ESSA and the Disability Community

At Education Week, Christina Samuels reports on passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Though NCLB is gone, to be replaced with far-more state-led accountability, there are some "guardrails," as Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington and an architect of the law, has said.

For example, states must still separate and report the performance of students with disabilities on state tests, and those tests must still be given in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

Most students with disabilities will be taking the general assessment: The bill maintains a 1 percent cap on the percentage of all students who can take alternate assessments and be counted as proficient. One percent of all students equates to about 10 percent of students with disabilities. These alternate assessments are intended for students with severe cognitive disabilities. The new law also says that taking the alternate assessment should not preclude a student from attempting to get a regular high school diploma.

The law requires states to develop plans on how they plan to reduce bullying and harassment,restraint and seclusion, and suspensions and expulsions—all of which disproportionately affect students with disabilities.

From Autism Speaks:

Approval of the legislation comes on the heels of the 40th Anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when individuals with autism and their families celebrated the improvements in public education for those with developmental disabilities, but challenged Congress to go further to help all students reach their fullest potential.

The improvements to federal education policy come after the U.S. Department of Education recently announced rule changes aimed at monitoring and prioritizing the progress of students with disabilities, including those with autism.

The new rules disallow states from testing students with disabilities with alternative academic standards. Advocates point out that using alternative academic standards for students with disabilities may hinder their access to general education curriculum and graduation. By codifying these accountability provisions, the Every Student Succeeds Act establishes expectations for academic achievement for students with disabilities.

Special Education and the Reauthorization of ESEA

Alyson Klein reports at Education Week that a number of interest groups are weighing in on the ESEA reauthorization, including special education advocates:

The NCLB law, which requires states to break out student achievement data by particular groups of students, including those in special education, "has provided so much good information we never had before about how students with disabilities are really performing," said Lindsay Jones, the director of public policy and advocacy for the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

That doesn't mean, she added, that there should be overtesting or "bad tests." But annual, statewide, assessments have provided educators with "an important data point" she said, helping to clarify "how kids with disabilities are performing compared to their nondisabled peers." The vast majority of students in special education can and should be up to par with most general education students, she said. 

Back in October, as the testing issue was beginning to heat up in Washington, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, which includes the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, Easter Seals and other organizations, sent a letter to the leaders of the House education committee opposing legislation that would have scaled back the number of tests required in the law. (Back then, it was Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who was and still is chairman of the panel, and Miller, who has been replaced by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.)

At the time, the groups were referring to this bill, by Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., that would have called for grade-span testing, and this one, by Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., that would have reduced the number of tests students are required to take. But similar legislation seems likely to be reintroduced in the new Congress, so that letter has taken on renewed significance.

Waive Requirements at the District Level?

The Los Angeles Daily News reports:

A coalition of civil rights groups is opposing efforts by Los Angeles Unified and eight other school districts to get a waiver from a federal law requiring that all students be proficient in English and math by 2014.

In a letter sent Monday to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the groups say that exempting the districts from the No Child Left Behind law would create disparate systems for measuring student achievement.

"Considerable experience tells us that for low-income students, students of color, Native students, English-language learners and students with disabilities, different expectations far too often mean lowered expectations," said the letter, whose authors include Democrats for Education Reform, The Education Trust and the National Women's Law Center.

California Education Department officials have previously voiced concerns about having differing standards for individual districts.

The Huffington Post adds more detail:

Obama gave Congress a Fall 2011 deadline to rewrite the then long-since-expired law, but that didn't happen. So he and Duncan moved ahead with a plan to help states move out from under NCLB's strictures without legislative action: The U.S. Education Department gave states waivers from AYP if they agreed to adopt elements of the administration's education agenda, such as teacher evaluations based, in part, on student test scores.

California didn't exactly comply with everything the administration asked for, so its NCLB waiver request was denied. Now, a group of school districts in the state -- known as the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE -- wants to go over the state's head to get its own waiver. COREincludes school districts in San Francisco, Sanger, Oakland, Sacramento, Long Beach, Clovis, Fresno, Los Angeles, Garden Grove and Santa Ana. Their waiver request is now under peer review at the Education Department.

But some disabilities advocates are worried about the precedent the CORE waiver could set if approved, since it doesn't address testing for students with disabilities.

Until now, states have created modified assessments for students with disabilities -- and in some states, these exams rely on different standards, cutting students off from obtaining a diploma. California is one such state.

"They're putting too many students off track to get a regular diploma to make it look like most students are passing tests," explained Laura Kaloi, the policy director for the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

The state NCLB waivers only allow students with the most severe disabilities to take modified exams. But since California was denied that waiver, and since the CORE waiver application doesn't address the issue, Kaloi remains concerned that some students with disabilities in both CORE and other California districts will continue to be denied diplomas.

"Highly Qualified"

Michelle Diament writes at Disability Scoop:

It doesn’t take much to be deemed a “highly qualified” teacher under federal law. Now, disability advocates are asking Congress to raise the bar.

Currently, teachers who are still working on their certification through an alternative training program like Teach for America are able to gain the “highly qualified” label.

The U.S. Senate is considering renewing a provision allowing these classroom rookies to retain the highly qualified designation but advocates from several national disability groups are asking them not to.

In a letter to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee this week, advocates said the practice is having a disproportionately negative impact on students with disabilities.

