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 Disabled
Students in Alaska Sue Over Exam
by Tamar Lewin, March 17, 2004, New York Times
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http://www.bridges4kids.org.
Disabled
children and their parents filed a federal class-action lawsuit
yesterday against the Alaska Board of Education, the latest in a
string of challenges to laws of various states requiring
students to pass an exit exam to earn a high school diploma.
The suit charges that Alaska's exit exam discriminates against
students with disabilities, making a diploma hard — or
impossible — for them to obtain. The complaint said the state
had created widespread confusion by repeatedly changing its
regulations for disabled students and what testing modifications
they can receive.
Under the current rules, the lawsuit argues, more than
two-thirds of the state's disabled high school seniors will not
graduate in June.
Harry Gamble, a spokesman for Alaska education officials, said
they had not yet seen the complaint.
"We're obviously very concerned any time the state board is
implicated in not serving children well," Mr. Gamble said. "We
need an opportunity to review the suit and take a look at our
laws governing the exam."
Mr. Gamble added that Alaska had already postponed the
requirement for two years, making this June the first time it
will be in effect.
Under federal law, students with disabilities have a right to
accommodations on school tests. Students with learning
disabilities may be allowed to use a spell-checker or a
calculator, for example, while a blind child may have the test
questions read aloud.
The lawsuit, however, charges that Alaska is not allowing
students that same range of accommodations on its exit exam. If
a student uses a grammar-checker or has the questions read
aloud, for example, state regulations require the results to be
invalidated.
The suit charges that many disabled students have already
dropped out in discouragement.
A movement toward high school exit exams has swept the nation in
recent years, with almost half the states now requiring, or soon
to require, passage of a standardized test as a condition of
graduation. One legal group handling the Alaska case, Disability
Rights Advocates, of Oakland, Calif., has successfully
challenged proposed exit exams in California and Oregon.
In Alaska, the exam has three parts: reading, writing and
mathematics. Students start taking the test in 10th grade, and
twice a year thereafter can retake any part they do not pass.
This June, for the first time, students cannot graduate without
passing all three parts.
Many parents and advocacy groups say such requirements illegally
discriminate against special education students, immigrants and
minorities, who have disproportionately low passing rates for
the exams.
"For the class of 2004, 20 states will require graduates to pass
an exit test, and four more are adding them," said Keith Gayler,
associate director of the Center on Education Policy. "But in a
lot of states, they get right up to where they're going to
withhold diplomas and they back down a bit.
"They take out the more difficult sections, readjust the
standards, allow waivers, let SAT scores count or put off the
consequences. It's politically very difficult to have, say, 20
percent of your kids not getting diplomas."
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