Department of Education

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request

CONTENTS

Page

Appropriations Language ......................................................................................................... I-1

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes........................................................................ I-5

Appropriation, Adjustments and Transfers ............................................................................. I-12

Summary of Changes ............................................................................................................ I-13

Authorizing Legislation........................................................................................................... I-14

Appropriations History............................................................................................................ I-15

Summary of Request ............................................................................................................. I-16

Activities:

State grants:

Grants to States ......................................................................................................... I-18

Preschool grants ........................................................................................................ I-41

Grants for infants and families .................................................................................... I-54

National activities:

State personnel development..................................................................................... I-66

Technical assistance and dissemination..................................................................... I-73

Personnel preparation ................................................................................................ I-87

Parent information centers........................................................................................ I-101

Educational technology, media, and materials.......................................................... I-112

Special Olympics education programs ........................................................................... I-124

State Tables* ....................................................................................................................... I-130

*State tables reflecting 2015 allocations and 2016 estimates are posted on the Department’s Web page at:

http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/statetables/index.html
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Appropriations Language

For carrying out the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Special 

Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act of 2004, [$12,522,358,000] $12,822,358,000, of which 

[$3,006,259,000] $3,296,259,000 shall become available on July 1, [2015] 2016, and shall 

remain available through September 30, [2016] 2017, and of which $9,283,383,000 shall 

become available on October 1, [2015] 2016, and shall remain available through September 30, 

[2016] 2017, for academic year [2015–2016] 2016-2017:

1 Provided, That the amount for section 

611(b)(2) of the IDEA shall be equal to the lesser of the amount available for that activity during 

fiscal year [2014] 2015, increased by the amount of inflation as specified in section 619(d)(2)(B) 

of the IDEA, or the percent change in the funds appropriated under section 611(i) of the IDEA, 

but not less than the amount for that activity during fiscal year [2014] 2015:

2

 Provided further, 

That the Secretary shall, without regard to section 611(d) of the IDEA, distribute to all other 

States (as that term is defined in section 611(g)(2)), subject to the third proviso, any amount by 

which a State's allocation under section 611(d), from funds appropriated under this heading, is 

reduced under section 612(a)(18)(B), according to the following: 85 percent on the basis of the 

States' relative populations of children aged 3 through 21 who are of the same age as children 

with disabilities for whom the State ensures the availability of a free appropriate public education 

under this part, and 15 percent to States on the basis of the States' relative populations of those 

children who are living in poverty: 3

 Provided further, That the Secretary may not distribute any 

funds under the previous proviso to any State whose reduction in allocation from funds 

appropriated under this heading made funds available for such a distribution:4

 Provided further, 

That the States shall allocate such funds distributed under the second proviso to local 

educational agencies in accordance with section 611(f):5

 Provided further, That the amount by 

which a State's allocation under section 611(d) of the IDEA is reduced under section 

612(a)(18)(B) and the amounts distributed to States under the previous provisos in fiscal year 

I-1
2012 or any subsequent year shall not be considered in calculating the awards under section 

611(d) for fiscal year 2013 or for any subsequent fiscal years:6 Provided further, That, 

notwithstanding the provision in section 612(a)(18)(B) regarding the fiscal year in which a 

State's allocation under section 611(d) is reduced for failure to comply with the requirement of 

section 612(a)(18)(A), the Secretary may apply the reduction specified in section 612(a)(18)(B) 

over a period of consecutive fiscal years, not to exceed five, until the entire reduction is applied:7

Provided further, That the Secretary may, in any fiscal year in which a State's allocation under 

section 611 is reduced in accordance with section 612(a)(18)(B), reduce the amount a State 

may reserve under section 611(e)(1) by an amount that bears the same relation to the 

maximum amount described in that paragraph as the reduction under section 612(a)(18)(B) 

bears to the total allocation the State would have received in that fiscal year under section 

611(d) in the absence of the reduction: 8

 Provided further, That the Secretary shall either 

reduce the allocation of funds under section 611 for any fiscal year following the fiscal year for 

which the State fails to comply with the requirement of section 612(a)(18)(A) as authorized by 

section 612(a)(18)(B), or seek to recover funds under section 452 of the General Education 

Provisions Act (20 U.S.C. 1234a) 9

 Provided further, That the funds reserved under 611(c) of 

the IDEA may be used to provide technical assistance to States to improve the capacity of the 

States to meet the data collection requirements of sections 616 and 618 and to administer and 

carry out other services and activities to improve data collection, coordination, quality, and use 

under parts B and C of the IDEA:10 Provided further, That the level of effort a local educational 

agency must meet under section 613(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the IDEA, in the year after it fails to maintain 

effort is the level of effort that would have been required in the absence of that failure and not 

the LEA's reduced level of expenditures:11 Provided further, That the Secretary may use funds 

made available for the State Personnel Development Grants program under part D, subpart 1 of 

IDEA to evaluate program performance under such subpart:

12 Provided further, That the 

I-2
Secretary may reserve up to $10,000,000 of the funds made available for section 663 of the 

IDEA to support:(1) grants to States, outlying areas, freely associated states, and the Secretary 

of the Interior to carry out activities identified in their State Systemic Improvement Plans to 

improve results for children with disabilities birth through age 21 under Parts B and C of the 

IDEA; and (2) related activities for carrying out and assessing the performance of those 

grants:13 Provided further, That funds reserved under the preceding proviso shall remain 

available for obligation through September 30, 2017:

14 Provided further, That each entity that 

receives a grant under the second preceding proviso may make subgrants, contracts, or 

otherwise distribute those funds on a competitive, targeted, or formula basis to public, private, 

and non-profit entities, including local educational agencies and early intervention service 

providers, to carry out activities authorized under that proviso:15 Provided further, That 

notwithstanding section 613(f)(1) of the IDEA, local educational agencies may also use funds 

that they reserve under section 613(f) to develop and implement coordinated, early intervening 

services for children ages 3 through 5, who have not been identified as needing special 

education and related services but who need additional developmental, academic, and 

behavioral support to succeed in a general education environment or participate in appropriate 

activities: 16 Provided further, That, with respect to children receiving services under the 

preceding proviso, and who have not yet entered kindergarten, the Secretary may waive the 

requirements of section 613(f)(4) of the IDEA: 17 Provided further, That, notwithstanding section 

643 of the IDEA, the Secretary may reserve up to $15,000,000 of the funds appropriated under 

section 644 of the IDEA for performance-based awards to public or private non-profit entities for 

Pay for Success projects to increase early screening and early intervention services for infants 

and toddlers with disabilities and early screening, evaluation, early intervention, and other 

services to at-risk infants and toddlers who may otherwise not qualify for services under Part C 

of the IDEA in their State: 18 Provided further, That, with respect to the previous proviso, any 

I-3
funds obligated for such projects shall remain available until expended. 19 (Department of 

Education Appropriations Act, 2015)

NOTE

Each language provision that is followed by a footnote reference is explained in the Analysis of Language 

Provisions and Changes document which follows the appropriations language.

I-4
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

1

...[$12,522,358,000] $12,822,358,000, of 

which [$3,006,259,000] $3,296,259,000 shall 

become available on July 1, [2015] 2016, and 

shall remain available through September 30, 

[2016] 2017, and of which $9,283,383,000 

shall become available on October 1, [2015] 

2016, and shall remain available through 

September 30, [2016] 2017, for academic 

year [2015–2016] 2016-2017

This language provides for funds to be 

appropriated on a forward-funded basis for a 

portion of the Grants to States program, and 

all of the Preschool Grants, and Grants for 

Infants and Families programs. The 

language also provides that a portion of the 

Grants to States funds be available in an 

advance appropriation that becomes 

available for obligation on October 1 of the 

fiscal year following the year of the 

appropriation. 

2 Provided, That the amount for section 

611(b)(2) of the IDEA shall be equal to the 

lesser of the amount available for that activity 

during fiscal year [2014] 2015, increased by 

the amount of inflation as specified in section 

619(d)(2)(B) of the IDEA, or the percent 

change in the funds appropriated under 

section 611(i) of the IDEA, but not less than 

the amount for that activity during fiscal year 

[2014] 2015:

This language limits the amount of funds 

required to be transferred to the Department 

of the Interior under the Grants to States 

program to the lesser of an amount equal to 

the amount transferred to the Department of 

the Interior in 2015 plus inflation or the 

percent change in the appropriation for the 

Grants to States program. This language 

also clarifies that in the event of a decrease 

or no change in the appropriation for the 

Grants to States program, the amount of 

funds required to be transferred to the 

Department of the Interior remains level with 

the amount they received under the fiscal 

year 2015 appropriation.

I-5
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

3 Provided further, That the Secretary shall, 

without regard to section 611(d) of the IDEA, 

distribute to all other States (as that term is 

defined in section 611(g)(2)), subject to the 

third proviso, any amount by which a State’s 

allocation under section 611(d), from funds 

appropriated under this heading, is reduced 

under section 612(a)(18)(B), according to the 

following: 85 percent on the basis of the 

States’ relative populations of children aged 

3 through 21 who are of the same age as 

children with disabilities for whom the State 

ensures the availability of a free appropriate 

public education under this part, and 15 

percent to States on the basis of the States’ 

relative populations of those children who are 

living in poverty:

This language authorizes the Department to 

reallocate funds that are reduced from a 

State’s award as a result of a failure to meet 

the maintenance of financial support 

requirements of section 612 of the IDEA and 

requires that those funds be distributed to 

other States on the basis of their relative 

populations of children in the age ranges for 

which a State ensures a free appropriate 

public education and those children living in 

poverty. 

4 Provided further, That the Secretary may 

not distribute any funds under the previous 

proviso to any State whose reduction in 

allocation from funds appropriated under this 

heading made funds available for such a 

distribution:

This language ensures that any State 

receiving a reduction in their section 611 

allocation as a result of not meeting the 

maintenance of financial support 

requirements of section 612 of the IDEA 

does not receive funds redistributed as a 

result of another State’s failure to meet those 

same requirements.

5 Provided further, That the States shall 

allocate such funds distributed under the 

second proviso to local educational agencies 

in accordance with section 611(f):

This language requires States to distribute 

the funds received under the second proviso 

to local educational agencies without 

reserving a portion of those funds for Statelevel activities.

