A baseline perspective on disability subgroup reporting.

Federal legislation requires states to publicly report on the participation and performance of students with disabilities on statewide assessments. Publicly reporting this information means that it will be more accessible to educators and laypeople, and it can be used in evaluating educational programs for and assessing the progress of this subgroup. In this study, the authors collected disability subgroup assessment information reported by the 50 states for both the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school years, essentially establishing a baseline for No Child Left Behind disability subgroup reporting. They examined the information that was publicly reported for general and alternate assessments. In 2001-2002, 48 states reported either participation or performance information for students with disabilities on at least one state assessment. However, only 35 states reported both participation and performance for all of their assessments, as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

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Current education legislation stresses the importance of including students with disabilities in state accountability systems and disaggregating their performance results. This marks an important shift from past practices of reporting only information about how all students performed on statewide assessments and, in some cases, of specifically excluding the performance of certain subgroups. Disaggregation allows the public to not only see how all students are performing but also assess which groups are making adequate progress.

Public reporting of student assessment data serves several purposes (Cibulka & Derlin, 1995). One purpose is to use the results to make informed decisions about educational programs and school effectiveness. Another purpose is to evaluate how well students are achieving. An effective accountability system should share results with both educators and the general public. Data should be presented in a clear, accessible format so that all stakeholders can determine which programs are effective.

Until the mid-1990s, large percentages of students with disabilities were excluded from large-scale assessments (Koretz & Hamilton, 2001; McGrew, Thurlow, & Spiegel, 1993). In 1994, however, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) amended Title I and required states to (a) assess students with disabilities using the same tests as were used with students without disabilities and (b) disaggregate scores for students with disabilities. Title I also mandated that results for students with disabilities and all students be reported in a public report of school progress (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). In addition to ESEA 1994, the 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was amended in 1997 to require that each state report assessment information for students with disabilities with the same frequency and in the same detail as for students without disabilities. This information is to be reported for both general assessments and alternate assessments. States were required to develop alternate assessments for students unable to participate in general assessments, which most states interpreted to mean students with significant cognitive disabilities. States must report the number of children participating in general and alternate assessments, as well as the performance of those students on the assessments (National Research Council, 1999).

The 2001 federal reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, required that by the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year, assessment reports be completed at the classroom, district, and state levels (Fast, Blank, Potts, & Williams, 2002). Both states and districts must publicly report assessment results before the start of each school year. Because NCLB also holds schools accountable for specific groups of students, as well as the total student population (Koenig, 2002), states will likely increase their focus on students with disabilities and ensure that a high percentage of these students are participating in the assessment process.

Despite the importance of public reporting, there is a surprising lack of information and research in this field (Thompson, Thurlow, & Lazarus, 2001). In their search, Thompson et al. found that some literature addressed school improvement and state data requirements in relation to reporting. Most of this literature was directed at school improvement. Although the literature frequently described how states can use performance reports, it rarely focused on what information should be reported. This lack of information leads to confusion among states about how to present and format assessment results.