SUMMARY:
Two weeks ago the House Education & the Workforce Committee approved the Student Success Act to reauthorize and amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (formerly No Child Left Behind Act). The full House of Representatives is expected to consider the bill and amendments on Thursday and Friday of this week and will most likely vote on Friday.
In the past two weeks, some progress has been made to include new language in the bill that improves data transparency and requires states to ensure that students who participate in alternate assessments are not precluded from attempting to complete requirements for a regular diploma. However, even with these improvements and a few other important provisions that were already in the bill, we still have significant concerns.
The Student Success Act does not go far enough to support a high quality education for student with disabilities that will prepare them for college and a career. To meet these goals we need a bipartisan ESEA reauthorization bill that is built on a framework of core components.
At the very minimum, the ESEA bill must include ALL of the components described below. If any piece of this framework is missing or weakened, the outcomes for students with disabilities will be severely impacted. The bill must:1) Ensure that parents are involved in the decision that their child will take an alternate assessment;
2) Ensure that students with disabilities, including students who take an alternate assessment, participate in and have the opportunity to make progress in the general curriculum, as well as have the opportunity to earn a regular diploma;
3) Limit the use of alternate assessments to 1% of all students assessed (which corresponds to about 10% of students with disabilities); and
4) Require states to develop targets for student achievement and steps to address achievement gaps between students with and without disabilities (e.g. the use of universal design for learning principles would address the gap while benefiting all students).
TAKE ACTION:
Call your Representatives!Urge your Representative to make sure any bill to reauthorize the ESEA has the components outlined above.© National Down Syndrome Congress 2015
