Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA): Core Principles for Reauthorization

NCLD’s goal in providing Core Principles for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as No Child Left Behind) is to help guide the discussions related to students most at-risk for being identified with LD and those already identified and receiving services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Principle 1: Students with Disabilities Must Be Fully and Equitably Included

The progress realized for students with disabilities — almost half of whom have LD — must not be compromised. The provisions that have clearly been at the center of improvements for students with disabilities must remain intact. These include:

• Academic content standards that apply to all students
• Progress measures that apply to all students
• Participation requirements that apply to all students
• Measures of proficiency on grade-level standards
• Full and equal accountability as a student group
• Attention to student data

While these critical elements are sure to receive thorough scrutiny and debate during the review and updating of ESEA, any reform efforts must be done with care and attention to the consequences that could result from loosening current requirements. Proposals for the adoption of new and expanded accountability provisions in the name of flexibility must not discriminate against students with disabilities and allow these students to be sacrificed for political relief.

The negative consequences of accountability components made allowable through administrative approval and/or regulatory procedures should be thoroughly examined and reviewed. The “accountability killers” that have surfaced during implementation of ESEA have allowed states, districts and schools to hide hundreds of thousands of students’ scores. The policies that continue to threaten the future academic progress of students with LD are:

• Minimum subgroup size
• Confidence intervals
• Data averaging
• Counting performance of students who have exited special education eligibility
• Alternate assessment on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS)
• Assessment accommodations policies

While each of these provisions is of concern, the latter two are paramount. The current ESEA inadequately addresses the pressing need for accessible assessment systems that reach the broadest range of learners that are based on the principles of universal design (UD)¹ and that reflect the best practices in test design. Outdated test design has resulted in significant numbers of students with disabilities not having access to the general curriculum due to their instructional ‘placement’. This may also affect a student’s access to a regular diploma. The outdated tests have also increased the need for extensive test accommodations and alternate assessment policies for students with disabilities. Improved test design would allow us to assess the majority of today’s students with the same test. By presenting material through several means, assessments that are based on UD allow several types of learners to access the material and demonstrate their knowledge. A UD approach will eliminate the need for many test accommodations required in traditional testing situations.

As reported by National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO):

“…though many state data show recent gains in the percentage of students reaching proficiency, educators are aware that there is a segment of students who are performing far below proficiency year in and year out (which includes students with and without disabilities). Findings indicate that male students, minority students and students from low socio-economic backgrounds were more likely to be to be persistently low performers.” ²

As a result, many states have decided not to develop the AA-MAS (which only applies to students with disabilities). Largely, it’s because they cannot distinguish between the persistently low performers and these students may have not had access to adequate grade level instruction.

Eligibility for special education must not be viewed as a reason to deny students with disabilities access to the same benefits of school accountability systems enjoyed by other students. Rather, special education must be viewed as a set of individualized supplemental services that ensures eligible students are provided access to the general curriculum so that they have an equal opportunity to meet the same educational standards that apply to all students. Accountability for the academic achievement and outcomes of students receiving special education should remain squarely within the nation’s main education law. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education articulated this expectation upon release of the final federal regulations governing IDEA in 2006 when it stated that “Accelerated growth toward, and mastery of State-approved grade-level standards are goals of special education.” (71 Fed. Reg. 46,653)

Principle 2: Graduation Rates Must Be Dramatically Improved

An improved ESEA must include dramatically stronger graduation components, including a focus on those groups of students that need substantial improvement, such as students with disabilities. The tragically high dropout rate of students with disabilities must become part of the larger conversation about our national drop out crisis. College and career-ready students are students who complete school. Therefore, school completion (i.e., graduation with a standard diploma) must be the goal for all students—not just those who are easiest to teach.

An improved graduation rate for vulnerable student groups depends on several key elements, including:

• adopting and using a consistent calculation of graduation rate
• disaggregating the graduation rate for all student groups, as required for performance and participation
• setting goals for improving graduation rates annually, both overall and for all student groups.

Many of the same provisions that have resulted in positive trends in academic achievement must be incorporated into graduation requirements in order to push the nation’s graduation rate to an acceptable rate. Just as academic achievement for students with disabilities must not be inflated by expecting less of them or holding them to different performance standards, the graduation rate must not be improved by counting diploma options other than the regular or advanced diplomas.

The goal of “college and career-ready” students will only be realized by improving school completion through earning a regular school diploma. As with all other aspects of standards-based system accountability, students with disabilities must have full and equal opportunity to benefit from graduation provisions. As with academic achievement, special education services must be viewed as mechanisms that support school completion. In amending the IDEA in 2004, Congress found that “improving educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.”

