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Educational Articles No Child Left Behind
What it all means -- Part 2 By Marion Hindes for Remedia Publications In our previous article we
discussed the major provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Now let
us turn our attention to its implications for special education. Federal laws, primarily the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Title 1 of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), require that students
with disabilities be included in state and district-wide assessments.
Congress required this because it found that many students, especially
those with disabilities, with limited English proficiency (LEP), as well
as poor, migrant, minority, and homeless students, were not performing
well enough in school to become successful adults. They found that many
educational programs offered lower quality curriculum and expected too
little of their students. The anticipated benefit of the law is that
inclusion in assessments will promote access to the general curriculum.
As a result, students with special needs will be afforded a more equal
opportunity to learn what their fellow students are learning, because
they will have to be tested in the same content areas. (These tests
primarily focus on the areas of Math, Reading, and Language Arts). IDEA states that the IEP team
(which always includes a parent or parent representative) will determine
how, not whether, a student participates in assessments. The IEP
team has the authority - with accountability-to devise either:
Parents may decide to have
their disabled child “opt out” of an assessment, only if
their state allows parents of non-disabled students to “opt
out.” However, parents and students need to be aware
that “opting out” may hinder promotion to the next grade, or even
the ability to graduate. The Educational Policy Reform Research Institute (EPRRI) is researching what is actually involved with fully including students with disabilities in the new accountability measures. It is a federally funded consortium of three organizations: the Institute for the Study of Exceptional Children and Youth, the National Center on Educational Outcomes, and the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative at Education Development Center, Inc. The EPRRI seeks to determine:
It is evident that, however controversial, standards and testing are a very present reality for today’s teacher. For a more in-depth look at assessment issues, you may find these information sources to be helpful: www.ed.gov and www.eprri.org.
At Remedia, we strive to support
you in your efforts to meet the challenges of testing and
standards-based education. To that end, we invite you to visit our web
site at www.remediapublications.com
for a description of our skills-based materials (including test
preparation) and the performance objectives they meet. Information Sources: (See web site addresses above).
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