I-6
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

6 Provided further, That the amount by which 

a State’s allocation under section 611(d) of 

the IDEA is reduced under section 

612(a)(18)(B) and the amounts distributed to 

States under the previous provisos in fiscal 

year 2012 or any subsequent year shall not 

be considered in calculating the awards 

under section 611(d) for fiscal year 2013 or 

for any subsequent fiscal years:

This language allows the Department to 

calculate a State’s allocation under section 

611(d) in future years without regard to 

reductions in awards made as a result of a 

failure to meet the maintenance of financial 

support requirements in section 612. This 

language mitigates the potential long-term 

impact of one-time reductions in awards.

7 Provided further, That, notwithstanding the 

provision in section 612(a)(18)(B) regarding 

the fiscal year in which a State's allocation 

under section 611(d) is reduced for failure to 

comply with the requirement of section 

612(a)(18)(A), the Secretary may apply the 

reduction specified in section 612(a)(18)(B) 

over a period of consecutive fiscal years, not 

to exceed five, until the entire reduction is 

applied:

This language permits the Secretary to 

spread out a reduction from a State’s award 

as a result of a failure to meet the 

maintenance of financial support 

requirements of section 612 of the IDEA over 

a maximum of 5 years.

8 Provided further, That the Secretary may, in 

any fiscal year in which a State's allocation 

under section 611 is reduced in accordance 

with section 612(a)(18)(B), reduce the 

amount a State may reserve under section 

611(e)(1) by an amount that bears the same 

relation to the maximum amount described in 

that paragraph as the reduction under 

section 612(a)(18)(B) bears to the total 

allocation the State would have received in 

that fiscal year under section 611(d) in the 

absence of the reduction:

This language permits the Secretary to 

reduce the maximum State set-aside for 

State administration by the same percentage 

as the reduction in the State’s overall IDEA 

section 611 grant.

I-7
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

9 Provided further, That the Secretary shall 

either reduce the allocation of funds under 

section 611 for any fiscal year following the 

fiscal year for which the State fails to comply 

with the requirement of section 612(a)(18)(A) 

as authorized by section 612(a)(18)(B), or 

seek to recover funds under section 452 of 

the General Education Provisions Act (20 

U.S.C. 1234a):

This language permits the Secretary to: 

(1) seek to recover non-Federal (State) funds 

in the amount of the State’s Maintenance of 

Effort (MOE) shortfall under the recovery of 

funds provision in section 452 of the General 

Education Provisions Act, or (2) reduce the 

State’s IDEA section 611 grant. 

10Provided further, That the funds reserved 

under 611(c) of the IDEA may be used to 

provide technical assistance to States to 

improve the capacity of the States to meet 

the data collection requirements of sections 

616 and 618 and to administer and carry out 

other services and activities to improve data 

collection, coordination, quality, and use 

under parts B and C of the IDEA:

This language authorizes the Department to 

use funds available under section 611(c) to 

provide technical assistance and support to 

States on a broad range of issues, including 

compliance with applicable privacy laws and 

appropriate coordination and linking of 

information within and across Federal, State 

and local data systems for the unique needs 

of students with disabilities and their families 

and the purposes of the IDEA programs and 

data collections.

11Provided further, That the level of effort a 

local educational agency must meet under 

section 613(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the IDEA, in the 

year after it fails to maintain effort is the level 

of effort that would have been required in the 

absence of that failure and not the LEA's 

reduced level of expenditures:

This language clarifies that the level of effort 

a LEA must meet under maintenance of 

financial support requirements in section 613 

of the IDEA, in the year after it fails to 

maintain effort, is the level of effort that would 

have been required in the absence of that 

failure and not the LEA's reduced level of 

expenditures.

12Provided further, That the Secretary may 

use funds made available for the State 

Personnel Development Grants program 

under part D, subpart 1 of IDEA to evaluate 

program performance under such subpart:

This language permits the Secretary to use 

funds appropriated for the State Personnel 

Development Grants program under Part D 

of the IDEA to evaluate program 

performance.

I-8
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

13 Provided further, That the Secretary may 

reserve up to $10,000,000 of the funds made 

available for section 663 of the IDEA to 

support:(1) grants to States, outlying areas, 

freely associated states, and the Secretary of 

the Interior to carry out activities identified in 

their State Systemic Improvement Plans to 

improve results for children with disabilities 

birth through age 21 under Parts B and C of 

the IDEA; and (2) related activities for 

carrying out and assessing the performance 

of those grants:

This language would authorize the Secretary 

to reserve up to $10 million under the 

Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

program for competitive grants to States to

build State capacity to carry out State 

Systemic Improvement Plans (SSIPs) for 

children birth through age 21, and related 

activities such as peer review, technical 

assistance, and evaluation. 

14 Provided further, That funds reserved 

under the preceding proviso shall remain 

available for obligation through September 

30, 2017:

This language would permit the funds made 

available under the 12th proviso to remain 

available for 2 years. 

15 Provided further, That each entity that 

receives a grant under the second preceding 

proviso may make subgrants, contracts, or 

otherwise distribute those funds on a 

competitive, targeted, or formula basis to 

public, private, and non-profit entities, 

including local educational agencies and 

early intervention service providers, to carry 

out activities authorized under that proviso:

This language authorizes grantees receiving 

funds under the 12th proviso to subgrant and 

subcontract with public, private, and nonprofit entities, including local educational 

agencies and early intervention service 

providers.

I-9
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

16 Provided further, That notwithstanding 

section 613(f)(1) of the IDEA, local 

educational agencies may also use funds 

that they reserve under section 613(f) to 

develop and implement coordinated, early 

intervening services for children ages 3 

through 5, who have not been identified as 

needing special education and related 

services but who need additional 

developmental, academic, and behavioral 

support to succeed in a general education 

environment or participate in appropriate 

activities:

This language authorizes local educational 

agencies to reserve funds provided under the 

Grants to States and Preschool Grants to 

State programs for coordinated early 

intervening services for children ages three 

through five. 

17 Provided further, That, with respect to 

children receiving services under the 

preceding proviso, and who have not yet 

entered kindergarten, the Secretary may 

waive the requirements of section 613(f)(4) of 

the IDEA:

This language would provide the Secretary 

the authority to waive the reporting 

requirement for children who have not yet 

entered kindergarten receiving services 

under the 15th proviso. 

18 Provided further, That, notwithstanding 

section 643 of the IDEA, the Secretary may 

reserve up to $15,000,000 of the funds 

appropriated under section 644 of the IDEA 

for performance-based awards to public or 

private nonprofit entities for Pay for Success 

projects to increase early screening and early 

intervention services for infants and toddlers 

with disabilities and early screening, 

evaluation, early intervention, and other 

services to at-risk infants and toddlers who 

may otherwise not qualify for services under 

Part C of the IDEA in their State:

This language allows the Secretary to 

reserve up to $15,000,000 of the funds 

appropriated for the Grants for Infants and 

Families program to support Pay for Success 

projects designed to increase early 

screening, identification, early intervention, 

and other services to infants and toddlers 

with disabilities and at-risk infants and 

toddlers who do not qualify for Part C 

services in their State.

I-10
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Analysis of Language Provisions and Changes

Language Provision Explanation

19 Provided further, That, with respect to the 

previous proviso, any funds obligated for 

such projects shall remain available until 

expended.

This language extends the period of 

availability for funds reserved under the 18th

proviso until they have been expended. 

I-11
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Appropriation, Adjustments and Transfers

(dollars in thousands)

Appropriation/Adjustments/Transfers 2014 2015 2016

Discretionary:

Discretionar y Appropriation........................................................... $12,497,300 $12,522,358 $12,822,358

Advance:

Advance for succeeding fiscal year........................ -9,283,383 -9,283,383 -9,283,383

Advance from prior year ........................................ 9,283,383 9,283,383 9,283,383

Total, budget authority.................................... 12,497,300 12,522,358 12,822,358

I-12
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Summary of Changes

(dollars in thousands)

2015................................................................................................ $12,522,358

2016................................................................................................ 12,822,358

Net change...................................................................................... +300,000

Increases: 2015 base

Change 

from base

Program:

Increase in funding for Grants to States (IDEA-B-611), which 

would provide an estimated average per pupil increase of $26 

for children with disabilities. $11,497,848 +$175,000

Increase in funding for Preschool Grants to States (IDEA B619), which would provide an estimated average per pupil 

increase of $67 for children with disabilities ages three through 

five. 353,238 +50,000

Increase in funding for Grants for Infants and Families (Part C), 

which would increase the average State award by 

approximately $945,000 and provide up to $15 million for Pay 

for Success pilots. 438,556 +65,000

Increase in funding for Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

(Part D) for Results Driven Accountability Implementation 

grants. 44,345 +10,000

Total, increases +300,000

I-13
SPECIAL EDUCATION

I-14

Authorizing Legislation

(dollars in thousands)

Activity

2015

Authorized

footnote

2015

Estimate footnote

2016

Authorized footnote

2016

Request

footnote

State Grants:

State grantsGrants to States (IDEA-B-611) Indefinite1 $11,497,8482 Indefinite1 $11,672,8482

State grantsPreschool grants (IDEA-B-619) Indefinite 353,238 Indefinite 403,238

State grantsGrants for infants and families (IDEA-C) 03 438,556 03 503,556

National activities:

National acti viti es State personnel development (IDEA-D-1) 03 41,630 03 41,630

National acti viti es Technical assistance and dissemination (IDEA-D-2-663) 03 44,345 03 54,345

National acti viti es Personnel preparation (IDEA-D-2-662) 03 83,700 03 83,700

National acti viti es Parent information centers (IDEA-D-3-671-673) 03 27,411 03 27,411

National acti viti es Educational Technology, Media, and Materials (IDEA-D-3-674) 03 28,047 03 28,047

Special Olympics education programs (SOSEA4 3(a)) 05 7,5836 05 7,583

Total definite authorization 0 0

Total annual appropriation 12,522,358 12,822,358

Portion of request subject to reauthorization 746,272

1 Funding for technical assistance on State data collection is limited to $25,000 thousand adjusted for inflation. This amount is estimated to be $32,086

thousand for fiscal year 2015 and $32,592 thousand for fiscal year 2016. 2 Includes $15,000 thousand for technical assistance on State data collection in fiscal year 2015 and $17,000 thousand in fiscal year 2016. 3 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding is proposed for this program in fiscal year 2016 through appropriations language. 4 Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act of 2004. 5 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2010; continued funding is proposed for this program in fiscal year 2016 through appropriations language. 6 Funds for Special Olympics Education programs were included in Technical Assistance and Dissemination in the Department of Education Appropriation 

Act, 2014, and the Department of Education Appropriation Act, 2015. 

