Special Topic Area:
Reporting of Participation and Performance of Students with Disabilities

Introduction

Public reporting of educational results is becoming an increasingly important tool for ensuring that public schools are accountable for helping students meet higher educational standards. New federal mandates, too, emphasize the importance of establishing on-going reporting systems that include all students, including students with disabilities.

Most states publish reports on student performance. In the past, few states publicly reported the educational results of students with disabilities. In fact, most state agencies did not even keep track of the rate at which these students participated in testing. Low rates of participation and variability from one place to the next prevents policy-relevant conclusions to be drawn about the extent to which students with disabilities are benefiting from their educational experiences.

Failure to report scores of all students sends the message that some students are not important — that the students do not count. What is reported is what the public knows, and what the public reacts to. Some say that "what is measured is what is treasured." It is probably valid to say that what is reported is what we attend to in educational reform.

Policymakers clearly took this to heart in legislation over the past decade. Federal policies require states to ensure that students with disabilities participate in their assessment systems; they also require public reporting. These requirements were first evident in the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which supports Title I programs, and were reinforced in the 2001 reauthorization of the ESEA, called the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).They are also evident in the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which supports special education programs.

Among its other reporting requirements, NCLB includes the requirement that states report student performance on the state assessment, and that the performance of students with disabilities be disaggregated along with several other subgroups. The 1997 reauthorization of IDEA required the participation of students with disabilities in statewide and district-wide assessment systems. Furthermore, it requires that states develop alternate assessments for students who cannot participate in the regular testing program and also that they report the performance of these students. Reporting on students with disabilities must be done in the same way and with the same frequency as for students without disabilities. IDEA 2004 reinforced these requirements, clarified that states must report on both alternate assessments based on grade-level achievement standards and alternate achievement standards, and must also report on the number of students using accommodations to participate in the general assessment.

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This page was last updated on July 15, 2008