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The program consisted primarily of presentations selected through an open call for submissions and a peer review process guided by program chairs of divisions, committees, and special interest groups (SIGs). In addition, there will be invited speakers and symposia, panel discussions, professional development courses, and graduate student programs.

The National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) conducted its annual meeting for its professional members involved in assessment, evaluation, testing, and other aspects of educational measurement.

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) works to improve the educational success of children and youth with disabilities and/or gifts and talents.

This annual conference provides a forum for researchers, educators, engineers, and government officials involved in the general areas of Education Reform and Management Innovation to disseminate their latest research results and exchange views on the future research directions of these fields.

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) empowers school psychologists by advancing effective practices to improve students’ learning, behavior, and mental health.

A summary of critical issues in growth models for a fully inclusive assessment system. Symposium with Tindal, G. (Session leader), Stevens, J., Schulte, A., Nese, J., Elliott, S., & Anderson, D.

The American Educational Research Association's Special Education Research Special Interest Group chose Dr. Gerald Tindal as this year's recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award.
Dr. Tindal received this award in recognition of his significant and sustained contributions to the special education field.

Accepted papers:

Distractor analysis: What can we learn from it?
Park, B. J., Sáez, L., Alonzo, J., & Tindal, G.

Growth estimation of oral reading fluency using growth mixture modeling.
Park, B. J., Pinkney, C., Alonzo, J., & Tindal, G.

Reading comprehension test item difficulty and complexity
Sáez, L., Patarapichayatham, C., Basaraba, D., Tindal, G., & Park, B. J.

Response to RTI: A study of five schools implementing response to intervention
Alonzo, J., Bender, F., Nese, R. N. T., Tindal, G.

Examining a formative assessment risk classification system using latent class growth. Roundtable session with Lai, C. F.

Drs. Gerald Tindal and Joseph Nese presented on the topic: Within year achievement growth using curriculum based measurement.

Two General Supervision Enhancement Grants were presented:

First is the Dynamic Learning Maps Alternate Assessment System designed to reform the process and design of tests so they can model good instruction.

Second is the National Center and State Collaborative for developing assessments supported by curriculum, instruction, and professional development.

Participants will leave with knowledge of assessment development being used in the two GSEGs and the criteria for which they should be evaluated.

Validating Progress Monitoring In The Context Of RTI
Dr. Gerald Tindal was the organizer of this panel discussion which was designed to provide an open forum and debate-type discussion on measurement components for response-to-intervention (RTI) models. A key focus of the session was criteria to consider in evaluating the appropriateness of RTI measurement systems, referencing the National Center on Response to Intervention and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1999). The session systematically highlighted the complexity of RTI and the tension among measurement, student progress, and appropriate interventions that represents the very core of the validation process that is iterative and argument-based.

Validating Progress Monitoring in the Context of Response to Intervention (RTI). Alonzo, J., Nese, J. F. T., & Sáez, L., (Paper Presentation)

An Exploration of Growth Models for Within-Year Grade 5 Oral Reading Fluency. Nese, J. F. T., Kamata, A., Nese, R. N. T., Park, B. J., Tindal, T. (Poster presentation) (Poster presentation)

The Impact of Rhythmic Music on Walking Gait for Individuals with Cerebral Palsy. Poster session with Tindal, S.

Hierarchical Linear Modeling of Oral Reading Fluency Growth as a Function of Student Characteristics. Paper Session with Stevens, J. and Tindal, G.

Dr. Yovanoff, is a professor at SMU and a former Research Associate at the University of Oregon. He willl be presenting on Generalizability Theory Applied to Reading Assessments for Students With Significant Cognitive Disabilities, in one of the conference rooms at EMPL in the College of Education.

There will be a discussion afterwards (2-4 pm) to discuss the next steps in this study. Dr. Yovanoff is a collaborator with Behavioral Research and Teaching.

Creating a sustainable RTI practice requires collaboration between researchers and practitioners. Representatives of Model/Demonstration Projects of RTI studies share the lessons learned from their individual projects, including fidelity implementation, scaling up innovations, developing a sustainable practice, and the relation between development of progress monitoring measures and evidence-based decision-making.