I-14
SPECIAL EDUCATION

Appropriations History

(dollars in thousands)

Year

Budget Estimate 

to Congress

House 

Allowance footnote

Senate 

Allowancefootnote Appropriation

2007 $11,697,502 N/A1 N/A1 $11,802,867

(2007 Advance for 2008) (6,215,200) (5,424,200)

2008 11,485,147 $12,362,831 $12,330,374 11,993,684

(2008 Advance for 2009) (6,215,200) (6,641,982) (5,924,200) (6,856,444)

2009 12,335,943 12,587,9202 12,511,6312 12,579,677

(2009 Advance for 2010) (7,647,444) (8,592,383) (7,647,444) (8,592,383)

Recovery Act Supplemental 

(P.L. 111-5)

0 13,600,000 13,500,000 12,200,000

2010 12,579,677 12,579,677 12,587,8563 12,587,035

(2010 Advance for 2011) (8,592,383) (8,592,383) (8,592,383) (8,592,383)

2011 12,846,190 12,564,9534 12,787,0353 12,526,6725

(2011 Advance for 2012) (8,592,383) (8,592,383) (8,592,383) (8,592,383)

Rescission (P.L. 112-74) (-16,240)

2012 12,861,351 13,757,8446 12,553,0666 12,640,709

(2012 Advance for 2013) (9,433,103) (8,592,383) (8,592,383) (9,283,383)

2013 12,687,307 12,640,709 7 12,770,7097 11,982,364

(2013 Advance for 2014) (10,124,103) (9,283,383) (9,283,383) (9,283,383)

2014 12,657,307 N/A8 12,803,3873 12,497,300

(2014 Advance for 2015) (10,124,103) (9,283,383) (9,283,383)

2015 12,600,627 N/A8 12,555,0449 12,522,358

(2015 Advance for 2016) (10,124,103) (9,283,383) (9,283,383)

2016 12,822,358

(2016 Advance for 2017) (9,283,383)

1

 This account operated under a full-year continuing resolution (P.L. 110-5). House and Senate Allowance amounts 

are shown as N/A (Not Available) because neither body passed a separate appropriations bill. 2

 The levels for the House and Senate allowances reflect action on the regular annual 2009 appropriations bill, which 

proceeded in the 110th Congress only through the House Subcommittee and the Senate Committee. 3

 The level for the Senate allowance reflects Committee action only. 4

 The level for the House allowance reflects the House-passed full-year continuing resolution. 5

 The level for appropriation reflects the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 

(P.L. 112-10). 6

 The level for the House allowance reflects an introduced bill, and the level for the Senate allowance reflects 

Committee action only. 7

 The levels for the House and Senate allowances reflect action on the regular annual 2013 appropriations bill, which 

proceeded in the 112th Congress only through the House Subcommittee and the Senate Committee. 8

 The House allowance is shown as N/A because there was no Subcommittee action. 9

 The level for the Senate allowance reflects Senate Subcommittee action only.

I-15
Summary of R equ est

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FISCAL YEAR 2016 PRESIDENT'S BUDGET 

Click here for accessible version 

(in thousands of dollars) 2016

Category 2014 2015 President's 

Account, Program and Activity Code Appropriation Appropriation Budget Amount Percent

Special Education 

1. State grants:

(a) Grants to States (IDEA-B-611)

Annual appropriation D 2,189,465 2,214,465 2,389,465 175,000 7.903%

Advance for succeeding fiscal year D 9,283,383 9,283,383 9,283,383 0 0.000%

Subtotal 11,472,848 11,497,848 11,672,848 175,000 1.522%

(b) Preschool grants (IDEA-B-619) D 353,238 353,238 403,238 50,000 14.155%

(c) Grants for infants and families (IDEA-C) D 438,498 438,556 503,556 65,000 14.821%

Subtotal, State grants 12,264,584 12,289,642 12,579,642 290,000 2.360%

2. National activities (IDEA-D):

(a) State personnel development (Subpart 1) D 41,630 41,630 41,630 0 0.000%

(b) Technical assistance and dissemination (section 663) 1 D 44,345 44,345 54,345 10,000 22.550%

(c) Personnel preparation (section 662) D 83,700 83,700 83,700 0 0.000%

(d) Parent information centers (sections 671-673) D 27,411 27,411 27,411 0 0.000%

(e) Educational technology, media, and materials (section 674) D 28,047 28,047 28,047 0 0.000%

Subtotal 225,133 225,133 235,133 10,000 4.442%

3. Special Olympics education programs (Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act) 1 D 7,583 7,583 7,583 0 0.000%

Total, Appropriation D 12,497,300 12,522,358 12,822,358 300,000 2.396%

Total, Budget authority D 12,497,300 12,522,358 12,822,358 300,000 2.396%

Current 3,213,917 3,238,975 3,538,975 300,000 9.262%

Prior year's advance 9,283,383 9,283,383 9,283,383 0 0.000%

NOTES: D = discretionary program; M = mandatory program; FY = fiscal year 

Accounts are shown under the administering office that has primary responsibility for most programs in that account; however, there may be some programs that are administered by another office.

Detail may not add to totals due to rounding. 

1 Funds for Special Olympics Education programs were included in Technical Assistance and Dissemination in the Department of Education Appropriation Act, 2014, and the Department of Education Appropriation Act, 2015. 

2016 President's Budget 

Compared to 2015 Appropriation

I-16
SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Summary of Request

The Administration is committed to ensuring that all children, including students with disabilities, 

have an equal opportunity to participate in a high quality education; are expected to perform to 

high levels; and to the maximum extent possible, are prepared to lead productive, independent 

lives. The fiscal year 2016 budget request for Special Education of $12.8 billion is aimed at 

making this goal a reality by helping States and school districts improve the results for children 

with disabilities. 

The Administration requests $11.7 billion for the Grants to States program, an increase of 

$175 million from the fiscal year 2015 level, to assist States and schools in covering the excess 

costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities ages 

3 through 21. The request would provide an average of $1,768 for each of the 6.6 million 

children with disabilities who are estimated to be served in 2016. The Federal contribution 

toward meeting the excess cost of special education and related services would be 

approximately 16 percent of the national average per pupil expenditures under this request.

The request of $403.2 million for Preschool Grants is a $50 million increase over the fiscal 

year 2015 level and would provide support to States and schools for providing special education 

services to children ages 3 through 5. Under the current statute, local educational agencies 

(LEAs) may reserve up to 15 percent of the funds they receive under Part B of the IDEA to 

provide coordinated early intervening services (CEIS) to children in grades kindergarten through 

twelve to help children who may need additional academic or behavioral support. The 

Administration is requesting additional flexibility to allow LEAs to provide CEIS to children ages 

3 through 5. In addition to expanding the age range of students eligible for CEIS, the 

Administration is also requesting a waiver of some reporting requirements for children three3

through 5 in order to reduce burden on LEAs who opt to exercise this flexibility. 

The request of $503.6 million for Grants for Infants and Families is an increase of $65 million

from the fiscal year 2015 level. The additional funding for the Grants for Infants and Families 

program would provide additional assistance to States to help them implement statewide 

systems of early intervention services for children from birth through age 2. This request would 

also allow the Department to reserve $15 million of this increase for Pay for Success pilots to 

build evidence to expand early screening and early intervention services to infants and toddlers 

who would not otherwise qualify for services under Part C of the IDEA in their State. 

The $235.1 million request for National Activities programs would support a variety of 

technical assistance, dissemination, training, and other activities to help States, local 

educational agencies, parents, and others in improving results for children with disabilities. The 

Technical Assistance and Dissemination program would be funded at $54.3 million, a 

$10 million increase over the fiscal year 2015 level. This increase would be used to support 

Results Driven Accountability Implementation grants, which would provide competitive grants to 

States to build State capacity to identify and implement promising, evidence-based reforms that 

will improve service delivery for children with disabilities while also building State and local 

capacity to continue to improve outcomes for those children in the long-term. For the other 

National Activities programs, the Administration’s 2016 request provides funding at the 2015 

level. The Special Olympics Education Programs would also be funded at the same level as 

in fiscal year 2015 ($7.56 million). In fiscal year 2015, funds for this program were appropriated 

under the Technical Assistance and Dissemination program.

I-17
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

Grant s to Stat es

State grants: Grants to States

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B, Section 611)

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: Indefinite 1 2

Budget Authority:

BA

2015

f

o

o

t

n

o

t

e

s 2016

f

o

o

t

n

o

t

e

s Change

Annual appropriation $2,214,465 3 $2,389,465 3 +$175,000

Advance for succeeding 

fiscal year 9,283,383 9,283,383 0

Total 11,497,848 11,672,848 +175,000

_________________

1 Section 611(c) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act limits technical assistance activities to 

$25,000 thousand, increased by the amount of inflation from year to year. It is estimated that the maximum amount 

authorized for fiscal year 2016 would be $32,592 thousand. 2 Section 611(b)(2) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that from the funds appropriated for 

Grants to States, 1.226 percent shall be set aside for the Department of the Interior. It is estimated that the maximum 

amount authorized for FY 2016 would be $143,416 thousand. 3 Includes $15,000 thousand for technical assistance activities in fiscal year 2015 and $17,000 thousand in fiscal 

year 2016.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Grants to States program provides formula grants to assist the 50 States, the District of 

Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Department of the Interior, Outlying Areas, and the Freely 

Associated States in meeting the excess costs of providing special education and related 

services to children with disabilities. In order to be eligible for funding, States must serve all 

children with disabilities between the ages of 3 through 21, except that they are not required to 

serve children aged 3 through 5 or 18 through 21 years if services are inconsistent with State 

law or practice or the order of any court. A State that does not provide a free appropriate public 

education (FAPE) to children with disabilities aged 3 through 5 cannot receive base payment 

funds attributable to this age group or any funds under the Preschool Grants program.

