IEP Training for Kansas Schools
Standards-Based IEPs
(Recommended Practices)
Kansas State Department of Education
TASN - Technical Assistance System Network
2013-14
Agenda
www.ksdetasn.org
• What is a Standards-based IEP?
• Steps to develop a standards-based
IEP:
1. Use PLAAFPs to link to the
Standards
2. Choose a standard related to a
prioritized need and analyze skill
components
3. Select a skill component and
develop a goal
4. If needed, write Short-term
Objectives or Benchmarks
5. Collect progress monitoring data
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What is a Standards-based IEP?
• A process and a document that is framed by the Kansas
College and Career Ready (KCCR) Standards to ensure
instructional accountability for each student with a
disability.
• A plan that contains goals individually designed to
facilitate the student’s achievement of grade-level state
content standards.
• The cornerstone of access to the general education
curriculum for students with disabilities.
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How Do IEP Teams Align IEPs to Standards?
• Refer to the KCCR standards to determine
expectations at the student’s enrolled grade level
• Use the standards as a guide to determine what is
important for the student to learn or be able to do
• Conduct an analysis to determine the gap between
grade level standards and the student’s current
skills and knowledge
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Benefits of a Standards-Based IEP
• Provides all students with the opportunity to learn and make
progress in grade-level academic standards.
• Provides students taking alternate assessments with the
opportunity to learn and make progress on grade-level
standards in a manner that is appropriate to their individual
needs.
• Ensures compliance with federal and state requirements
related to access to the general education curriculum grade
level standards.
• Ensures every member of the IEP Team, including parents and
guardians, have knowledge of state content standards.
• Ensures that parents have a better understanding of
expectations for students in their child’s grade level.
• Supports a collaborative working relationship between general
and special education teachers.
• Prepares students for success in post secondary environments.
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School Curriculum Must Align with State Standards
KCCR Standards:
• Provide instructional accountability
• Drive general education content instruction
• Define the expectations of all students, with or
without disabilities
• Can provide a structure for linking the IEP to the
general curriculum
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Why Connect IEPs to Standards?
• Helps support accountability for the student and the
system
• Supports each student’s access to and progress in the
general curriculum
• Essential for closing the achievement gap
• Supports achievement of performance goals for all
students
• Promotes a single system of education—a common
language and support for LRE
• Encourages greater consistency across schools and
districts
• Helps create high expectations for all students
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Connecting IEPs to Standards…
 Does NOT mean –
•
Writing goals that restate the standards
•
Using the academic standards alone to
determine goals
•
Assuming that every student will work only on
grade level content
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Connecting IEPs to Standards…
 Does mean –
 Referring to standards to determine expectations
at grade level
 Using the standards as a guide to determine
what is important for the student to learn or be
able to do
 Conducting an analysis to determine the gap
between grade expectations and current skills
and knowledge
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Sequence for Building a Standards-Based IEP
1. Consider the grade-level content standards

Examine standards.

Discuss expected knowledge and skills

Consider prerequisite knowledge and skills
2. Examine student data to determine where
student is in relation to grade-level standards

