This report presents the findings of a survey of states that examined the policies, practices, and procedures State Education Agencies (SEAs) used to monitor IEPs for participation decision making in alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). It is imperative that only students with the most significant…

States continue to navigate the shift that came with the 1% threshold on participation in alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). This shift, following the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, limited participation in the…

Graduation requirements and diploma options for students with disabilities who participate in the general assessment has been a topic of interest for many years. The recent push for all students, including those with disabilities, to leave school ready for college and career has heightened the importance of understanding what states are requiring…

Federal legislation requires that all students, including students with disabilities, be included in all state and district-level accountability systems. Many students can take the regular assessment with or without accommodations, but some students with disabilities need alternate ways to access assessments. For the past several years, states…

Asked 118 teachers of learning disabled (LD) students to describe their school districts' criteria for identifying LD students and indicate their agreement or disagreement with the criteria. Reported criteria were characterized by variability, even within states, as were the teachers' state agreement or disagreement with them. (Author/JAC)

This policy study looks at existing and emerging state policies on social promotion to determine the extent to which students with disabilities are included or excluded. Results reflect the status of state polices at one point in time, as determined from publicly available state documents and statutes of 14 states with promotion policies. The…

A nationwide survey of preschool programs (N=178) serving handicapped children revealed that approximately half had formal written exit criteria, the most common of which was chronological age. Other factors included formal test results, team staffing decisions, and the child's developmental skill level. Formal written exit criteria differed…

This report discusses the findings of a study that compared identified desirable characteristics of state accountability reports with 20 accountability reports generated by 7 states. Desirable characteristics included (1) clarity (the intended audience, statements of purpose, a description of the population being reported on and the states'…

Detailed qualitative case studies of four early childhood special education programs, representing a variety of approaches to decision making as well as different community settings (urban, suburban, and rural), present information regarding their diagnostic assessment procedures. In general, programs reported that the main objective of diagnostic…

Relevant policy issues for early childhood special education (ECSE) programs to consider in the areas of exit decision making and follow-up procedures are identified in this report. These issues were generated through extensive naturalistic case studies of four ECSE programs located in urban, suburban, and rural communities and were selected to…

In the mid 1990s, the National Center on Educational Outcomes worked with stakeholder groups to establish a set of criteria for use in large-scale assessments. The criteria addressed issues of the participation of students with disabilities in the assessments, assessment accommodations, and the reporting of results for students with disabilities.…