Hello MassMATCH Alert Subscriber,

Please read the message below from one of our AT Act Program partners. Kindly lend your support by signing the petition and also help spread the word about it widely through your various channels.

The online petition has been created for people who want to sign on in opposition to the PARCC proposed accommodations manual. The responses will be submitted to PARCC Friday evening.

Thank you.

Kobena

MassMATCH Program Coordinator

From: Michigan Disability Rights Coalition

Date: Tue, May 14, 2013 at 7:19 AM

Subject: Testing Accommodations Under Attack for Students with Disabilities

To: aimee@mymdrc.org

Dear Advocates:

Please take action and sign our petition opposing the draft accommodation manual that has been developed by PARCC (one of the national assessment consortia for K-12 education.) the draft guidelines are highly restrictive and will result in many students with disabilities being prohibited from using Assistive Technology (AT) on this assessment even when they use that AT every day in the classroom for instruction.  Obviously, this will cause many students to do poorly and in some states where these assessments may become a requirement for graduation, students with disabilities may not be able to graduate.

So far we have had little success in influencing the content of these policies because our numbers have been relatively small in responding to their online survey.  We need to have as many people as possible respond to this!!  Please distribute to any and all of your networks and encourage people to submit and sign the petition.