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Georgia educators develop new assessment tool for students with significant cognitive disabilites Since January 2006, a group of Georgia educators has worked to develop and implement a new Georgia Alternate Assessment (GAA) for students with significant cognitive disabilities. This assessment takes the place of the GKAP for kindergarten students, the CRCT for students in grades 1-8 and the GHSGT for students in the eleventh grade. A new GAA was required because the old one did not meet the federal requirements of IDEA and NCLB. These statutes mandate that this group of students must be given access to their grade level general curriculum and are to be assessed on their progress towards meeting these standards or on prerequisite skills required to access these standards. The new GAA is designed to ensure that these requirements are met while students work on tasks that are meaningful for them. Working with representatives from the Georgia Department of Education, the GAA Development Committee developed the participation criteria for the GAA, the test blueprint and rubric dimensions, the types of evidence that would be ac- cepted, the collection periods, the score reports, and the performance level descriptors. Information from a spring 2006 pilot study was used to refine the procedures prior to statewide assessment. The GAA is a portfolio-based assessment where actual student work is provided as evidence of progress in and access to the general curriculum. Students in grades K-2 are assessed on standards in English/language arts and math. Science and social studies entries are added for students in grades 3-8 and 11. Two portfolio entries are required for English/ language arts and math. One of the English/language arts entries must always be on a reading comprehension standard. Students in grades K-8 must always have a numbers and operations entry for math while students in the eleventh grade must have an algebra entry.
Documentation of access to grade level curriculum and student progress is collected throughout the school year. Portfolios are sent to the state for scoring. Scores are awarded in the dimensions of Fidelity to the Standard, Context, Achievement/Progress, and Generalization. Scores are reported as documenting Emerging Progress, Established Progress, or Extending Progress.
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