The Ohio Achievement Assessment and Deaf / Hearing Impaired Students: Have They Been Left Behind?

摘要

The purposes of this study were 1) to examine Ohio Achievement Assessment data in the content areas of Reading, Science and Social Studies between the years of 2004-2010) to determine whether an achievement gap exists within the disability category of Deaf /Hearing Impaired; 2) to determine whether the trends present in the data of normal hearing students were also present in the data of students who are Deaf/ Hearing Impaired, and 3) to determine what impact No Child Left Behind has had on student performance.;Ohio Achievement Assessment data from approximately 900 school districts in the state of Ohio was examined. These assessments were scored by the Ohio Department of Education and posted on their interactive Local Report Card website and disaggregated by school year, disability and race.;Results of the analyses in the content area of Reading revealed significant differences in the percent of normal hearing White Non-Hispanic students scoring Advanced and Accelerated as compared to their normal hearing Black Non-Hispanic peers. Significant differences were also revealed in the percent of Black Non-Hispanic students rated as Basic and Limited achievement as compared to their White Non-Hispanic peers. Trends present for normal hearing students were also present for the D/HI students in that more normal hearing and D/HI Black students scored in the lowest levels as compared to their White Non-Hispanic peers.;In the content areas of Science and Social Studies no difference was observed between the percent of White Non-Hispanic and Black Non-Hispanic normal hearing or D/HI students scoring in either level of proficiency. Trends present for the normal hearing group in the content area of Science were also present for the D/HI group with more Black Non-Hispanic students scoring Basic. Trends present in the content area of Social Studies for the normal hearing students were also present for the D/HI students with fewer students scoring Advanced and Limited.;In regards to overall performance on the Ohio Achievement Assessment, the effect of No Child Left Behind is not noted as no significant change in student performance was observed for the period of 2004 to 2010. More Black Non-Hispanic normal hearing and D/HI students failed the Ohio Achievement Assessment as compared to their White Non-Hispanic peers which supports the presence of an achievement gap in Ohio public schools for both normal hearing and D/HI students.