Education Week offers more background:

In essence, the provision allows teachers still working on their certification to be considered "highly qualified"—a designation created by 2001's No Child Left Behind law. The law says teachers must already be certified to qualify, but Education Department regulations created about the law allowed for teachers in alternative routes to be considered highly qualified, even if they were still working on their certification. For example, people in the classroom as part of the Teach for America training program would fall into this category.

An appeals judge sided with a group of parents and advocacy groups in a California lawsuit against the federal Education Department over the alternate path to being a highly qualified teacher. The court found that the Bush administration's 2002 regulation on highly qualified teachers improperly broadened the No Child Left Behind statute by allowing alternative-route teachers to circumvent the definition. The statute requires highly qualified teachers to hold full certification, while the regulations permits teachers in alternative routes to be considered HQ, even without certification, if they are making progress in their programs.

But a Senate provision tucked into a previous budget bill rendered the court ruling moot, legitimizing the highly qualified label for teachers on a path to certification.

The National Center on Learning Disabilities—which is urging calls to senators to ensure the provision is killed—notes that students with disabilities, English-language learners, poor students, and students of color are the ones most likely to be taught by uncertified teachers.

Restraint, Seclusion, and the Education Bill

Disability Scoop reports on the absence of the restraint issue from the ESEA reauthorization:

Despite efforts to address restraint and seclusion of students with disabilities within an overhaul of the nation’s primary education law, the issue was left out when the U.S. Senate moved forward on a bill this week.

Last year, when proposed legislation to curb the use of restraint and seclusion in schools fell apart, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the U.S. Senate’s education committee signaled his intention to address the issue in a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, which is also known as No Child Left Behind.

But on Thursday, Harkin’s committee approved a bill to update ESEA that includes no mention of restraint and seclusion. The reason: Harkin said he was not able to get bipartisan support on the issue. (Read all of Disability Scoop’s coverage of restraint and seclusion >>)

Now, the senator says he hopes to add provisions related to restraint and seclusion when the legislation is considered by the full Senate.

Isakson Amendment Goes Down

Education Week reports on the rejection of the Isakson amendment:

The Senate education committee rejected an effort today to change assessments and standards for students with disabilities, as it marked up a bill to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It also debated student achievement goals and turnaround options for schools that fall into the bottom 5 percent of student performance.

Meanwhile, the bill's sponsors, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the committee, and Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., reached an agreement with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., so that action on the bill could move forward. Paul withdrew his procedural objections to the legislation and let the committee debate it during normal hours after Harkin and Enzi agreed to hold a hearing on the legislation. That Nov. 8 hearing will take place after the bill is reported out of committee—but before it goes to the Senate floor.

On its second day of markup on the bill, the committee voted 14 to 8 to reject an amendment by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., that would have required that schools spell out how students with disabilities would be assessed under their individualized education programs, or IEPs. That would be a huge change from current law, where just a certain percentage of students in special education can take alternative assessments. Disability advocacy groups were strenuously opposed to the amendment. Isakson said the amendment would ensure that students are assessed appropriately, but Harkin, who has family experience with those with disabilities, worried kids wouldn't be challenged. [emphasis added]

More on the Isakson Legislation

WMAR in Baltimore reports on the Isakson legislation on education for the disabled:



At Wrightslaw, Sue Whitney argues:

[The legislation] would discriminate against student with disabilities by allowing schools to significantly lower the academic expectations for students with disabilities, based on their scores in state accountability tests.

This use of this test, for this purpose, would apply only to children with disabilities. S 1571 would provide additional remediation to a student who scored poorly on the state accountability test, unless that child had a disability.

The first rule of evaluation is to use a test for the purpose for which it was designed. The state accountability tests were designed to assess what a child had been taught, not what the child is able to learn. IDEA already has provisions in place to provide an alternative or modified curriculum for children who are unable to learn the regular education curriculum. These decisions are made based on valid assessments and by the child’s IEP team.

Opposition to an Education Bill

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities is opposing provisions in S. 1571, legislation by Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA). Here are excerpts from the group's letter to the Senate HELP Committee:

While everyone agrees that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) needs revisions, certain key provisions have created a greater level of transparency about the achievement of our nation’s students and must remain as a part of ESEA. One such provision, about which there is widespread agreement, is subgroup accountability; namely, the requirement that states, districts and schools disaggregate data by specific categories of students, including students with disabilities. This disaggregation includes participation in, and performance on, state assessments and graduation rates. This disaggregation requirement has provided information about student participation, achievement and graduation that is critical to students, parents, educators and communities. Access to these data – and the accountability provisions that accompany it – has resulted in greater emphasis on student populations that have traditionally been underserved. While gaps remain, this progress has been important and must continue. Unfortunately, if enacted, S. 1571 would reverse much of this progress. Thus, the undersigned groups urge you to reconsider the policies in S. 1571 because they will negatively affect students with disabilities in the following areas:

This legislation would allow states to administer different assessments – either an alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards or an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards – to any number of, or quite possibly all, students with disabilities. For purposes of accountability, it is important to note that both of these alternate assessments are different from the general education assessment. This is important because when a student with a disability takes a different assessment than a student without a disability, there is no way to compare their performance, no way to accurately measure achievement gaps and no way to know how well they have grasped the grade-level content. If large numbers or possibly all students with disabilities are given alternate or modified assessments, we will effectively – and under the proposed language – legally create a separate education system for students with disabilities.