Administrators find it difficult to evaluate homeless students for learning disabilities.

Women on the faculty said there were code words used only when evaluating female students.

They are not necessary; evaluating students can be done far better by reading their essays, looking at their projects, and talking to them.

"There's no set formula or standard for how we evaluate students," she says.

Newark may not be the only school district to cut back on specialists who evaluate disabled students this year.

Instead, they evaluate prospective students solely through other means, such as an original essay or the marks the student received in a previous school.

Alternative assessments, such as evaluating students based on a portfolio of class work, have been proposed and rejected.

It is hard enough, they say, to evaluate students in one district using one standardized test.

Using check-off lists, and in some cases tests, teachers evaluate students on these skills several times during the year.

Districts and states will then have to abandon an unfair reliance on single tests to evaluate students.