Funds are allocated among States in accordance with a variety of factors. First, each State is 

allocated an amount equal to the amount that it received for fiscal year 1999. If the total 

program appropriation increases over the prior year, 85 percent of the remaining funds are 

allocated based on the number of children in the general population in the age range for which 

the States guarantee FAPE to children with disabilities. Fifteen percent of the remaining funds 

are allocated based on the number of children living in poverty that are in the age range for 

which the States guarantee FAPE to children with disabilities.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) also includes several maximum and 

minimum allocation requirements that are triggered when the amount available for distribution to 

I-18
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

States increases. The amount that any single State’s allocation may increase from one year to 

the next is capped at the amount the State received in the prior year multiplied by the sum of 1.5 

percent and the percentage increase in the total amount appropriated for Part B of IDEA from 

the prior year. The maximum amount that any State may receive in any single fiscal year is 

calculated by multiplying the number of children with disabilities ages of 3 through 21 served 

during the 2004-2005 academic year in that State by 40 percent of the annual per pupil 

expenditure, adjusted by the rate of annual change in the sum of 85 percent of the children 

aged 3 through 21 for whom that State ensures FAPE and 15 percent of the children living in 

poverty. Because there are multiple caps, in any single year, the “effective cap” on any single 

State’s allocation is the lowest cap for that State.

If the amount available for allocation to States remains the same from one year to the next, 

States receive the same level of funding as in the prior year. If the amount available for 

allocation to States decreases from the prior year, any amount available for allocation to States 

above the 1999 level is allocated based on the relative increases in funding that the States 

received between 1999 and the prior year. If there is a decrease below the amount allocated for 

1999, each State’s allocation is ratably reduced from the 1999 level.

Most of the Federal funds provided to States must be passed on to LEAs. However, a portion of 

the funds may be used for State-level activities. Any funds not set aside by the State must be 

passed through to LEAs. These sub-State allocations are made in a fashion similar to that used 

to allocate funds among States when the amount available for allocation to States increases.

State Administration – A State may reserve for State administration up to the greater of the 

maximum amount the State could reserve for State administration from fiscal year 2004 funds, 

or $800,000, increased by inflation as reflected by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban 

Consumers. For fiscal year 2016, the latter amount is estimated to be $1,044,851.

Other State Activities – A State may also reserve funds for a variety of other State-level 

activities such as monitoring, enforcement, addressing personnel needs, and providing technical 

assistance to LEAs. One authorized activity involves allocating set-aside funds to support a risk 

pool, or high cost fund, that is used to assist LEAs in meeting the costs of serving high need, 

high-cost children. If a State opts to use State-level funds for a risk pool, it must use 10 percent 

of the funds it reserves for other State-level activities for this purpose. Federal funds set aside 

by a State must be distributed to LEAs or consortia of LEAs to address the needs of specific 

high-cost children.

Starting in 2007, the amount that a State may set aside for other State-level activities is based 

on a percentage of its total allocation for 2006, increased for inflation. The percentage is based 

on whether the State opts to use funds for a risk pool and the amount of funds that the State 

sets aside for administration. If the State opts to use funds for a risk pool and the State sets 

aside $850,000 or less for administration, the percentage is 10.5 percent. If the State opts to 

use funds for a risk pool and the State sets aside more than $850,000 for administration, the 

percentage is 10 percent. If the State opts not to use funds for a risk pool and the State sets 

aside $850,000 or less for administration, the percentage is 9.5 percent. If the State opts not to 

use funds for a risk pool and the State sets aside more than $850,000 for administration, the 

percentage is 9 percent.

I-19
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

Maintenance of Effort – The IDEA also requires each State to maintain its level of State financial 

support for special education and related services from one year to the next. This requirement 

is commonly referred to as the State “maintenance of effort, or MOE.” However, the IDEA 

allows any State that provided 100 percent of the non-Federal costs of special education 

services in the 2003-2004 school year, or any subsequent year, to reduce its level of 

expenditures by up to 50 percent of any increase in its allocation under the Grants to States 

program over the prior year. The Department may prohibit a State from exercising this authority 

if it is determined that a State is not adequately carrying out its responsibilities under the IDEA.

The IDEA also contains a local “maintenance of effort” requirement. Under this requirement, 

each LEA must maintain its total expenditures, including State and local contributions, on 

special education from one year to the next. The standard for determining whether this MOE 

requirement has been met is that the LEA actually expends, in total or per capita, an equal or 

greater amount of local, or State and local, funds in each subsequent year. However, in any 

fiscal year that an LEA’s IDEA Part B subgrant allocation exceeds the amount that the LEA 

received in the previous fiscal year, the IDEA also permits certain LEAs to reduce the level of 

support otherwise required by this local maintenance of effort requirement by up to 50 percent 

of any increase in their Part B allocation. LEAs taking advantage of this flexibility must use any

funds that otherwise would have been used for the education of children with disabilities to 

support activities that are authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 

1965, as amended. Also, if a State educational agency (SEA) determines that an LEA is not 

meeting all of the requirements of Part B, including meeting targets in the State’s performance 

plan, the SEA must prohibit that LEA from reducing its level of support.

Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) – Certain LEAs may also use up to 15 percent of 

their allocation, less any amount used to reduce that LEA’s maintenance of effort level, for early 

intervening services. Early intervening services generally address the needs of students who 

require additional academic and behavioral supports to succeed, but who are not identified as 

needing special education. If an SEA determines that an LEA has significant disproportionality 

on the basis of race in the identification of children as children with disabilities, in particular 

disability categories, in placement in particular educational settings, or in discipline, the SEA 

must require the LEA to use the full 15 percent for early intervening services.

The IDEA requires awards to the Freely Associated States of the Pacific Basin (Palau, the 

Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands) to be the same 

amounts that they received from the fiscal year 2003 appropriation.

The IDEA also authorizes the Department to set aside a portion of the Grants to States 

appropriation to provide technical assistance to improve the capacity of States to meet data 

collection requirements necessary for the implementation of the program.

IDEA requires that from the funds appropriated for Grants to States, 1.226 percent shall be set 

aside for the Department of the Interior. It is estimated that the maximum amount authorized for 

FY 2016 would be $143,416 thousand. 

This is a forward-funded program that includes advance appropriations. In a typical year, a 

portion of the funds – the forward-funded portion – becomes available for obligation on July 1 of 

the fiscal year of the appropriation and remains available for 15 months, through September 30 

of the following year. The remaining funds – the advance appropriation – become available for 

I-20
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

obligation on October 1 of the fiscal year following the year of the appropriations act and remain 

available for 12 months, expiring at the same time as the forward-funded portion. For fiscal year 

2016, school districts will use both the forward- and advance-funded amounts primarily during 

the 2016-2017 school year.

Both forward-funded and advance funds remain available for obligation at State and local levels 

for an additional year. Hence, States and local educational agencies (LEAs) will have until 

September 30, 2018, to obligate their fiscal year 2016 awards.

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands)footnote

2011.............................................................................. $11,465,960

2012................................................................................ 11,577,855

2013................................................................................ 10,974,866

2014................................................................................ 11,472,848

2015................................................................................ 11,497,848

_________________

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration requests $11.67 billion in fiscal year 2016 for Grants to States to assist in 

covering the excess costs associated with providing special education and related services to 

children with disabilities and improving the quality of those services. The requested level 

includes an increase of $175 million over the fiscal year 2015 level to support all States in 

implementing improvement efforts identified in their State Systemic Improvement Plans (SSIP) 

in addition to special education and related services for children with disabilities. SSIP’s are 

plans States submit to the Department to evaluate their results for children with disabilities, their 

capacity to improve those results, and the needed steps to improve State support systems and 

local service delivery systems.

The request level would increase the Federal contribution toward offsetting the cost of special 

education and related services for children with disabilities to approximately 16 percent of the

national average per pupil expenditure (APPE) based on the anticipated growth of APPE in 

fiscal year 2016. This request would provide an average of $1,768 per child. This average is 

based on the assumption that the number of children aged 3 through 21 who will be served will 

remain constant at the 2014 level of 6.593 million. 

From 1975, when the IDEA was enacted, through 2005, the growth in the number of children 

with disabilities served outpaced the growth in the general population ages 3 through 21. 

However, from 2006 to 2009, the count of children with disabilities reported by States decreased 

slightly each year from the prior fiscal year. Fiscal year 2010 represented the first increase in 

this population of students in 5 years, but the population declined again in fiscal year 2011 and 

2012. The child count increased again slightly in 2013 and 2014; however, the Department 

believes the population of children with disabilities will continue to trend downward in future 

years. In the absence of more certain information, we have projected the numbers of children 

with disabilities expected to be served for fiscal years 2015 and 2016 at 6.593 million children, 

the same level as reported by States for fiscal year 2014. 

I-21
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

Prior to the enactment of the IDEA, as many as 1 million children with disabilities were excluded 

from educational services. The IDEA guarantees that any child identified as having a disability 

will have access to a free appropriate public education. One of the primary objectives of the 

program is to improve the quality of the education provided, so that children with disabilities can 

be involved in, and make progress in, the general education curriculum based on the State’s 

academic content standards, meet the same rigorous standards that have been established for 

all children to help prepare them for college and a career, and be prepared to lead productive, 

independent adult lives to the maximum extent possible.

Results Driven Accountability (RDA)

In 2012, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) began to develop a new 

accountability system, RDA, that shifts the focus of the Department’s monitoring efforts from 

compliance to improved results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities under 

Parts B and C of the IDEA (e.g., performance on assessments and graduation rates). While the 

Department recognizes the importance of States’ compliance with the statutory requirements of 

the IDEA, and will continue to ensure that States meet those obligations, we believe that 

focusing our monitoring and technical assistance efforts on significant areas of need, such as 

academic performance and significant disproportionality, identified by States will have the 

greatest impact on improving results for children with disabilities, age birth through 21.

In developing RDA, the Department has worked extensively with States and other stakeholders 

to develop fair, results-driven performance measures to guide the work. However, because 

RDA is dependent on States’ evaluating data and thoughtfully modifying or refining support and 

service delivery systems at the local level, some States may need technical assistance in 

transitioning to this new framework. Therefore, the Department is investing more than 

$21 million in fiscal year 2015 in continuation awards for technical assistance centers through 

the IDEA Technical Assistance and Dissemination and the Technical Assistance to Improve 

State Data Capacity programs to support States in improving their data quality and to assist 

them with the development of their SSIPs. In their SSIPs, States evaluate their results for 

children with disabilities, their capacity to improve those results, and the needed steps to 

improve State support systems and local service delivery systems.

