The Special Education Accountability Debate

Today’s Ed Week article on NCLB and special education accountability is a great discussion of the two sides of this debate: states want more flexibility under NCLB to establish different standards and assessments for special education students, and special education advocates want NCLB to stay where it is—holding states accountable for getting special education students, with a few exceptions, to the same grade-level standards as other students.

I’m siding with the special education advocates on this one.

This report from the National Center for Learning Disabilities outlines the big reason why—most special education students aren’t diagnosed with a disability that precludes them from reaching grade-level standards. Instead, the diagnosis is meant to ensure that students receive the supports they need to achieve at grade-level. In addition, the current flexibility under NCLB already excuses approximately 30 percent of special education students from regular state assessments and standards. That’s already a higher percentage than the Aspen Commission on NCLB found reasonable.

Making this debate stickier is the fact that minority and low-income students are overrepresented in most disability categories. Studies have shown that the process of diagnosing a disability isn’t color-blind, and minority student have a higher chance of being diagnosed with a disability. This makes reducing the accountability for educating special education students an even riskier proposition, because it will disproportionately reduce accountability for minority and low-income students.

More to come from ES on this topic, but this Ed Week article makes a great primer.