DIAMOND: NCEO Launches Assessment Grant Project

The Institute's National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) has launched an Enhanced Assessment Grant project called Data Informed Accessibility - Making Optimal Needs-based Decisions (DIAMOND). The project's goal is to improve the validity of assessment results and interpretations for students with documented needs by developing guidelines for making informed decisions about accessibility features and accommodations. It will promote a decision-making process that moves beyond the use of a checklist approach (which often results in the identifying tools and accommodations that do not provide access to the student), to an approach that relies on the use of classroom progress data and other measures charted over time to evaluate individual student needs.

Martha Thurlow is DIAMOND's principal investigator and Laurene Christensen and Vitaliy Shyyan are co-investigators. DIAMOND is a collaboration between the state departments of education in Minnesota (lead), Alabama, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Wisconsin, the Virgin Islands, and NCEO. The $2.9 million, 33-month subcontract from the Minnesota Department of Education to NCEO began January 1 and is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.