On October 11, 2005, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting that the federal No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) has helped to institutionalize a process of protections for students with disabilities, whether or not their parents or guardians were in a position to advocate for them through IDEA.
Ricki Sabia, Associate Director for the National Down Syndrome Society Public Policy Center, shared her perspective on the law:
"At national conferences I have seen that some teachers and administrators are beginning to see that segregating students with disabilities in classes without access to the general curriculum or highly qualified–content trained–teachers is partly to blame for the achievement gap," she said. Unfortunately other teachers and administrators are spending more time fighting NCLB than they are spending on narrowing this gap."
"The biggest impact of NCLB may be a revolution in the way we talk about education for students with disabilities," she said. "The standard has always been an appropriate education which provides some minimal benefit or progress on IEP goals. We only heard ‘world class’ or ‘state of the art’ applied to general education. With NCLB, school systems will have to start applying those terms to students with disabilities if they are not to be left behind."
With regard to the testing requirements of NCLB, Diane Smith of the National Association of Protection & Advocacy Systems attempts to dissect "myths" about the federal law. She drafted a fact sheet that suggests that "most children with disabilities are able to keep up with their peers academically and take standardized tests successfully, some with and without accommodations." She points out that there are exceptions that exclude students with disabilities from the accountability system, and tests for students with disabilities come in many formats with many types of accommodations.
In response to criticisms about the stress of forcing standardized tests on students with special needs, Smith replied that "the assessments aren’t nearly as stressful for the students as it will be to graduate without the skills they need to go on to employment or post-secondary education. Students with disabilities face a lot of well-meaning paternalism, but they are being protected from the wrong things."
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