Compare standards with student’s current
instructional level
 Gap Analysis
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Getting Ready for Developing a
Standards-Based IEP
Develop knowledge of the standards
– Curriculum guides
– Extended standards or links to standards
Make sure student data is current
– Evaluation/reevaluation data, if current
– Progress monitoring data
– Current state assessment results
– Classroom assessment data
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General Educators can provide
information about:
• Classroom expectations (related to the
standards) for grade-level peers
• How the student with a disability is currently
performing in the classroom
• How the student’s disability impacts his/her
performance in the general curriculum, across
achievement domains
• Impact of accommodations being used
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Think and Discuss
How have the KCCR Standards shaped
instruction in your school for students in
general education? For students in
special education?
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1) Use PLAAFPs to link to Standard
• PLAAFPs must include information about:
– Current performance
– Impact of exceptionality
– Baseline data for identified need
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PLAAFPs Must Include
CURRENT PERFORMANCE
IMPACT OF EXCEPTIONALITY
BASELINE DATA FOR IDENTIFIED NEED
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The Impact Statement Describes the Student’s
Involvement in the General Curriculum
Think about the following questions:
1. How does the student’s disability impact the student’s
involvement in the general education curriculum?
2. What academic areas are impacted due to the disability?
Example:
• Ann’s disability in the area of auditory processing and auditory
memory causes her to have difficulty processing problems
and remembering information presented orally. This impacts
her comprehension and her ability to follow multi-step
directions and recall complex concepts. This also impacts her
academic success in all instructional settings with oral
presentations, including reading, written language, and math,
and to a lesser degree, science and social studies.
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Possible Data Sources for Linking
PLAAFPs to Standards
• Progress monitoring results (review of
achievement of previous IEP)
• Classroom tests
• Student work samples
• Curriculum-based assessment
• Formative, benchmark and summative
assessments
• Results of most recent state assessment
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Questions to ask about PLAAFPs and Standards
•
•
•
•
•
•
What has been the student’s response to learning
strategies?
How do learner characteristics affect student learning?
What have been successful interventions or
accommodations?
Which need presents the biggest obstacle to the
student’s progress toward grade-level standards?
How does the child’s disability impact his/her
involvement and progress in the general curriculum?
What are the skill sets the student requires to access
and make progress in general education curriculum?
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Questions to ask about PLAAFPs and Standards
• What is the student’s current performance in
relation to the grade-level content standards?
• What state standards has the student achieved?
• What skills does the student already have that
will enable him/her to work toward standards for
the student’s current grade level?
• What skills are missing in order for the student to
be able to achieve the grade level standard?
• What are this student’s high priority needs that
you might want to develop goals to address?
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Consider Gap Analysis
 A gap analysis is used to measure and analyze the
difference between the student's current levels of
performance and grade-level content standard
expectations.
 What prerequisite skills or knowledge does the
student need to close the gap between his/her
Present Level of Academic Achievement and the
grade-level content standards?
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Activity: Conducting a Gap Analysis
1) Compare the student’s present level of
performance to the expectations of the
grade-level content standard.
2) Where are there gaps between the present
level and the standard?
3) What skills does the student need to move
from current level to the level of the
standard?
4) At what grade level are the pre-requisite
skills needed by the student taught?
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Activity: Gap Analysis
• PLAAFP: Richie can add and subtract single digit
numbers with 90% accuracy. He can add double digit
numbers with 50% accuracy but he is unable to
subtract double digit numbers that require
regrouping. He can identify coins and small bills
(penny, nickel, dime, quarter, one, and five dollar
bills) but he cannot make change. Richie can estimate
two-digit numbers but not more than that.
• Standard: The fourth grade standard for math
requires the following computation: Add, subtract,
multiply (three-digit by two-digit factors), and divide
(two-digit dividends by one-digit divisors) to solve
problems.
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Questions for IEP Teams to Consider when
Conducting a Gap Analysis
• What is the intent of the content standard?
• What is the content standard saying that the student
must know and be able to do?
• What are the essential skills associated with the content
standard?
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Gap Analysis: Other Questions to Consider
• Has the student been taught content aligned with the
grade-level standards?
• Has the student been provided appropriate
instructional scaffolding to attain grade-level
expectations?
• Does the student have an appropriate means to express
what he or she knows relative to the content standard?
• Was the student provided core and supplemental
materials in an accessible format?
• Is assistive technology needed to access instruction in
the general curriculum?
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2) Choose a standard related to a prioritized
need and analyze the skill components
• Selection of a standard should be related to a highpriority need for which you want to write a goal
(remember not all needs will be addressed through
goals)
• Not all standards are equally important for a student
• Consider
– Vision for the student
– Impact of the standard on skills needed for success in
subsequent grade levels
– Impact of the standard on skills needed across
achievement domains
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Choosing and Analyzing a Standard
 Choose the standard(s) most essential to
• Accelerating the student’s ability to progress in
the general education curriculum
• Result in educational benefit
• Reduce the difference between student’s
performance and grade level standards (Gap
Analysis)
 Unpack the standard—Break it into sub-skills
 Identify the critical skill(s) needed to demonstrate
proficiency of general education curriculum
expectations at the student’s enrolled grade level
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Prioritizing the Standards
Which standards:
• Will most influence the student’s ability to progress
in the general education curriculum?
• Will most likely result in educational benefit for the
student?
• Can be met with accommodations in the general
classroom?
• Require specialized instruction?
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Selecting the Standard

Determine which standards are most important for
each student (based on progress in the general
education curriculum)

Compare standard(s) with student’s areas of need
and the impact of the disability