Presenters: Kimy Liu, Ed Shapiro, Gerald Tindal, and Julie Alonzo

Screening and progress monitoring assessments depend on alternate forms to be of equivalent difficulty to accurately reflect student growth. This study, which ends December 2011, has been responsible for creating alternate forms of equivalent difficulty reading measures that are used as part of a RTI (Response To Intervention) system. The results of earlier piloted measures are now available in BRT Labs. They include Silent Reading Fluency Sentences, Silent Reading Fluency Maze, Vocabulary Sentences, and Vocabulary Maze. By the spring of 2012, we plan to have the system on line so that students and teachers can take these computer-based measures in reading.

The vision for this meeting was to bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers from national and state levels and representatives of early education professional organizations to discuss what they know and what they need to learn about employing multi-tiered instructional approaches to promote early literacy and language outcomes for young children.

A two-day training, held at the University of Oregon, on how to operate the easyCBM system and make informed decisions based on student information were discussed. The first day of training was designated to new and returning district users with time set aside for open discussion and the sharing of ideas. Our new district partner, Riverside Publishing, was introduced to participants. The second day concluded with training and discussion with teachers of the easyCBM Lite version.

Presenters were Gerald Tindal and Julie Alonzo.

The popularity of easyCBM continues to grow at an incredible rate. As a result, the University of Oregon has teamed up with Riverside Publishing, which is now the exclusive distributer of district version of easyCBM (http://www.riversidepublishing.com/products/easycbm/overview.html), to ensure that we are able to continue to offer easyCBM to all districts that want to use it. BRT continues to offer the free teacher easyCBM Lite Edition (http://easycbm.com).

Dr. Gerald Tindal gave the presentation on Response to Intervention and Curruculum-Based Measurement. Dr. Julie Alonzo presented on Closing the Achievement Gap: Using easyCBM as a Tool to Leverage School Improvement.

In July 2011, researchers at BRT received funding for a National Research and Development Center on Assessment and Accountability for Special Education (http://www.ncaase.com) to develop and test various approaches for measuring the achievement growth of students with and without disabilities. The Center’s Focused Program of Research on reading and mathematics achievement growth is based on existing sets of longitudinal achievement data for students with and without disabilities from North Carolina, Arizona, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. Currently this grant is in the planning and implementation stage.

Five teachers from across the state of Oregon are currently serving as our "lead teachers" for all item writing. These five teacher leads have recruited 18 other teachers from across Oregon to assist with the item writing. We hope to have 900 new items written for each of grades 6-8 by the end of the year. All items are being written to align with the current draft of the Common Core Standards for Math. Next fall we will be looking for volunteers to help us pilot these items so we can assemble them into test forms and get them up on the easyCBM website. Please contact us if you'd like to be a part of the pilot!

BRT is piloting eight different forms each of four reading measures: Silent Reading Fluency Sentences, Silent Reading Fluency Maze, Vocabulary Sentences, and Vocabulary Maze.

Recently, we at BRT were awarded an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) federal grant, allowing us to expand the easyCBM assessment system. This month, we've begun recruiting teachers from across the state of Oregon to help write the new items. By the end of the school year, we hope to have 2,700 new items written - about half of which will end up online as part of the easyCBM system. The new items will be written to align with the current draft of the Common Core State Standards, and will be targeted at students in grades 6-8.

BRT has developed a new web site for its training programs that will be offered as part of the course work for EMPL as well as workshops conducted with easyCBM. See http://emplexamples.ziptrain.com/ where you can register. At this URL, you will find a number of supports for creating on line training that can be used as part of district and university staff development.

For the next month, BRT is piloting new reading measures for students in grades three, four, and five. Two of these measures are designed to target silent reading fluency (sentences and maze), and two are designed to target vocabulary (sentences and vocabulary-embedded maze). The online silent reading fluency measures mark the first fluency measures that do not have to administered one-to-one. We have developed multiple forms of each of these measures so that they can be used in monitor student progress in response to instruction. These four measures, along with a reading comprehension measure, should be available online soon.

We will be piloting new online tests of vocabulary, read-to-perform a task, short literary text, informational text, and silent reading fluency October 15 - November 15. The best test items will be added to the easyCBM system to help expand the array of tools available to teachers.

The public version of our testing accommodations decision making tool has received several new features, including the ability to load a customized database.

The Development of K-8 Progress Monitoring Measures in Mathematics for use with the 2% and General Education Populations: Grade 3 (Technical Report #0902)

Our "free for teacher use" progress monitoring system has reached a new record of 500,000 students. If you do not already have an account, sign-up at: http://easycbm.com