Much research has evaluated teacher- or school-level variance in students' achievement as a proxy for teacher or school effects. These effects have almost exclusively been estimated across years with state-level testing data. In this paper, interim assessment data, collected across 9 time points in the fall, winter, and spring of Grades 3 to 5…

Modeling growth for students with significant cognitive disabilities (SWSCD) is difficult due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, missing data, test scaling, group heterogeneity, and small sample sizes. These challenges may account for the paucity of previous research exploring the academic growth of SWSCD. Our study represents…

Students with significant cognitive disabilities present an assessment dilemma that centers on access and validity in large-scale testing programs. Typically, access is improved by eliminating construct-irrelevant barriers, while validity is improved, in part, through test standardization. In this article, one state's alternate assessment data…

This study examined the type of growth model that best fit within-year growth in oral reading fluency and between-student differences in growth. Participants were 2,465 students in grades 3-5. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses modeled curriculum-based measurement (CBM) oral reading fluency benchmark measures in fall, winter, and spring…