I looked back at a letter our district sent out and this a federal thing.
"Students with severe learning disabilities are eligible to take an alternate test instead of the traditional state-mandated standardized tests. The U.S. Department of Education allows only 1 percent of “alternate” tests taken by students with severe learning disabilities to count toward that district’s annual report card."
I don't think this has anything to do with having only 1% of kids use accommodations, but rather having at most 1% of *severely* disabled kids take an *alternate* test.
I know that my state (CA) has the CST (California Star Test), which can be taken with accommodations (extended time, questions read out...), and then the CMA (California Modified Assessment -- "students whose disabilities preclude them from achieving grade-level proficiency on an assessment of the California content standards *with or without accommodations*") and the CAPA (California Alternate Performance Assessment -- "for students with severe cognitive disabilities") which test against a different curriculum.
I think the CMA and the CAPA is what is meant by the "alternate" tests above... and since the CMA means that the student's IEP is failing to bring him/her up to grade level it is understandable to limit its use. Because abusing it would be soooooooo easy (basically any student on an IEP could be left out to fail without affecting the school's grade).
It looks like your school is not playing those games, pity they are still getting hit by the penalty
