are not required to take into consideration whether a child has a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability in oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skill, reading comprehension, mathematical calculation or mathematical reasoning. • Allows LEA’s to use a process that determines if a child responds to scientific, research-based interventions when determining whether a child has a specific learning disability.

9. National Policy Changes • President’s Commission:Progress Monitoring, Accountability, and LD Identification (Fuchs and Fuchs, 2002) • CBM is the most conceptually sophisticated, technically sound, and thoroughly researched progress monitoring system available. • Recommend the use of CBM’s to improve special education accountability and identify students with learning disabilities within a response-to-treatment classification model.

10. CBM Literature: • CBM use led to significant improved achievement for both reg ed and spec ed students • sensitivity to small treatment gains facilitates timely instructional change • graphing enhances treatment results • teachers able to: • accurately and more frequently analyze data • directly involve students in process • provide clearer and more effective communication to parents. • (Baker and Good, 1995)

11. CBM Literature • Meaningful assessment identifies the progress students are making, guides instructional change when lack of progress is noted, and creates a communication mechanism between and among teachers, students and parents in solving problems. (Darling-Hammond & Ascher, 2000). • Formative evaluation involves collecting data on an ongoing basis, so that an intervention’s effectiveness can be determined. (Baker & Good, 1998).

12. CBM Literature • The objective scoring procedures used with CBM are logical and defensible, criteria are explicit and objective thus countering accusations of discrimination. The face validity of an assessment increases when the evaluation procedure bears a logical relationship to the decision being made. (Salvia & Ysseldyke, 1995). • Effective schools literature indicates that school personnel should hold high expectations for all students and provide a challenging curriculum. CBM can assist in goal-setting and goal-raising. (Bear, Minke, & Thomas, 1997) • CBM can assist students who are involved in self-monitoring, goal-setting, and decision-making regarding various aspects of their instructional program. (Hancock, 1994)

13. INTERVENTION-BASED ASSESSMENT • Collection and use of data support effective, meaningful intervention-based assessment. • Assessment results lead to development and implementation of effective interventions. • Assessment practices include progress monitoring and curriculum based assessment. • Stakeholders are knowledgeable and active participants in the assessment process.

14. Program Evaluation/Data CollectionBasic Assumptions: • Program evaluation is designed to demonstrate how well a program works or does not work. • Program evaluation serves as a motivator to those who implement the program • Program evaluation must be based on a “continuous progress” model, not a discrepancy model. • Expectations for program success must be realistic and recognize that a program was implemented because the individual/school was behind and must both catch up and keep up simultaneously. • Use graphic representation.

15. Use of Curriculum Based Measures to Monitor Progress • What are CBM’s? • Systematic procedures for the frequent and repeated collection and analysis of student performance data. • Allows for the examination of student performance across time to evaluate intervention effectiveness. • System to identify students at risk • Provide normative, statistically sound information for students, classes and buildings

16. DEFINITION • CBM’S are “any set of measurement procedures that use direct observation and recording of a student’s performance in a local curriculum as a basis for gathering information to make instructional decisions” (Deno, 1987).

17. Curriculum Based Measures:Dynamic Indicators of Basic Skills • Dynamic- sensitive to change over time and to differences among individuals • Indicators- representative of skills but not measuring all aspects of a skill domain • Basic Skills- assessing areas of Reading, Spelling, Written Expression and Math

18. CBM’s are General Outcome Measures • designed to serve as “signs” of general achievement • are standardized tests • are researched according to psychometric properties • are sensitive to improvement in short periods of time • are designed to be as short as possible so as not to conflict with teaching. • are linked to decision making for promoting positive achievement with ALL students

19. Regular Education Uses: • Diagnostic Tool • error analysis • decision making • setting performance goals • determining intervention efficacy • Monitoring student progress • formative evaluation • user friendly • parent friendly

20. Special Education Uses • Eligibility • present levels of performance • discrepancies from peers • Goal Setting • directly linked to assessment • have built in aim line to write goals around • Interventions/Modifications • monitored consistently and easily • sensitive to growth • kids can be part of process

21. CBM Areas • Reading-Students read aloud for 1 minute from meaningful, connected, and graded passages of text. The number of words read correctly and errors are counted. • Math-Students complete a 2 minute grade-level computational exercise. The number of correctly written digits are counted. • Spelling-Students complete a 2 minute spelling test with words presented at a 7-10 second interval (depending on grade level). Words are randomly selected from the students spelling curriculum. The number of correct letter sequences are counted. • Written Expression-Students write a story based on a presented topic sentence. Students think for 1 minute and write for 3 minutes. The total number of words written, spelled correctly and the number of correct word sequences are counted.

22. For more information, contact: National Association of School Psychologists (301) 657-0270 www.nasponline.org