i'd like to have miss denks and mr. seton comments on that. >> i agree with you. i think the iep process is great at getting everyone together and focusing on the one student. when we come to assessing based on state or national standards, we forget that individualized part of the individualized educatal plan. at my school we're constantly battling between the states and their iep which does address the skills they need in order to function after they're done with the public school system. unfortunately, a lot of times those two documents aren't working together. we're using a lot of our time to figure out that balancing game. as far as assessing students with special needs, i think it's essentialing whether i think an alternative assessment is great. note in maryland, we had the typical assess thamt most students took and we also have an alternative assessment. for a while we also had a modified assessment for the students that fell outside of that 1% but still were not able to complete grade level work. and they are doing away with that. i'm not sure of the poli