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LDA NEWS FROM WASHINGTON
April, 2007

LEGISLATION
FEDERAL AGENCIES
REPORTS

LEGISLATION

EVERYONE DESERVES UNCONDITIONAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION ACT (H R. 821, Van Hollen, D, MD) would allow Congress to fulfill its 32 year-old promise to provide 40 percent of the National Average per Pupil Expenditure for every child in special education.

THE TOXICS RIGHT TO KNOW PROTECTION ACT (HR 1055, Pallone, NJ; S 595, Lautenberg,NJ) requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Act of 1086 to establish the eligibility threshold regarding the use of a Form A certification statement under the toxic release inventory program at not greater than 500 pounds for nonpersistent bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals. This legislation was introduced to counter the EPA ruling that weakened reporting requirements for its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program.

Much of other relevant legislation is related to NCLB, referred to as ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND STUDENT SUPPORT ACT (HR 171, Lee, D, Ca) amends the ESEA to provide grants to increase the number of school-employed mental health providers

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2007 (HR 648,Young R, AK) alters requirements for adequate yearly progress (AYP) assessments of student groups by: (1) allowing states to vary the number of students sufficient for such an assessment from local educational agency (LEA) to LEA and from school to school; (2) lowering the percentage of students in a failing group who must show improvement from the preceding year for a school to avoid corrective action; (3) changing the method of counting students in more than one group; (4) allowing states to use alternative methods of defining AYP; (5) exempting a higher percentage of students from such assessments; (6) giving states greater flexibility in the use of alternative assessments for disabled students and those not proficient in English; and (7) allowing multiple assessments of the same student prior to the following school year and measurement of the achievement of students as if they were in their prior grade. Among other provisions, the bill limits 1) implementation of sanctions to schools and LEAs that fail AYP standards in the same subject for the same group for two consecutive school years, and 2) the provision of school transfers and supplemental services to students in the group who failed AYP standards.

KEEPING OUR PROMISE TO AMERICA'S CHILDREN ACT (HR 684, Moore D, KS) provides a moratorium on compliance by failing schools with certain requirements for achieving adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward state academic performance standards; allows states and local educational agencies, if the federal funds appropriated for the pertinent remedial program, project, or activity are less than those authorized, to defer, modify, or suspend related functions the agencies are required to carry out to ensure that schools achieve AYP; and requires the secretary of education to ensure that negative consequences shall not apply to such agencies for actions taken under this act.

EMPOWERING PARENTS THROUGH CHOICE ACT, (HR 1486, McKeon, CA) amends the ESEA to provide parental choice for those students who attend schools that are in need of improvement and have been identified for restructuring

Webcasts of the following Congressional Hearings on the reauthorization of NCLB are archived at: http://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/hearings.shtml

Joint Hearing with The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee On "Elementary and Secondary Act Reauthorization: Improving NCLB to Close The Achievement Gap" - March 13

Full Committee Hearing on "ESEA Reauthorization: Options for Improving NCLB's Measures Of Progress" - March 21

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education on "How NCLB Affects Students with Disabilities" - March 29


FEDERAL AGENCIES

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

FINAL REGULATIONS to allow states to count 2.0 percent of proficient and advanced scores on an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards when measuring adequate yearly progress were published in the April 9th Federal Register.

The regulations, which apply to No Child Left Behind and IDEA, allow a state to develop modified assessments based on modified grade level content standards, subject to the following conditions:

* Modified academic achievement standards must be aligned with the academic content standards for the grade in which a student is enrolled.

* Out of level assessments may not be used as an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards.

* A state may develop an alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards for some, but not all, grades and for some, but not all, subjects.

* Strategies for decreasing the difficulty of an alternate assessment may include

  • Replacing the most difficult items with simpler items appropriate for the grade level
  • Simplifying the language of the item
  • Reducing the number of choices in a multiple choice answer
  • Allowing students to access items by print, spoken or pictorial form
  • Dictating responses
  • Using math manipulatives

* The IEP team determines annually how the student will participate in state and district wide assessments.

