Federal legislation requires students with disabilities to participate in state assessments, partly because such assessments are important components of educational accountability. These assessments are used to classify students according to their educational needs, provide information regarding the progress of students with disabilities, and identify the extent to which students are attaining state academic standards. The large majority of classified students are classified under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). But classification is highly inconsistent, which should raise concerns about over-, under-, and misclassifying certain types of disabilities. Misclassification can result from failing to identify students with disabilities, from classifying students with disabilities they do not have, and from delaying classifying disabilities in students. Some of this inconsistency is accounted for by teachers and schools (McDonnell, McLaughlin, & Morison, 1997); however, when contrasting state classification data there are striking differences that indicate that state guidelines vary and lead to the majority of misclassifications. Nationally 11.6% of students between the ages of 6 and 17 years were served under Part B of IDEA in the 2003-2004 school years (Data Accountability Center, 2009). Part B of IDEA is Assistance for Education of All Children with Disabilities, which is the core section of IDEA that provides most of the state funding. However, this overall classification percentage has demonstrated a highly inconsistent pattern for years and has ranged from 9.1% to nearly 16%. The reported prevalence rates for specific disabilities are very inconsistent from state to state. Based on the categories required...
However, the percentage of learning disabled students widely varies from 2.39% (Kentucky) to 7.67% (Iowa) across the nation. Discrepancies can be even larger in the case of less common disabilities such as mental retardation with a low of .37% (New Jersey) to a high of 3.06% (West Virginia).
The shift toward standardized testing has failed to result in a meaningful reduction of high school dropout rates, and students with disabilities continue to be marginalized by the culture of testing in public education (Dynarski et al., 2008). With that said, the needs of students with specific educational challenges are diverse and complex, and the solutions to their needs are not revealed in the results of standardized testing (Crawford &
(Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2006) References Arriaza, G. (1997). Grace under Pressure: Immigrant Families and the Nation-State. Social Justice, 24(2), 6+. Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33, 3-15. California Department of Education, Educational Demographics Unit. (2004). Statewide Stanford 9 test results for reading: Number of students tested and percent scoring at or above the 50th percentile ranking (NPR). Retrieved January 5, 2007, at http://www.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ Echevarria, J.,
Improving the Administration and Collection Process for Government-Sponsored Student Loans Introduction Today, tens of thousands of young people are mortgaging part of their future with student loans in order to obtain a higher education. In some cases, these students do not receive the full disclosure concerning repayment terms, creating a long-term hardship. To determine the facts, this paper provides an overview of government student loans and how the different actors on the
United States of America has faced numerous issues with dress codes of students particularly in its public schools. School boards have shown concern regarding violence, discipline or lewd behavior resulting from certain items of clothing. Some have proved the connection of clothing to disturbing behavior. Some schools ban certain items of apparel such as bandanas, tank tops, halter tops, torn clothing, baggy pants, etc. while some school boards have adopted
American With Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law on July 26, 1990 as Public Law 101-336. However, the law didn't become effective until January 26, 1992. The ADA is federal legislation that opened up services and employment opportunities to the millions of Americans with disabilities. This law was written to help balance the reasonable accommodation of citizens' needs and the capacity of private and public
Special Education According to the Federal Laws of the United States of America, "Special Education means specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability [IDEA 97-300.26(a)]." The revised statutes of Arizona defines a child with disability as "a child who is at least three but less than twenty-two years of age, who has been evaluated and found to have
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