Fears about students with disabilities dragging down the performance of a school under the No Child Left Behind Act largely weren’t realized, according to a new report from the federal Institute of Education Sciences.
Looking at 37 states with relevant data, the study found that only 9 percent of public schools missed their adequate yearly progress targets under the law during the 2008-09 school year because of low state test scores from students with disabilities along with at least one other reason; 5 percent missed it solely because of students with disabilities’ test performance.
The study also found, however, that a large proportion of public schools were not consistently held accountable for the academic performance of those studentsoften because there were too few of them enrolled and special education enrollments fluctuated from year to year.