As the Department shifts to a RDA framework, States, lead agencies, districts, and early 

childhood providers will need support on multiple fronts in identifying, prioritizing, and 

implementing evidence-based practices to improve results for children with disabilities. The 

requested $175 million increase in the Grants to States program and the $10 million for new 

Results Driven Accountability Implementation grants in the Technical Assistance and 

Dissemination program would provide needed additional funds to States and lead agencies for 

State-wide technical assistance, professional development, or other coordinated activities 

across a broad range of service providers while also ensuring that local education agencies and 

early childhood providers have additional resources to provide high quality direct services to 

children with disabilities and their families. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Flexibility

All States are eligible to receive ESEA flexibility, and the Department has established a rigorous 

process for reviewing and approving State requests, including expert peer review. As of the 

2014-2015 school year, 42 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico are approved to 

I-22
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

implement ESEA flexibility. The Department also approved a separate request for waivers from 

the California Office to Reform Education districts (7 districts) in California. The waivers may be 

revoked if Congress reauthorizes the ESEA, but in the continued absence of reauthorization the 

Department invited eligible SEAs to request extensions that would remain in effect through the 

2014-2015 school year. States that have been approved for waivers will need to apply for 

renewal for the 2015-2016 school-year in 2015, absent reauthorization.

States seeking ESEA flexibility must submit plans to the Department describing how they will 

transition to State college- and career-ready standards and aligned assessments capable of 

measuring student academic growth; implement differentiated recognition, accountability, and 

support systems that identify and reward high-performing schools, require rigorous interventions 

in the lowest-performing schools, target meaningful improvement measures to schools with the 

largest achievement gaps; and develop and implement high-quality teacher and principal 

evaluation and support systems that use multiple valid measures, including data on student 

growth as a significant factor, to determine performance levels. While these reforms support 

efforts to improve outcomes for all students including students with disabilities (SWD), the 

Department required States to ensure that the needs of SWD were taken into account across all 

components of the State’s plan. Additionally, SEAs approved for ESEA flexibility committed to 

eliminating the use of alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement 

standards beginning no later than the 2014-2015 school year. 

FY 2016 Proposed Appropriations Language 

The Administration is continuing to propose appropriations language requested and received in 

previous years regarding State and local MOE requirements, the technical assistance set-aside 

under section 616(i) of the IDEA, and the allocation provided to the Bureau of Indian Education. 

State Maintenance of Effort

The IDEA requires each State to make available for special education and related services at 

least as much funding as it did in the prior year. If a State fails to maintain its fiscal support for 

special education and related services and does not receive a waiver of the requirement, the 

IDEA directs the Department to reduce that State’s award under the Special Education Grants 

to States program. In 2012, the Department reduced Kansas’s award under this provision and 

has denied the waiver requests of South Carolina and New Mexico. Under IDEA, the 

Department does not have authority to redistribute or otherwise spend any funds made 

available as a result of such a reduction. 

As in previous years, the Administration proposes language that would (a) allow the Department 

to redistribute reductions to other States and (b) mitigate the ongoing impact of a reduction on a 

State’s future year awards. Without the language, any funds reduced from a State’s award 

would revert to Treasury at the end of the period of availability. The proposed language would 

allow the Department to provide these funds to other States that have not had their awards 

reduced as a result of a failure to maintain financial support for special education and related 

services, so that these funds are used to offset the additional costs of providing services to 

students who qualify for services under the IDEA. Additionally, because of the way that the 

formula for determining State allocations operates, a State’s award in any year depends, in part, 

on the amount the State received in the prior year. Without this additional language, a reduction 

in a State’s award taken in any one year could have long-lasting impacts on that State’s award, 

I-23
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

depending on the growth in the Grants to States appropriation and the size of the reduction in 

the individual State’s award.

As in fiscal year 2015, the Administration proposes language that would provide additional 

flexibility in enforcing MOE requirements while protecting the services provided to students with 

disabilities supported with Federal funds. Specifically, the proposed language would allow the 

Department, for a State’s failure to meet MOE in any fiscal year, to: (1) spread out the 

reductions in awards due to a State’s failure to meet MOE over a maximum of 5 years; (2) 

reduce the maximum State set-aside by the same percentage as the reduction in the State’s 

overall award; and (3) either recover non-Federal (State) funds in the amount of the State’s 

MOE shortfall under the recovery of funds provision in section 452 of the General Education 

Provisions Act (GEPA), or reduce the State’s IDEA grant. 

Under the IDEA, the Department must reduce a State’s award in one fiscal year, and cannot 

spread the penalty over a number of years. The Department is concerned that, due to the 

potential size of future reductions as a percentage of overall State awards, services provided to 

students with disabilities will be adversely affected, particularly those supported with Federal 

funds. By providing the Department the authority to spread out the penalty over a maximum of 

5 years, the Department hopes to limit the direct impact on students with disabilities in any given 

year.

Under current law, in a year in which the Secretary has reduced a State’s award due to an MOE 

violation, a State can pass on the entire reduction in its IDEA funding to LEAs. Providing the 

Department the authority to proportionally reduce the maximum available State set-aside by the 

same percentage as the reduction in the overall State award would directly impact State entities 

for failing to maintain financial support. For example, a 30 percent reduction in a State’s award 

would result in a 30 percent reduction in the maximum amount that can be set-aside by the 

State for State-level activities. 

When LEAs have fewer Federal funds available for expenditure, children with disabilities may 

receive reduced services. By exercising the flexibility of either recovering State funds or 

reducing the State’s IDEA grant, the Department can mitigate the impact of a reduction in funds 

on services for children with disabilities.

Local Educational Agency Maintenance of Effort

The IDEA requires LEAs to provide through a combination of local or State support at least the 

same level of special education funding provided in the previous fiscal year. As in previous 

years, the Administration is proposing language to clarify that the level of effort a LEA must 

meet under maintenance of effort requirements in the year after it fails to maintain effort is the 

level of effort that would have been required in the absence of that failure and not the LEA’s 

reduced level of expenditures. This language would provide clarity to LEAs and is consistent 

with State MOE statutory language.

Technical Assistance

The IDEA emphasizes improving results for children with disabilities through the collection and 

use of performance data. The law requires each State to develop a State Performance Plan 

that includes measurable and rigorous targets in a number of key monitoring areas: free 

I-24
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment; disproportionate representation 

of children in special education based on race and ethnicity; and State exercise of general 

supervision authority in areas such as child find, monitoring, mediation, and transition. Each 

State has supervisory responsibility over the provision of special education and related services 

to children with disabilities within its jurisdiction, to ensure that the requirements in the IDEA are 

met. State performance data are collected through Annual Performance Reports. 

The IDEA authorizes the Department to use a portion of Grants to States funds to provide 

technical assistance to States to improve their capacity to meet these data collection 

requirements. The request includes $17 million for such technical assistance, an increase of 

$2 million more than the amount that would be set-aside for this purpose at the fiscal year 2015 

level. The request would be used for continuation costs for the National IDEA Technical 

Assistance Center on Early Childhood Longitudinal Data Systems, which supports States in 

developing and using their early childhood data systems, the National Technical Assistance 

Center to Improve State Data Capacity to Accurately Collect and Report IDEA Data, which 

provides technical assistance to States and local educational agencies on improving their data 

collection and analytic processes in order to promote use of data to drive program improvement, 

the Fiscal Technical Assistance Center, which provides technical assistance to States to 

improve the reporting of fiscal data, and the Data Management Center, which works with States 

to improve system architecture to ensure IDEA data can be used with other data collections to 

improve results for students with disabilities. In addition, these funds would be used to support 

a contract to provide logistical support and quality control of State reported data to ensure its 

accuracy and improve data quality.

As in previous years, the Department is proposing appropriations language that would expand 

the authority of the Department to administer and carry out other services and activities to 

improve data collection, coordination, quality, and use under parts B and C of the IDEA. This 

language would maintain the expanded authority enacted through appropriations language in 

fiscal year 2015, which is currently being used in several of the Department’s technical 

assistance investments. 

Department of the Interior Set-Aside

As in previous years, the Administration proposes that the fiscal year 2016 budget include 

special appropriations language limiting the amount of funding required to be provided to the 

Department of the Interior (Interior). The special language would limit funding for Interior to the 

prior year’s funding level plus the lesser of inflation or the percentage change in the 

appropriation for the Grants to States program. In the event of a decrease or no change in the 

appropriation for the Grants to States program or deflation, the amount of funds to be 

transferred to Interior would remain level with the amount Interior received in the prior fiscal 

year. The IDEA requires that 1.226 percent of the funds appropriated for Grants to States be 

provided to Interior for serving Indian children with disabilities, regardless of the number of 

children served by Interior. At the request level, the uncapped allocation to Interior would 

provide an average of approximately $22,003 for each child with a disability it served in the fall 

of 2012, which is approximately 12 times the average amount per child that States would 

receive. At the fiscal year 2016 request level with the cap, Interior would receive about 

8.3 times the average amount per child that States would receive, which translates into an 

average of $14,674 for each child with a disability, or about 133 percent of the national average 

per pupil expenditure (APPE) compared to 16 percent of the APPE for States overall.