Use data to determine the areas the student will
find difficult without additional supports
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Analyze skill components within the
standard
• What is the standard saying the student must
know and be able to do?
• What are key vocabulary?
• Look at degree of difficulty and complexity of the
skills within the standard.
• What are the pre-requisite skills?
• Identify where the student is performing within
the skill hierarchy related to the standard.
• How does the student’s disability and learning
characteristics affect progress in this standard?
(adapted from Carol Kosnitsky, 2012)
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Drill Down
Teach Up
• It is important “to drill down into a set of
standards and determine which are the critical
elements, and then figure out how to get a
child to a point where he or she can
understand those elements.” (Margaret
McLaughlin, University of Maryland at College Park)
• Higher expectations create the need to teach
with higher intensity
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Activity: Link PLAAFP Need to KCCR Standard
Directions:
1. Select either the PLAAFP Example for Grade 4 (Sally) or
for Grade 8 (Kimi).
2. Link a need from this PLAAFP statement to a KCCR
standard for the student’s grade level.
3. Analyze the skill components of that standard.
4. Which skill components are related to this student’s
current levels?
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3) Select a skill component and
develop a goal
•
Remember that a goal has 4 Components:
a. Behavior
b. Conditions
c. Criteria
d. Timeframe
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Develop a goal
• The goal may relate to a missing pre-requisite skill
for a standard.
• The goal should describe what the student will
accomplish in one school year.
• Remember the required components of a goal:
–
–
–
–
Behavior/skill
Conditions
Criteria
Timeframe
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Issues to consider when setting goals
• If you want the student to move closer to
grade-level standards, the student may need
to achieve more than a year’s progress in a
year’s time.
• Only very intense instruction can achieve this
level of progress for students who have
chronically made less than a year’s progress
year after year.
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When Developing Measurable Goals
Aligned with Grade-Level Standards
• Goals should build on current strengths or address
specified needs of the student
• Goals are targeted WITHIN the general education
curriculum
o Not a restatement of the standard
o Do not take the place of the curriculum
o Goals for behavior, life skills, and other areas may
also be targeted
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Consideration of the Standards
• Intent of the standard
• Skills needed to meet standard
 Includes depth of knowledge
 New skills and extensions
• Knowledge and skills that should be in place in order
for student to meet standards
 Prerequisites
 Connections to previous learning
• Methods for showing what the student knows and
can do within the standard
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Example: Measurable Annual Goals
Standard: ELA Gr. 4 RF Standard 3
Skill component: Applying phonics and word analysis
to decode words
Measurable Annual Goal:
In one semester, Larry will correctly decode words in
isolation with an average of 90% accuracy when given
a list of 25 unfamiliar multi-syllable words out of
context.
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Activity: Measurable Annual Goal for Sean
Goal: In 36 instructional weeks, when given 10
questions per passage, Sean will answer with 90 %
accuracy comprehension about fourth grade level
literary and informational text.
Sean is a 4th grader.
• What KCCR ELA 4th grade standard is aligned to this
goal?
• To what specific skill component of that standard is
the goal linked?
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Think and Discuss
• Sean’s PLAAFPs indicate that he is able to
accurately decode literary and informational
text at a first semester, third grade level. Do
you think this goal is appropriate for Sean?
• Sean’s baseline data indicates that his
comprehension with beginning third grade
text is 80% on a maze test. Do you think the
goal is written appropriately? How will you
measure progress?
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Activity: Measurable Annual Goals
Directions:
• Chose the activity for Sally or Kimi, depending
on which student PLAAFPs you used in a
previous activity.
• Develop a measurable goal for Sally or Kimi,
based on the analysis of the standard from the
earlier activity. Use the 2 X 2 table found on
the next slide and in the Activities handout.
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Measurable Annual Goal:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Behavior
Condition
Criteria
Timeframe
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4) If needed, write Objectives or
Benchmarks
• Short-term objectives and benchmarks are
steps that measure the student’s progress
toward the annual goal.
• These should provide a clear mechanism to
evaluate the child’s progress.
• They are a logical breakdown of the major
components of the annual goal.
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Short-Term Objectives and Benchmarks
• Are required only for those students taking the
Kansas Alternate Assessment and DLM
• ALL goals on an IEP for a student taking the Kansas
Alternate Assessment must include benchmarks or
short term objectives
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Short-Term Objectives
• Are sequential, progressive, intermediate
measures of progress toward the annual goal
• Are restatements of the goal with a different
criterion
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Benchmarks
• Are milestones that describe content to be
learned or skills to be performed
• Are used when progress is not easily quantified
and is based on task analysis
• Are distinct skills that are often independent of
each other but must be combined to meet the
measurable annual goal
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Activity: Complete the steps for Marco
1) Identify a 7th grade math standard that is related to
Marco’s PLAAFP.
2) Identify the component skills of the standard.
3) Develop a measurable annual goal that is related to
the component skills of the standard.
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Activity: Complete the Steps for Marco
Directions: Identify a math standard for seventh grade that is
related to the following PLAAFP. Develop a measurable annual
