The Study On AA-MAS In The United States

Alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards is a kind of assessment of students with disabilities in United States. AA-MAS is used to eliminate obstacle of the students with mild cognitive impairment on general assessment, and show the reality of themselves. By 1st January 2011, there were thirteen states have implemented AA-MAS in United States.In China, the main form of the students with mild cognitive impairment receive receive compulsory education is learning in regular class. But there is no academic assessment for these students, and the theoretical research is blank. So we urgent need the research about the students with mild cognitive impairment, for both practice and theoretics.This paper studies and introduces AA-MAS in every respect:background, development, structure and operation. The key points are the structure and operation of AA-MAS.The result shows that AA-MAS has formed its owen characteristics. There are: (1)the selection of academic assessment is flexible; (2)the selection of students is strict; (3)the content and standard of AA-MAS is link to general assessment; (4)all the aspects of AA-MAS are very closely connected. But there are many problems in the development of AA-MAS. For example, (1) the grade academic content standards are disjoint goals in individual educational program; (2) the training about AA-MAS is lack of effectiveness; (3) there is no regulation about the cohesion from AA-MAS to general assessment.Based on above results, the researcher proposed the following suggestions for the academic assessment for the students with mild cognitive impairment: change the idea about the students, find the potentiality; improve the individual educational program, set learning goals accord with the students with special needs; adjust the content and standard of the current general assessment; make various assessment methods.