I-25
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 2015

footnote

2016

footnote

Program funding:

Formula grants to States $11,323,218 $11,348,014 $11,519,394

Formula grants to Outlying Areas 34,246 34,246 34,435

Grants to Freely Associated States 6,579 6,579 6,579

Department of the Interior 93,805 94,009 95,440

Technical Assistance (TA): 0 0 0

 IDEA Data Validation Contract 0 1,800 2,004

 Early Childhood Data 7,996 1 3,698 2 2,796

 Fiscal Data Center 2,806 33,200 3,200

 IDEA Data Management Center 2,500 4 0 2,500

 TA Center on State Data 1,698 5 6,302 6,500

 Subtotal, TA 15,000 6 15,000 7 17,000

Peer review of new Technical 

 Assistance award applications 0 8 0 0

Total program funding 11,472,848 11,497,848 11,672,848

Number of children with disabilities 

served ages 3 through 21 6,592,960 9 6,592,960 9 6,592,960 9

Average Federal share per child 

(whole dollars) $1,743 9 $1,742 9 $1,768 9

Average per pupil expenditure 

(APPE) (whole dollars) $10,772 $10,876 9 $11,057 9

Federal funding as a percentage of 

APPE 16% 16% 9 16% 9

_________________ 1 The Department obligated $6,495 thousand of fiscal year 2013 funds in fiscal year 2014, and plans to obligate 

$6,496 thousand of fiscal year 2014 funds in fiscal year 2015.. 2 The Department plans to obligate $3,698 thousand of fiscal year 2015 carry-over funds in fiscal year 2016. 3 The Department obligated $395 thousand of fiscal year 2013 funds in fiscal year 2014. 4 The Department obligated $2,500 thousand of fiscal year 2013 funds in fiscal year 2014, and plans to obligate 

$2,500 thousand of fiscal year 2014 funds in fiscal year 2015. 5 The Department plans to obligate $198 thousand of fiscal year 2014 funds in fiscal year 2015. 6 The Department carried over $15,934 thousand of the fiscal year 2013 multi-year appropriation into fiscal year

2014. 7 The Department carried over $9,198 thousand of the remaining fiscal year 2014 multi-year appropriation into 

fiscal year 2015. 8 The Department obligated $44 thousand of fiscal year 2013 funds in fiscal year 2014. 9 Estimate, based on State-reported cumulative total for children served in the fall of 2013; however, this does not 

include the child count for Wyoming or BIE.

I-26
SPECIAL EDUCATION

State grants: Grants to States

Basis for Leaving Special Education for Youth with Disabilities Ages 14 and Older 

Basis:

School 

Year

2010-2011

Percent

School 

Year

2010-2011

Number

School 

Year

2011-2012

Percent

School 

Year

2011-2012

Number

School 

Year

2012-2013

Percent

School 

Year

2012-2013

Number

Graduating with 

regular diploma 39.7% 255,801 39.7% 250,575 41.9% 257,982

Graduating through 

certification 9.2% 58,946 8.5% 53,910 9.2% 56,399

Transferred to 

regular education 9.5% 61,243 10.2% 64,637 9.4% 57,639

Dropped out, or 

moved but not 

known to have 

continued in 

education 12.6% 80,927 12.7% 80,427 12.1% 74,502

Moved, but known 

to have continued 

in education 28.2% 181,618 27.9% 175,709 26.5% 162,887

Reaching 

maximum age for 

services and 

other reasons 0.8% 5,245 ___0.9% 5,565 0.9% 5,839

Total 100.0% 643,780 100.0% 630,823 100.0% 615,248

_________________

Source: Annual data collection from States by OSERS and through the Education Data Exchange Network 

(EDEN)/EDFacts.

Note: Percentages may not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

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History of Children Served and Program Funding – FYs 1978 through 2016

Fiscal Year

Children

Served 

(thousands)

footnote

Appropriation 

(dollars in thousands)

footnote

Federal 

Share Per Child 1

(whole dollars)

footnote

Percentage 

of APPE

footnote

1978 3,561 $566,030 $159 10%

1979 3,700 804,000 217 13%

1980 3,803 874,500 230 12%

1981 3,941 874,500 222 10%

1982 3,990 931,008 233 10%

1983 4,053 1,017,900 251 10%

1984 4,096 1,068,875 261 9%

1985 4,124 1,135,145 275 9%

1986 4,121 1,163,282 282 8%

1987 4,167 1,338,000 321 9%

1988 4,236 1,431,737 338 9%

1989 4,347 1,475,449 339 8%

1990 4,419 1,542,610 349 8%

1991 4,567 1,854,186 406 9%

1992 4,727 1,976,095 418 8%

1993 4,896 2,052,728 419 8%

1994 5,101 2,149,686 421 8%

1995 5,467 2,322,915 425 8%

1996 5,629 2,323,837 413 7%

1997 5,806 3,107,522 535 9%

1998 5,978 3,807,700 636 11%

1999 6,133 4,310,700 701 11%

2000 6,274 4,989,685 793 12%

2001 6,381 6,339,685 991 14%

2002 6,483 7,528,533 1,159 15%

2003 6,611 8,874,398 1,340 17%

2004 6,723 10,068,106 1,495 18%

2005 6,820 10,589,746 2 1,558 18%

2006 6,814 10,582,961 2 1,551 18%

2007 6,796 10,782,961 2 1,584 17%

2008 6,718 10,947,511 2 1,609 17%

2009 6,599 22,805,211 2 3 3,453 3 33% 3

2010 6,614 11,505,211 2 1,736 16% _______________________

1

 The Federal share per child is calculated from IDEA Part B Grants to States funding, excluding amounts available for 

studies and evaluations or technical assistance, as applicable. 2

 Includes $10,000 thousand for technical assistance activities in 2005, $15,000 thousand in 2006 through 2009 and 

2014 through 2015, $25,000 thousand in 2010 through 2012, and $23,693 thousand in 2013. 3 Includes funds available in fiscal year 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (P.L. 111-5). 

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History of Children Served and Program Funding- Continued

Fiscal Year

Children 

Served 

(thousands)

footnote

Appropriation 

(dollars in thousands)

footnote

Federal 

Share Per Child1

(whole dollars)

footnote

Percentage 

of APPE

footnote

2011 6,558 $11,465,960 2 $1,745 16%

2012 6,543 11,577,855 2 1,766 16%

2013 6,574 10,974,866 2 1,674 15%

2014 6,593 11,472,848 2 1,743 16%

2015 6,593 11,497,848 2 1,742 16%

2016 6,593 11,672,848 2 1,768 16% _______________________

2

 Includes $10,000 thousand for technical assistance activities in 2005, $15,000 thousand in 2006 through 2009 and 

2014 through 2015, $25,000 thousand in 2010 through 2012, $23,693 thousand in 2013, and $17,000 in 2016.

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data, and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in fiscal 

year 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by 

this program.

Goal: Ensure all children with disabilities served under the IDEA have available to them 

a free appropriate public education to help them meet challenging standards and prepare 

them for independent living and postsecondary education and/or competitive 

employment by assisting State and local educational agencies and families. 

Objective: All children with disabilities will meet challenging standards as determined by 

national and State assessments with accommodations as appropriate.

National Assessment of Educational Progress Measures

Measure: The percentage of fourth-grade students with disabilities scoring at or above Basic 

on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading.

Year Target Actual

2007 35 36%

2009 37 34

2011 39 32

2013 40 28

2015 40

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Measure: The percentage of eighth-grade students with disabilities scoring at or above Basic 

on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics.

Year Target Actual

2007 33 33

2009 35 36

2011 37 35

2013 38 31

2015 38

Additional information: 

As defined for purposes of NAEP, “students with disabilities” includes any student classified by 

a school as having a disability, including children who receive services under a Section 504 

plan. These measures include data for “national public” schools only. “National public” is 

defined as: “public schools only. Includes charter schools; excludes Bureau of Indian 

Education schools and Department of Defense Education Activity schools.” NAEP is a biennial 

assessment. No comparable NAEP assessments are scheduled for mathematics in 2012 and

2014.

Fourth-grade Reading: NAEP defines “Basic” for students participating in the fourth-grade 

reading assessment as follows: “Fourth-grade students performing at the Basic level should be 

able to locate relevant information, make simple inferences, and use their understanding of the 

text to identify details that support a given interpretation or conclusion. Students should be able 

to interpret the meaning of a word as it is used in the text.” 

Reading scores, measured every 2 years, decreased and fell short of their targets since 2009 

after moderate increases over the course of the previous 4 years. The data show that the 

majority of students with disabilities do not meet or exceed even the Basic levels of 

achievement at any of the grade levels tested. Likewise, students with disabilities score well 

below other students. On the 2013 fourth-grade reading assessment, only 28 percent of 

students with disabilities scored at or above Basic, while 73 percent of other students scored at 

or above Basic. 

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collects data on the percentage of students 

with disabilities who are excluded from the NAEP assessments because of their disabilities. 

Exclusion rates are important to keep in mind when considering the performance of students 

with disabilities because increases in performance accompanied by reductions in students with 

disabilities tested might simply reflect higher exclusion rates among lower functioning students. 

Between 1998 (the first year accommodations were permitted) and 2013, the exclusion rate for 

students with disabilities on fourth-grade reading assessments dropped from 42 percent to 

16 percent. In 2010, the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) released a policy 

statement setting a goal for no more than 15 percent exclusion of students with disabilities on 

NAEP assessments and began identifying national, State, and districts samples not meeting this 

goal in its reporting. In 2013, 16 States had exclusion rates of students with disabilities 

exceeding 15 percent on the fourth-grade reading assessment, down from 23 States in 2011. It 

should be noted that these percentages only include students with disabilities who have been 

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State grants: Grants to States

included in the NAEP testing sample. Students in schools specifically for children with 

disabilities are not included in the NAEP sample.

The use of accommodations for students with disabilities, such as testing in small groups and 

extended time, has increased substantially. The share of the overall population that is students 

with disabilities who receive accommodations increased from 2 percent to 5 percent from 2000 

to 2013. Among fourth-grade students with disabilities assessed in reading in 2013, 68 percent 

received accommodations. 

Eighth-grade Mathematics: NAEP defines “Basic” for students participating in the eighth-grade 

mathematics assessment as follows: “Eighth-graders performing at the Basic level should 

complete problems correctly with the help of structural prompts such as diagrams, charts, and 

graphs. They should be able to solve problems in all NAEP content areas through the 

appropriate selection and use of strategies and technological tools—including calculators, 

computers, and geometric shapes. Students at this level also should be able to use 

fundamental algebraic and informal geometric concepts in problem solving. As they approach 

the Proficient level, students at the Basic level should be able to determine which of the 

available data are necessary and sufficient for correct solutions and use them in problem 

solving. However, these eighth-graders show limited skill in communicating mathematically.” 

