From the New York Daily News:

The controversial letter grades assigned to New York schools last year appear to favor high schools with a low percentage of special education students, according to an analysis by the teachers’ union there.

The union said high schools that earned A’s provided special education services to 8% of their students compared with 15.5% at schools that earned D’s or F’s.

“They’re basically setting up large schools that have a large percentage of special ed,” said Michael Mulgrew, the union’s vice president for career and technical high schools. “It’s almost as if they rigged the system to make them fail.”

Jim Liebman, who heads the city’s grading effort, denied a special education bias in the grades

The National Council on Disability, a federal agency appointed by the president, released a report today saying that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act have had a significant, positive impact on children with disabilities.

According to the report, students with disabilities appear to be doing better academically and are graduating with diplomas and certificates at higher rates than in prior years. Perhaps most importantly, said NCD chair John R. Vaughn, “students with disabilities are no longer ignored.”

“Teachers, administrators, and the community are becoming aware of what students with disabilities are capable of achieving if they are held to the same high standards and expectations as their peers,” he said in a statement.

Many local educators and parents have argued that NCLB has placed unreasonable expectations on students with disabilities. See earlier posts here, here, here and here.

From the Providence Journal:

The North Providence school district has been placed on “intervention” status by the state Department of Education after students in special education programs failed to meet academic targets for the second year in a row. Insufficient performance by students with disabilities was found both at the high school and elementary school levels.

Among recommendations by state investigators: moving students with disabilities out of segregated classrooms and placing them in classes with typical students. Local educators say the recommended changes are in process.

Natalie Ayala gets good grades in her special education classes, but hasn’t been able to pass the state’s exit exam.

From the Sacramento Bee:

With a special ed exemption expiring this year, California education officials and lawyers representing students with disabilities are trying to negotiate a plan for allowing students in special education to earn a diploma.

Until now, those students have been allowed to graduate even if they could not pass the state exit exams that have been required of other students since 2006. The exit exams were put in place after business leaders complained that many graduates lacked basic math and English skills.

Unless a change is worked out, special education students will be required to pass the math and English tests to earn a diploma along with everyone else, starting with the class of 2008.

Advocates for the disabled – who managed to stave off the test’s consequences for them for two years – say it’s an unfair requirement for kids who live with conditions including mental retardation, autism, deafness and learning disabilities. Many are in classes that don’t teach the 10th grade-level English and eighth grade-level math that’s tested on the exam.

(more…)

Part of a continuing series in the Quincy [MA] Patriot Ledger:

Massachusetts spends $1.8 billion each year on special education, but consistently ranks near the very bottom in state spending on programs for students who are unusually gifted or talented.

… The money for gifted and talented programs disappeared in the 1990s, educators say, the victim of changing priorities, tight budgets and the education reform movement that led to No Child Left Behind.

… For two decades, state and federal mandates have shifted more and more dollars into programs for children with special education needs because of physical limitations and learning disabilities.

By Phil Smith, writing in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the journal of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Smith examines the data on inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in American classrooms and describes the results as “disturbing.” He finds that only 10.95 per cent of such students received their education in regular education classrooms in the 2002-2003 school year, an increase of 3.84 percentage points over the ten preceding years.

Over the last five years of that decade the rate of inclusion actually declined in 34 states, indicating a re-segregation of young people with intellectual disabilities.

Smith writes that money, in and of itself, does not seem to be a significant barrier to including students with intellectual disabilities. Rather, he says, the problem is rooted in policy. All educators, not only special educators, must take responsibility for educating all students, and must receive the training they need in order to be successful. (more…)

From the Chicago Tribune:

In Illinois, nearly a third of all the schools that fell short of meeting federal achievement standards this year did so solely because of the performance of students enrolled in special education, according to state report card data released this week.

The vast majority of special education students … sit down to the same questions as every other student in their grade.

If, as a group, they fail to meet standards, the entire school could face sanctions specified in the law, from having to provide tutoring to a state takeover or restructuring.

… It leaves administrators with a dilemma: They don’t want to appear to blame their special education students for causing the school to fail, but they also have to explain to parents why their school didn’t meet the bar.