goal for Marco that is related to the component skills of that
standard.
PLAAFP:
• Marco knows all the addition and subtraction facts, but he has
memorized the multiplication and division facts only through
fives. However, he has good calculator skills and is able to
correctly solve two-step word problems using a calculator. He is
currently working on addition and subtraction of fractions. He
does not yet understand the relationship between fractions and
decimals. He has begun to compute addition and subtraction of
negative and positive whole numbers, using a number line that
extends both above and below zero.
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5) Collect progress monitoring data to
measure progress toward the goal
Progress monitoring data answers the following
questions:
• Is the student making progress toward his/her
goal?
• Are instructional adjustments are needed?
• Are the special education services and
supports being provided effective in helping
the student to reach his/her goal?
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Collect Progress Monitoring Data
• Identify the skill in the goal that will be
monitored and the measurement to be used
• Develop a chart to track the data
• Develop an aimline (a line from the baseline
score to the criteria in the goal)
• Determine how often to collect data
• Make instructional adjustments based on the
data
• Make progress reports to parents consistent
with the schedule in the IEP
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The Trendline Won’t Meet the Aimline—
Intensify Instruction
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Intensifying Instruction
• Some options for intensifying instruction are:
– Increase the number of practice opportunities or provide
practice opportunities with adult support present
– Reduce the size of the group or move to one-on-one
– Spend more time modeling the “I do” and “We do” guided
practice before the student practices independently
– Increase the length or frequency of the instructional
intervention
– Use a more systematic program/curriculum so that skills are
taught in a more prescribed manner
– Provide better access to instruction through assistive
technology
– Provide additional special education services and supports
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Review
• Standards-based IEPs are a recommended but not
required practice.
• The IEP should not merely restate the content
standard, but should specify the skills the student
needs to acquire in order to make progress in
achieving the standard, thereby accessing the
general education curriculum.
• Annual goals in a standards-based IEP are related to
needs resulting from the student’s disability that
directly affect access to and progress in the general
education curriculum.
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Standards-Based IEPs are about
Access to the General Curriculum
• How do we make sure that students with
disabilities have access to the higher-level
skills that are embedded in the KCCR
Standards?
• The focus has shifted from physical access
(mainstreaming) to access to the general
curriculum, and making schools accountable
for the progress of all students within the
state’s standards.
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Access to the General Education Curriculum
for Students with Disabilities
ACCESS is:
• Students with disabilities actively engaged in
learning the content and skills of the general
education curriculum.
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Access to the General Education Curriculum
for Students with Disabilities
ACCESS is not:
• A student with a disability sitting in a general education
classroom doing work that is unrelated to the gradelevel content standards
• A student with a disability sitting in a general education
classroom listening to content that is meaningless to
the student because it is too difficult and has not been
adapted for the student’s needs.
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Access to the General Education Curriculum
for Students with Disabilities
• It is essential to determine how a student with a
disability will participate in the content of the general
education curriculum.
– Differentiated instruction and assessment
– Adapted accessible materials
• The student’s strengths provide the best information to
determine how the student can access the knowledge
and skills of the general education curriculum.
 Principles of Universal Design
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Standards-based Instruction
• Standards-based instruction is a process for
teaching all students using a curriculum that is
clearly defined by academic content standards
for the purpose of improving academic
performance.
• A fundamental principle of standards-based
instruction is to have consistent expectations for
all students. This may be facilitated through use
of different materials or strategies to master a
content standard.
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Collaborate to build implementation of
effective instructional practices
• Universal design for learning (multiple ways of
presenting information, multiple avenues of
student response)
• Explicit instruction
• Scaffolded instruction
• Systematic instruction
• Differentiated instruction
• Sufficient opportunities for practice (with
corrective feedback)
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Reminders
• The IEP goal should NOT be a restatement of a
state standard
• Don’t forget that some goals may need to
address skills other than academics.
• Remember to consider how the use of
accommodations and/or assistive technology
might enable the student to access the
general curriculum more effectively.
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References
• Assessing Special Education Students SCASS (2012). Module 1:
Introduction to Standards-based IEPs [Power Point slides].
Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers.
• Assessing Special Education Students SCASS (2012). Module 2:
Standards-based IEPs: Developing Present Levels of Academic
Achievement and Functional Performance. [Power Point slides].
Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers.
• Assessing Special Education Students SCASS (2012). Module 3:
Standards-based IEPs: Writing Measurable Annual IEP Goals.
[Power Point slides]. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School
Officers.
• Kosnitsky, Carol (March, 2012), Writing IEPs that Align to Common
Core Standards, presentation for Alabama CASE Spring
Conference, Birmingham, AL.
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