NAEP data for mathematics demonstrate slow progress. The performance of students with 

disabilities had improved steadily over baseline years and exceeded the 2009 target. However, 

since 2011, eighth-grade math scores decreased and did not meet the target. These decreases 

correspond with decreasing rates of exclusion, which could produce a more diverse sample of 

students with disabilities. The NAEP data also show that the majority of students with 

disabilities do not meet or exceed even the Basic levels of achievement at any of the grade 

levels tested. Likewise, students with disabilities score well below other students. On the 2013 

math assessment, only 31 percent of eighth-graders with disabilities scored at or above Basic, 

while 79 percent of other eighth-grade students scored at or above Basic.

The NCES collects data on the percentage of students with disabilities who are excluded from 

the NAEP assessments because of their disabilities. Exclusion rates are important to keep in 

mind when considering the performance of students with disabilities because increases in 

performance accompanied by reductions in students with disabilities tested might simply reflect 

higher exclusion rates among lower functioning students. Between 2000 (the first year 

accommodations were permitted) and 2013, the exclusion rate on eighth-grade mathematics 

assessments dropped from 32 percent to 10 percent. NAGB’s 2010 policy statement regarding 

exclusion of students with disabilities also applied to the mathematics assessment. In 2013, 

only two States had exclusion rates of students with disabilities higher than 15 percent, down 

from 19 States in 2011. It should be noted that these percentages only include students with 

disabilities who have been included in the NAEP testing sample. Students in schools 

specifically for children with disabilities are not included in the NAEP sample.

The use of accommodations for students with disabilities, such as testing in small groups and 

extended time, has increased substantially. For example, whereas less than one quarter of the 

eighth-grade students with disabilities assessed in mathematics in 2000 received 

accommodations, 80 percent received accommodations in 2013. 

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Elementary and Secondary Education Measures

The Department has adopted 4 measures for the Special Education Grants to States program 

that are parallel with those used for the Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies program. 

Data on the measures are collected annually through the Education Data Exchange Network 

(EDEN) and made available through EDFacts. Targets are based on a straight-line trajectory 

toward the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) goal to have all children performing at proficient or 

advanced levels by 2014. States were not required to test students in all grades 3 through 8 in 

2005. However, they were required to test children in grades 3 through 8 in 2006. The targets 

for 2007 were based on the incomplete 2005 tests. Targets for 2008 through 2012 were revised 

based on the more comprehensive 2006 data.

The first two measures focus on the percentages of students with disabilities scoring at the 

proficient or advanced levels in grades 3 through 8 on State reading and mathematics 

assessments. The other two measures focus on the differences between the percentages of 

students with disabilities in grades 3 through 8 scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on 

State reading and mathematics assessments and the percentage of all students in grades 

3 through 8 scoring at these levels. 

Measure: The percentage of students with disabilities in grades 3-8 scoring at the proficient or 

advanced levels on State reading assessments.

Year Target Actual

2011 77.0% 44.3%

2012 84.7 42.2

2013 92.4 37.4

2014 100

2015 100

2016 100

Measure: The percentage of students with disabilities in grades 3-8 scoring at the proficient or 

advanced levels on State mathematics assessments.

Year Target Actual

2011 76.7% 45.7%

2012 84.4 41.8

2013 92.2 36.0

2014 100

2015 100

2016 100

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State grants: Grants to States

Measure: The difference between the percentage of students with disabilities in grades 3-8 

scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on State reading assessments and the percentage 

of all students in grades 3-8 scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on State reading 

assessments.

Year Target Actual

2011 11.1 28.1

2012 7.4 28.1

2013 3.6 28.3

2014 0

2015 0

2016 0

Measure: The difference between the percentage of students with disabilities in grades 3-8 

scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on State mathematics assessments and the 

percentage of all students in grades 3-8 scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on State 

mathematics assessments.

Year Target Actual

2011 10.2 26.0

2012 6.9 26.4

2013 3.4 26.9

2014 0

2015 0

2016 0

Additional information: States improved their performance with respect to students with 

disabilities on State mathematics and reading assessments between 2008 and 2010. However, 

in 2013, State scores have regressed in both reading and mathematics. The data suggest 

States were making some progress in ensuring that students with disabilities who participate in 

State reading and math assessments were reasonably well-equipped to perform on these 

assessments, but that progress has decreased and is not substantial enough to keep up with 

the increasing targets that would bring all students with disabilities to proficiency by 2014. It 

should also be noted that fewer than half of students with disabilities scored at the proficient or 

advanced levels in reading and math on State assessments (37.4 percent and 36 percent, 

respectively). 

The two previous tables indicate that there continue to be significant gaps between the percent 

of students with disabilities scoring at proficient or advanced levels on State assessments in 

reading and math and the percent of all students scoring at the proficient or advanced levels 

(28.3 percentage points and 26.9 percentage points, respectively). The scores among students 

with disabilities over the past few years have increased those gaps. 

Because definitions of proficient and advanced vary across States, the national data presented 

here, which simply aggregates State data, may not give a clear or entirely meaningful picture of 

I-33
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State grants: Grants to States

student achievement. In addition, students with the most significant cognitive disabilities may 

take alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards, and students 

with disabilities whose disability has precluded them from achieving grade-level proficiency may 

take alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards. States may 

include scores from these assessments for the purposes of adequate yearly progress (AYP) 

decisions, but only up to a cap of 3 percent of the total population tested, a maximum of 

2 percent from alternate assessments based on modified achievement standards and a 

maximum of 1 percent from alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. 

In 2012, approximately 21 percent of students with disabilities in grades 3 through 8 were tested 

in math and reading using an alternate assessment (including those based on modified 

achievement standards and alternate achievement standards). In fiscal year 2015, the 

Department plans to publish final regulations which would modify the use of alternative 

assessments based on modified achievement standards.

Objective: Secondary school students will complete high school prepared for postsecondary 

education and/or competitive employment.

Measure: The percentage of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) who 

graduate from high school with a regular high school diploma.

Year Target Actual

2011 61.0% 63.6%

2012 62.0 63.9

2013 63.0 65.1

2014 64.0

2015 65.0

2016 66.0

Additional information: From 2008 to 2013, States successfully increased their graduation 

rates among students with disabilities and exceeded the targets for the graduation rate during 

the past 7 years for which data are available. However, there have been significant changes to 

reporting requirements for graduation and dropout rates over the last 4 years.

The instructions States received from the Department for calculating and submitting their 

graduation and dropout rates changed substantially in 2009. Previously, States used various 

methods of defining and calculating graduates and dropouts. Beginning in 2009, through their 

Annual Performance Reports (APR), States were asked to report using the calculation and 

timeline required under the 2008 Title I ESEA regulations. The graduation rate under ESEA is a 

cohort rate that defines a graduate as someone who receives a diploma in 4 years and adjusts 

for transfers in and out of the school. Students who receive modified diplomas or GEDs do not 

count as graduates in this calculation. States may receive permission from the Department to 

report data on cohorts of different lengths of time (such as a 5- or 6-year cohort). 

The new graduation rate calculation requires States to track students using a longitudinal data 

system, which not all States have fully implemented. Most States complied with the new 

requirements for reporting graduation rate data in 2009. Only 9 States reported graduation 

rates using previous methods with data compiled under Section 618 of the IDEA. In the 2010-

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State grants: Grants to States

11 through 2012-13 school-years, all but 4 States used the new methods for calculating their 

graduation rates. 

For the 2010-11 school-year, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education eliminated the 

State-reported data element "dropout" from the Consolidated State Performance Report for all 

students and subgroups due to substantial concerns with the validity and usability of the data. 

In an attempt to reduce the reporting burden of States, they are no longer required to report this 

data element.

Postsecondary Outcomes

One of the purposes of the IDEA is to help prepare children with disabilities for further 

education, employment, and independent living. In 2011, the Department developed an 

indicator on employment and postsecondary education. This indicator tracks the median 

percentage of students who are no longer in secondary school that had individualized education 

programs (IEPs) in effect at the time they left school, and were: a) enrolled in higher education 

within 1 year of leaving high school; b) enrolled in higher education or competitively employed 

within 1 year of leaving high school; or, c) enrolled in higher education or in some other 

postsecondary education or training program, or competitively employed or in some other form 

of employment within 1 year of leaving high school. Data for this indicator is collected directly 

from the States on an annual basis. The Department believes that this is a critical indicator for 

the program, since it is a reflection of the ultimate results of efforts to provide special education 

under the Grants to States program. 

Measure: The median percentage of youth who are no longer in secondary school, had IEPs in 

effect at the time they left school, and were enrolled in higher education or in some other 

postsecondary education or training program; or competitively employed or in some other 

employment within 1 year of leaving high school.

Year Target Actual

2013 baseline 73.4%

2014 74.0

2015 74.5

2016 75.0

Additional information: The Department collected baseline data in fall 2011 and 2012 and 

identified numerous data quality and collection issues across States. The Department worked 

with States to provide technical assistance to identify improvement activities to produce 

meaningful data on postsecondary outcomes and set baseline data in 2014. However, States 

continue to struggle to collect a representative sample in their surveys. Response rates ranged 

from 9.8 percent to 100 percent, with an average response rate of 52.4 percent. In addition, 

only two States reported a representative respondent group representative of all five subgroups, 

which include disability, gender, race/ethnicity, age, and exit status. In fiscal year 2014, the 

Department funded the National Technical Assistance Center on Improving Transition to 

Postsecondary Education and Employment for Students With Disabilities, which will continue to 

work with States to improve their data quality and postsecondary outcomes for individuals with 

disabilities. 

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State grants: Grants to States

Efficiency Measure

The Department previously collected data through its program monitoring files to determine the 

average number of workdays between the completion of a site visit and the Office of Special 

Education Program's (OSEP) response to the State. In 2010, the last year the Department 

collected this data, the Department reduced the number of days to issue responses to 66 days, 

far exceeding its target of 79 days, by revising its reporting format to remove extraneous 

descriptions and text that is not relevant to the findings. 

The Department is currently in the process of modifying its accountability system, including the 

onsite visit component, in order to increase efficiency and balance our focus on improved 

results for infants and toddlers with disabilities and compliance with the requirements of the 

IDEA. In the meantime, OSEP continues to meet its statutory monitoring responsibilities 

through the State Performance Plan (SPP)/APR process, fiscal monitoring, and its work with 

State dispute resolution systems. The Department is actively developing new efficiency 

measures aligned to the modified accountability system. However, we do not expect data on 

these measures to be available until fall 2015 at the earliest.

