The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (IDEA) require that all states develop and implement, by July 2000, alternate assessment methods for those students with disabilities who cannot be included within regular state and local district educational assessment and accountability measures. The focus of this article is how two states have addressed a set of seven essential questions in developing their alternate assessments; why they chose the formats, standards, and implementation systems that they did; and the intended and unintended consequences that have resulted thus far from those decisions. To further guide the efforts of others, a set of recommendations are provided for states and practitioners to consider in developing alternate assessments to meet the requirements of IDEA '97.
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