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The obsessive use of traditional standardized assessment approaches as valid and reliable solutions for educating and training the 21st Century Knowledge Citizen have significant problems and limitations for non-traditional learners with disabilities. For example, existing instruments do not provide for demonstrations of a person's  behavioral understanding and emotional capacity for dealing with the changing social/functional demands of the workplace environment. They also lack provisions which can evaluate  the problem solving and creativity needed to develop "what if's" compensations, accommodations, modifications and learning strategies that address real-time workplace requirements. This inability of the present system to offer more meaningful results unnecessarily limits skill focus, emphasizes "deficits and deficiencies", and lack an applied real-world contextual basis. Not facing up to these shortcomings has consequences impacting the entire education reform movement's hopes. Typically, instructional & training needs are identified through the use of criterion-referenced ability assessments. Of the many shortcomings associated with these instruments for the purpose of counseling, employment placement, and postsecondary education of adults with disabilities, there are three in particular that are problematic from my point of view and that drive alternative assessment choice and development. First, standardized testing generates situations where the abilities measured are tested in formats not typical of contextual or "real-world" situations. Wiggins char­acterized the inadequacy of this testing approach as "removing what is central in intel­lectual ...

The World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar zeroed in on the concept of education being in a transtional state- especially with technological breakthroughs expanding the potential access of education- but also fragementing/dividing the world into digital haves/have nots. Even though only 3% of the continent of Africa is connected to an electrical power grid, there are over 2.5 billion cellphone users. The current generation of global learners under the age of 25 have grown up with mobile phone apps, internet connections, text messaging, and games as part of daily living. They interact and function in a vastly different space than traditional settings are prepared to deal with, let alone any effective plan of reform for the future. But what does this mean to students with learning and neurological issues? What can be expected of their ability to learn and advance in parts of the world where they don't have schools, teachers, or help for their problems ? If the purpose of education today/tomorrow is to measure success by community impact, getting the "right students" to attend, affordable tuition, with trained teachers and infrastructure- then Professor Sugatra Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments challenges the relevancy of needing teachers, being able to speak the language of instruction, or having access to expensive computer technology. This ...