TCAP-Alt Portfolios...Do they really measure up to the regular TCAP test?

There are some interesting questions that come up for me surrounding the TCAP-Alt portfolios.  These portfolios are suppose to be compared to the regular TCAP test. First, it seems a little strange to me that students who are unable to take the written TCAP tests are required to have proof in their portfolios that they had both peer interaction and that the data was taken in inclusive settings.  Students taking the regular TCAP would be ruled as having cheated if they had peer interaction while taking their test.  These students also take their TCAP tests in their regular classroom and are not required to take it in a variety of settings.   Also, general education students learn in the classes with activities that are teacher driven while portfolio students are required to do their activities ideally with people other than their teacher. Proof of choices are another odd part of the process of portfolios.  You have to offer at least 2 choices and must show what choice was made by the student yet some of these students do not really have an understanding of choices and therefore are not able to indicate a choice.  Do 4th grade students get to have a choice as to what they are learning or does the teacher and the curriculum make those decisions? Then there is the requirement of having to show a set amount of progress on each of the graphed sets of data.  Some of these students take months, even sometims years to really show some progress on goals.  Then there are the requirements to use alternative content standards in the core content areas of lang. arts, math, science and social studies (depanding on grade level). These altenative standards do not in any way address functional goals that many of these students are actually working on as a part of their IEPs. Then there is the scoring of the portfolios.  Our school had all proficient or advanced on our portfolios scores which on paper can show up as higher scores than the students in academic classes. Some of these requirements seem to be asking the TCAP-Alt students to do more than is required by the general education students. Also, where is the individualization in this process?
While I do believe that we need to have some type of test or assessment to indicate the abilities of these students and that it is difficult to have one tool that takes in to account the varied levels and educational needs of these students, I do not feel that the regular TCAP and the TCAP-alt portfolio should be compared. It is sort of like comparing apples and oranges but expecting them all to look like apples. Just saying!