Principle 3: Increase Access to Early Interventions & Effective Instructional Practices

Opportunities to improve early literacy instruction and critical interventions must be expanded and infused into ESEA. We know that identifying struggling learners as early as pre-school has a direct impact on future opportunities (e.g. enhanced academic attainment; college progression; improved health; higher wages).³ Because most students identified with learning disabilities have their primary deficit in the area of reading, including a strong literacy component as part of ESEA and supporting professional development for teachers (e.g., the LEARN Act as recently introduced in the House and Senate) will help ensure training and funding for statewide literacy planning and instruction.

School improvement and reform provisions must require the adoption and valid use of proven school-wide educational strategies. By including a ‘multi-tier system of supports’ (MTSS) — which allows for programs such as Response to Intervention, Positive Behavior Support and other research-based instruction and intervention systems — we can prevent academic failure, increase academic achievement and reduce the number of students mistakenly identified as needing special education.

The ESEA must also broadly incorporate Universal Design for Learning⁴ — as recently included in the Higher Education Opportunity Act—to ensure that all students who struggle have better access to grade-level instruction, materials, appropriate assistive technologies, and appropriate teaching methods and assessments. UDL is a scientifically valid framework for guiding educational practice that provides flexibility in the way information is presented, in the way students respond or demonstrate their knowledge and skills, and in the ways students are engaged. A curriculum consistent with UDL principles reduces barriers in instruction and provides all learners with appropriate support and scaffolds while also maintaining high expectations and challenge. Students who are often marginalized in the general curriculum — including those with disabilities, English language learners, and students who are “gifted and talented” — benefit especially from UDL.

Essential Resources

Since the passage of the ESEA/NCLB, NCLD has spearheaded activities in support of key provisions. We have published several reports designed to educate and inform policy makers, parents and other stakeholders about the positive and meaningful impact the law is having for students with learning disabilities (LD). These reports, Rewards and Roadblocks: How Students with Disabilities Are Faring Under NCLB, its companion study on state test accommodations policies provides an overview of the variance and validity of these policies and Challenging Change: How Schools and Districts are Improving the Performance of Special Education Students which includes case studies in states, districts and schools in MA, FL, OH, TX and CA, represent the most ambitious and comprehensive look at how NCLB has impacted students with disabilities. As such, they provide a critical context to any truly informed efforts to revise and improve the current ESEA.

There is widespread agreement that students with disabilities — currently representing 13.5% of public school enrollment — have benefited substantially from the standards-based accountability system put in place by NCLB. While IDEA 2004 reinforced expectations that students with disabilities must have access to the general curriculum and must be included in all statewide assessments, not until NCLB did this begin to become a reality. Since academic improvement must begin with an understanding of a student’s current performance in relationship to educational standards, the inclusion of students with disabilities in state assessments was a critical first step toward improvement student achievement; however, meaningful participation and genuine opportunity to learn flow from a variety of factors. While many challenges remain, the positive impact of NCLB on students with disabilities is undeniable.

In its 2007 survey of states, the National Center on Educational Outcomes reported that more than half of the states attributed positive trends in the participation and performance of students with disabilities in assessment and accountability systems to the following factors:

• Use of student assessment data to inform decision-making
• Emphasis on inclusion and access to the curriculum
• Increased access to standards-based instruction on the grade-level content
• Improved alignment of Individualized Education Programs with grade-level standards
• Increased inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms
• Increased use of research-based “best practices”
• Improved alignment of professional development

Some would suggest that special education designation — in and of itself — precludes a student from achieving proficiency on state standards. Some recommendations have advocated a complete abandonment of accountability for students receiving special education services. Yet, an examination of the data showed that the scores of students with special education status distributed across the performance range (see chart below).


NCLD’s report, Challenging Change: How Schools and Districts are Improving the Performance of Special Education Students, looked deeply inside two schools and three districts to examine a variety of approaches being used to improve the learning and performance of students with disabilities. These schools and districts were prompted to try these approaches primarily because of the poor performance of students with disabilities on NCLB state assessments. The examination identified five approaches common to all schools and districted studied. They were:

• Raising expectations for students with disabilities
• Collaboration between general and special education
• Inclusive practices
• Data based decision making
• Consumer satisfaction

NCLD’s Core Principles are guided by these positive trends and study findings. We strive to work with the Administration, Congress, education stakeholders and parents to improve the results for young people who should have every opportunity to achieve their academic and working potential.

Download your FREE copy of NCLD's Core Principles for the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Download your FREE copy of NCLD's in depth version of Core Principles for the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (Provided to the U.S. Senate, May, 2010).

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1. Ketterlin-Geller, L.R. (2008). Testing students with special needs: A model for understanding the interaction between assessment and student characteristics in a universally designed environment. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 27(3), 3-16.
2. Lazarus, S., Wu, Y.-C., Altman, J., Thurlow, M. (2010). NCEO brief: The characteristics of low-performing students on large-scale assessments, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
3. Belfield et al., 2004; Karoly and Bigelow, 2005; Reynolds et al., 2002
4. The description of universal design for learning is drawn from the statutory definition in the Higher Education Opportunity Act (P.L. 110-135). For more information , see Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD