Special educational needs, disability and school accountability: an international perspective

Abstract

Standards-based accountability approaches in education are increasingly being adopted in many industrialised countries. This tends to involve the scrutiny of student performance in national academic tests and then holding schools accountable for subsequent progress. International assessments such as PISA are not accountability measures in themselves, but are often utilised in a similar way and national policies are judged against performance in these tests. Drawing upon the examples of PISA and national assessments in the US, this paper explores how students with special educational needs and disability (SEND) are included in, and served by, these assessment policies. The analysis suggests that while these approaches are inclusive in their intent (most obviously through efforts to include students with SEND in testing) they may poorly represent the progress of these students. It is argued that more equitable inclusion of students with SEND must find a balance between accountability measures which measure performance in traditional attainment-focused tests and other relevant assessments which are meaningful to the given student and / or SEND sub-group.

The academic and social profiles of pupils with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and mild general learning disability in mainstream education in the Republic of Ireland

“…While it is important to recognise and accommodate all types of learners, especially under measurement conditions, it is nonetheless important to have quantitative information on a pupil's cognitive competence. The lack of such evidence not only makes it difficult to provide appropriate educational supports and make realistic predictions of future attainment, it also renders it almost impossible to evaluate the efficacy of supports or interventions that are provided (Scanlon, McEntaggart, Barnes‐Holmes, et al, ; Smith and Douglas, ; Yeo and Moore, ). Indeed, this runs counter to the existing policy context in which schools are accountable for pupil outcomes.…”

“…Within any educational context, academic outcomes and educational supports can only be evaluated with the use of appropriate measures of performance (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (EADNSE), ). The Programme for International Assessment (PISA) has become the principle source of data on the performance and quality of educational systems, as measured by student achievement (Smith and Douglas, ). Unfortunately, pupils with SEND may be excluded from participating in relevant testing, hence reducing the amount of evidence available on these pupils.…”

Employment Prospects of Young Adults With Mental Disorders

“…A potential reason may be the existence of testing regimes that increases individuals' risks to drop out of school because of not passing the tests. This risk exists for all individuals but may be particularly high for those with special needs (Smith and Douglas 2014). Dropping out of school may in turn expose individuals to a higher risk of deviance (Merton 1959;Cohen 1965).…”

Doing good while performing well at Flemish universities: benchmarking higher education institutions in terms of social inclusion and market performance

“…On an international scale, this is the most common approach and puts more emphasis on an institutional basis than on the level of the individual child (Mittler 2000). Third, the output-funding model or the standards-driven accountability model (Smith and Douglas 2014) also includes student outcomes in resource allocation decisions. Numerous pros and cons exist for each of these funding models, which are confronted in an encompassing way by, for example, Banks, Frawley, and McCoy (2015).…”