Our
Kids Count > Press Release
July 2006
The
Advocacy Institute released
the following Press Release in conjunction with the July 12,
2006 hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, No Child
Left Behind: Ensuring High Academic Achievement for Limited English
Proficient Students and Students with Disabilities.
For
additional information, read the testimony
of Dr. Rachel Quenemoen.
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Press Release
6.1 Million Students with Disabilities
Need
No Child Left Behind
July 12, 2006
For Immediate Release
For too
long this nation’s students with disabilities
have been overlooked, under taught, and left out. The No Child
Left
Behind Act of 2001 shone a bright light on the persistent underachievement
of important subgroups of students and only then did educators
begin to focus long needed attention on achievement of students
with identified disabilities.
No
Child Left Behind has finally brought students with disabilities
into state and district-wide assessments. Despite a requirement
added to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
in the 1997 amendments requiring all students with disabilities
to be included in state and district wide assessments, it was
not until the passage of NCLB that schools, school districts,
and states finally began to include all students and report their
performance. With these requirements have come the development
of accommodation policies that make it possible for students
to demonstrate what they have learned and alternate assessments
aligned to challenging academic content for those few students
with cognitive disabilities that preclude them from attaining
grade-level standards. Still, we have miles to go in developing
universally designed tests, appropriate alternate assessments,
and technically sound, well administered testing accommodations
for all students with disabilities.
No
Child Left Behind has realized the requirement that schools
are accountable
for ensuring that students with disabilities
have access to a challenging curriculum. Every student
served under IDEA is required to have an individualized education
program
(IEP) designed to meet their instructional needs and enable them
to make progress in the general education curriculum. It was
not until NCLB required schools and school districts to disaggregate
the performance of students with disabilities did access to the
same challenging academic content begin to become a reality.
Still, challenges remain, particularly the unacceptably high
percentage of schools that are allowed to escape accountability
for students with disabilities because of unreasonably high minimum “n” sizes,
often coupled with the use of confidence intervals.
No
Child Left Behind has addressed the lack of highly qualified
teachers. Despite years of federal investments in research
on effective instructional practices, teacher recruitment, pre-service
training, and assistive technology, only until the NCLB requirements
for highly qualified teachers, buttressed by additional provisions
for highly qualified special education teachers in IDEA 2004,
have students with disabilities been provided the opportunity
to receive instruction from both regular and special educators
who have academic content knowledge. Still, much remains to be
accomplished regarding the implementation of evidence-based practices,
effective and ongoing professional development and higher expectations
for students with disabilities.
Data
reported during the past five years indicates that students
with disabilities
were left behind or not considered in the effort
to raise standards and improve instruction in our nation’s
public schools:
- Nearly
38 percent of students with disabilities ages 14 and older
dropped out of school during the 2001-2002 school year.
Only 51 percent graduated with a standard diploma in the
same year.
Source: 26th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation
of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004;
- Roughly
10 percent of special education positions nationally — 39,140
positions — are filled by uncertified personnel who serve
approximately 600,000 students with disabilities.
Source: SPeNSE, Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education
2002
- Only
57 percent of special education teachers say they are “very” familiar
with their state’s academic content for the subjects
they teach.
Source: Quality Counts 2004: Count Me In, Education Week 2004
- Only
35 states and the District of Columbia require schools or
district
report cards to include information separately on
the test participation rates and performance of students with
disabilities. Few states – seven and 15 respectively,
require schools or districts to report dropout and graduation
rates separately
for students in special education.
Source: Quality Counts 2004: Count Me In, Education Week 2004
- Grades given
to secondary school students with disabilities have been found
to have no correlation to real academic functioning,
misleading parents about how their child is actually performing.
Source: Youth with Disabilities: The Achievements of Youth with
Disabilities During Secondary School. Reports from the National
Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) 2003
Even with the passage of No Child Left Behind and corresponding
amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
in 2004, children with disabilities are most certainly left behind
and affected by the lack of expectations they face in their schools:
- Only
one-fifth of teachers think that “all” or “most” of
their special education students can score at the proficient
level on state exams.
Source: Quality Counts 2004: Count Me In, Education Week 2004
- The
vast majority, 86 percent, of teachers feel that it is “unfair” to
evaluate special education students on how well they master
academic content standards based on test scores. Eighty-nine
percent feel
it is unfair to teachers to be evaluated on how well IEP students
score on state tests.
Source: Quality Counts 2004: Count Me In, Education Week 2004
- Only seven
states require that the IEPs of students with disabilities
address state academic content standards.
Source: Quality Counts 2004: Count Me In, Education
Week 2004
Under
NCLB’s “accountability” provisions school
districts and individual schools must make what the Act terms “adequate
yearly progress” (AYP) towards ensuring that all students
achieve at least a “proficient” level on state assessments
in reading and math by the 2014-2015 school year. Each state
sets the standard for what constitutes “proficient,” and
defines “adequate yearly progress,” per
certain requirements set out in NCLB and approved by
the U.S. Department
of Education.
To exclude students with disabilities from being included
in the determination of AYP as required by NCLB and
which is critical
to ensuring effective teaching and instruction of ALL
students to the standards expected to be met by all,
would constitute
a violation of their civil rights.
Children
with disabilities, including those students with significant
disabilities, are making progress under No Child Left Behind.
The challenge for these children, their families and the advocates
who are allied with them will be to ensure that our nation’s
education leaders view the education of students with disabilities
to high academic standards as a challenge and a shared goal.
As Congress prepares to examine and reauthorize NCLB, it is encouraged
to stay the course on accountability for students with disabilities.
The
Advocacy Institute
Marshall, Virginia
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