This Will Make Some Special Education Advocates Really Happy
From huffingtonpost.com
“NEW YORK — New York students with disabilities will be held to the same academic standards and take the same standardized tests as other kids their age next school year, the U.S. Education Department said Thursday, spurning the state’s efforts to change the policy.
Some special education advocates hailed the Education Department decision, saying it will enable students with disabilities to continue receiving the same opportunities as peers. “We think it’s a victory for the potential of every child,” said Denise Marshall, executive director of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates Inc. “We thank the department for sticking to their guns.”
The Education Department said Thursday that New York, as well as Minnesota, South Carolina, Delaware and Georgia, could hold onto waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act for another year. A federal official told New York schools chief John King in a letter that the state “may continue to implement” flexibility of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act though the 2014-15 school year, keeping state standards for students with disabilities the same as they had been.
King had proposed allowing up to 2 percent of New York students with severe disabilities to be tested at their instructional ability — not their chronological grade year — up to two full grade levels below current grade level. The change would, for example, allow a 5th grader with autism to be tested on exams written for third graders.
King made the proposal after taking heat for months over the state’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards, a set of learning benchmarks being adopted by most states. State officials had said the outcry from special education teachers was especially loud.
The schools chief’s idea for testing students with disabilities was part of his bid to renew the loophole that allowed the state to evade some sanctions of the No Child Left Behind Act, the 2001 law that mandated regular standardized testing. The law expired in 2007. After Congress failed to rewrite it, President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told states in 2011 they could escape some of its components by agreeing to policies preferred by the Education Department.”
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