  • The goals must be based on the academic content standards for the grade in which the student is enrolled.
  • A student may take a standard assessment in one subject and an assessment based on a modified academic achievement standard in another subject

* Within two years, the state must (a) establish and monitor clear and appropriate guidelines for the IEP team to apply in developing and implementing the IEP of a student assessed on modified academic achievement standards; b) ensure that a student who takes an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards has access to the curriculum for the grade in which the student is enrolled; and ensure that a student who takes an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards is not precluded from attempting to complete the requirements for a regular high school diploma.

* The state must provide IEP Teams with a clear explanation of the differences between assessments based on grade-level academic achievement standards and those based on modified or alternate academic achievement standards, including any effects of state or local policies on a students education, such as whether only satisfactory performance on a regular assessment would qualify a student for a regular high school diploma.

* The state must ensure that the parents of students selected to be assessed based on alternate or modified academic achievement standards are informed that their child's achievement will be measured based on alternate or modified academic achievement standards.

* Any number of students with disabilities can take the modified assessment, but the scores of only 2% of all students can be counted as proficient. There is no exemption from the 1% cap for students with who score proficient on alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. However, if the proficient or advanced scores for these students is less than 1%, the 2% cap can be increased to make up the difference up to 3%. For example, if the number of proficient and advanced scores on alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards is 0.8%, the state or LEA could include 2.2% of the proficient and advanced scores on alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards

*Under the new regulations all states are:

  • prohibited from establishing a different N size for different subgroups of students for purposes of measuring Adequate Yearly Progress.
  • allowed to administer assessments more than once and count the student's best score in determining adequate yearly progress.
  • allowed to count as proficient under the subgroup of students with disabilities the scores of students with disabilities for two years after they no longer receive special education services.

The regulations can be downloaded from:
http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/proprule/2007-1/033007d.html

A non regulatory guide to modified academic achievement standards can be downloaded at:
http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/nclb/twopercent

Transition of Students With Disabilities To Postsecondary Education: A Guide for High School Educators (March 2007) was developed by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to provide high school educators with answers to questions students with disabilities may have as they get ready to move to the postsecondary education environment. The publication is available on the Department's Web site. Any updates to this publication will be available on this Web site.

REPORTS

"Public And Parent Reporting Requirements: NCLB And IDEA", An In-Depth Policy Analysis of the Requirements Of The NCDB and IDEA Regulations, can be found at NASDSE's Website http://www.projectforum.org/

States Face Challenges in Monitoring Supplemental Education Services under the No Child Left Behind Act: A Report from the Center on Education Policy
The No Child Left Behind Act requires that supplemental services must be provided to low-income students in Title I schools that have failed to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) for three or more consecutive years. But data from a survey conducted in the fall of 2006, CEP reports that 38 states say they are unable to monitor "to a great extent" the "quality and effectiveness" of supplemental service providers. In most cases, states report having insufficient staff and inadequate federal funding to monitor effectively The report can be downloaded from the website http://www.cep-dc.org

Education Trust Recommendations For No Child Left Behind Reauthorization were released on April 11, 2007. Recommendations include:

  • Results-based accountability
  • Accountability for academic gains of individual student groups
  • Explicit timelines and goals for raising overall achievement and closing gaps between groups
  • Consequences for consistently low-performing schools
  • A focus on boosting the quality and effectiveness of teachers, particularly in high-poverty and high-minority schools
  • Providing the public in general and parents in particular with information about their schools
  • so they can effectively engage with schools and advocate for students.

The full report or summary can be found at http://www2.edtrust.org

LDA News from Washington is a periodic publication of The Learning Disabilities Association of America, Inc. containing news of interest to the volunteer and administrative leadership of National LDA and its State and Local Affiliates written by LDA's Washington Representative, Justine Maloney. LDA members wishing to be added to the email list may contact LDA.

 

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