Other Performance Information

IDEA National Assessment

Section 664 of the IDEA requires the Department to conduct a national assessment of activities 

carried out with Federal funds. To implement this requirement, funds requested for the Special 

Education Studies and Evaluation program in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) account 

are being used to conduct an independent evaluation of the program. As required by the IDEA, 

the IDEA National Assessment addresses the extent to which States, districts, and schools are 

implementing the IDEA programs and services to promote a free appropriate public education 

for children with disabilities in the least restrictive environment possible and in partnership with 

parents. The National Assessment will also address the effectiveness of the IDEA programs 

and services in promoting the developmental progress and academic achievement of children 

with disabilities. The National Assessment includes the following activities:

Analytic Support. A report published in January 2010, “Patterns in the Identification of and 

Outcomes for Children and Youth with Disabilities (Patterns)” (see 

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104005/index.asp), provided a synthesis of existing evidence and 

new analyses of extant data sources to address research questions for the IDEA National 

Assessment, targeting three topic areas: (1) identification of children for early intervention and 

special education, (2) declassification of children for early intervention and special education 

services, and (3) developmental and academic outcomes for children with disabilities. Among 

the data sources used for the study are the NAEP data from State academic assessments of 

children with disabilities, data submitted by States to the Department pursuant to section 618 of 

the IDEA, population counts by State and year from the NCES Common Core of Data and the 

National Vital Statistics System, and data gathered from four national longitudinal studies of 

children with disabilities (National Early Intervention Longitudinal Study, Pre-Elementary 

Education Longitudinal Study, Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study, and National 

Longitudinal Transition Study-2).

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State grants: Grants to States

From 1997 to 2005, the percent of children aged 6 to 17 served under IDEA increased from 

12.3 to 12.9. The percentage varies by race/ethnicity, with a low of 6.3 percent for Asian 

children served under IDEA up to a high of 16.7 percent for black children. There is also 

variation by State, ranging from 9.9 percent up to 18.6 percent. From 1997 to 2005, the largest 

increases in disability types were autism, a 400 percent increase among children ages 10 to 17 

years, and developmental delay, almost a 2,000 percent increase among children ages 3 to 9 

years. The study cited research on declassification (Holt, McGrath, and Herring 2007) that 

showed almost 50 percent of children eligible in kindergarten were no longer eligible for services 

by third grade. Children with speech/language impairment are the most likely to be declassified 

within 2 years (34 percent). Declassified children had higher literacy and math outcomes than 

children who continued to receive services under IDEA.

The Patterns study confirms data presented above that children with disabilities are performing 

increasingly well on NAEP tests, but that they are still far behind their non-disabled peers. 

Children with disabilities also have a much larger range of performance on the NAEP exam than 

do children without disabilities. State assessment data point to a wide array of outcomes and 

standards for proficiency. In 4th grade math and reading, the percent of children with disabilities 

who scored proficient or above on a State’s assessment ranged from just less than 10 percent 

up to 80 percent. 

Implementation Study. The final report for the IDEA National Assessment Implementation 

Study was published in July 2011. This study collected data from State agencies and school 

districts to address implementation questions for the IDEA National Assessment in four broad 

areas targeted for this study: (1) services to young children with disabilities; (2) identification of 

children and youth with disabilities; (3) efforts to promote positive developmental and 

educational outcomes for children and youth with disabilities; and (4) dispute resolution and 

mediation. Data collection included three surveys of State administrators: (1) IDEA Part B 

administrators responsible for programs providing special education services to school-aged 

children with disabilities ages 6-21; (2) IDEA Part B section 619 coordinators who oversee 

preschool programs for children with disabilities ages 3-5; and (3) IDEA Part C coordinators who 

are responsible for early intervention programs serving infants and toddlers. A fourth survey 

collected district level data from a nationally representative sample of local special education 

administrators about preschool and school-age programs for children with disabilities ages 3-21. 

The study specifically focused on implementation related to new or revised provisions from the 

2004 reauthorization of IDEA. One such provision, Coordinated Early Intervening Services 

(CEIS), allows districts to use up to 15 percent of their Part B funds to provide services to 

children not yet identified as in need of special education. Three percent of districts are 

required to use CEIS due to significant disproportionality and 11 percent of districts are 

voluntarily implementing CEIS. Of the districts that implement CEIS, it is used at the elementary 

school level in 93 percent of districts and focuses on literacy instruction in 84 percent of districts. 

The study found that the use of Response to Intervention (RTI) is also widespread, and is being 

used in 71 percent of districts nationally. Similar to CEIS, RTI is most commonly used in 

elementary schools and in reading/language arts. However, only 41 percent of districts reported 

using IDEA funds for RTI, while 80 percent of districts reported using their own general funds.

The study looked at qualifications and distribution of “highly qualified” special education 

personnel. Almost 90 percent of special education teachers meet their State’s definition of 

highly qualified, but States range from 56 percent to 100 percent. Districts reported difficultly 

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State grants: Grants to States

finding qualified personnel for secondary schools, particularly those trained in math and working 

with students with emotional disturbances and with autism. The most common method districts 

use to increase the qualifications of their staff, implemented by 64 percent of all districts and 

76 percent of districts facing routine shortages of quality applicants, is to provide professional 

development. No other approach was used by more than 25 percent of districts.

Finally, the study found that dispute resolution events are very infrequent, with 23 or fewer 

events for every 10,000 students served between 2004 and 2008. The number of due process 

hearing requests over that time has been steady at about 21 requests per 10,000 students, but 

the frequency of due process hearings completed has decreased from 3.36 hearings per 10,000 

students in 2004 to 1.61 hearings in 2008.

Impact Evaluation of Response to Intervention Strategies. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a 

multi-step approach to providing early and more intensive intervention and monitoring within the 

general education setting. In principle, RTI begins with research-based instruction and 

behavioral support provided to students in the general education classroom, followed by 

screening of all students to identify those who may need systematic progress monitoring, 

intervention, or support. Students who are not responding to the general education curriculum 

and instruction are provided with increasingly intense interventions through a "multi-tiered" 

system, and they are frequently monitored to assess their progress and inform the choice of 

future interventions, including possibly special education for students determined to have a 

disability. The IDEA permits some Part B special education funds to be used for "early 

intervening services" such as RTI and also permits districts to use RTI to inform decisions 

regarding a child's eligibility for special education.

The RTI evaluation is employing a quasi-experimental design to examine the natural variations 

in elementary school reading instruction, intervention, and support in schools that may already 

be implementing RTI in 13 States, to address the following research questions:

• What are the effects on academic achievement of providing intensive secondary reading 

interventions to elementary school children who have been identified as at risk for reading 

difficulties compared with children just above the cut point for providing intervention? 

• How do academic outcomes, including reading achievement and special education 

identification, vary with elementary schools' adoption of Response to Intervention practices 

for early grade reading? 

• How do Response to Intervention practices for early grade reading vary across schools? 

Data collection on RTI implementation and on student outcomes including reading achievement 

and identification for special education occurred during the 2011-12 school year. The report for 

this study is now scheduled for release in 2015 rather than 2014, as previously reported. 

Other Studies: The Department sponsored the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) 

and the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) to provide nationally representative 

information about secondary-school-age youth who were receiving special education services in 

1985 and 2000, respectively. Data collection consisted of telephone interviews or mail surveys 

with youth or the youth’s parents if the youth were not able to respond themselves. The 

National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER), in a September 2010 report, 

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State grants: Grants to States

Comparisons Across Time of the Outcomes of Youth With Disabilities up to 4 Years After High 

School, compared the changes in outcomes among youth in the NLTS and NLTS2 who had 

been out of high school for up to 4 years. The report focused on changes in rates of 

postsecondary education, employment, engagement in either postsecondary education or 

employment, household circumstances and community integration. Researchers also 

compared outcomes of youth with disabilities to the general population and across subgroups 

including disability category, gender, race/ethnicity, household income, high school completion 

status, and length of time since leaving high school.

According to the NCSER report, youth with disabilities were more likely to have enrolled in 

postsecondary education within 4 years of leaving high school in 2005 than in 1990. Almost half 

(46 percent) of all youth with disabilities had spent some time in postsecondary education in 

2005. The rate of youth with disabilities who were currently enrolled in postsecondary education 

and/or employed was 86 percent in 2005, a 21 percentage-point increase over 1990. This 

increase is likely attributable to an increase in youth who were concurrently enrolled in 

postsecondary education and employed, given that rates of engagement in only one of these 

activities did not change significantly over that period of time. The report also illustrated the 

increasingly important connection between high school completion and postsecondary 

outcomes, as high school completers had significant and positive changes between 1990 and 

2005 in a greater number of outcome measures than non-completers. Youth with disabilities 

from low-income households increased their postsecondary enrollment rate by 16 percentage 

points to 35 percent in 2005, but a significant enrollment gap remains between the highest and 

lowest income households. Similarly, in 2005, youth with disabilities enrolled in postsecondary 

education at a rate well below the general population, specifically, 46 percent compared to 

63 percent.

Impacts of School Improvement Status on Students with Disabilities. As part of the IDEA 

National Assessment, IES is studying changes in student outcomes after schools adopt 

programs focused on improving academic outcomes for students with disabilities. The focus of 

the study is on comparing outcomes for students with disabilities in elementary and middle 

schools identified for improvement with corresponding outcomes in schools not identified for 

improvement but still accountable for the performance of students with disabilities (SWD).

The evaluation relied on existing data and surveys of school principals in 2010 and 2011. Key 

outcomes for this study align with the outcomes identified in section 664 of the IDEA, which 

relate to: academic achievement (including reading and mathematics); participation in the 

general education curriculum; receipt of special education services; receipt of such services in

the least restrictive appropriate environment; and grade transitions.

The Interim Report on the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in School Accountability 

Systems was released in November 2013. This report presented data on schools in 44 States. 

Of these 44 States, 35 percent of public schools have a large enough population of SWD to be 

required to meet SWD subgroup accountability standards for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). 

Eleven percent of all public schools in 39 States and DC failed to make AYP in the 2009–10 

school year because of SWD subgroup performance and other reasons, and 6 percent missed it 

solely because of SWD subgroup performance. Among schools with a large enough population 

of SWD to be required to meet the accountability standards for the duration of the study, 

44 percent were identified for school improvement. By comparison, 20 percent of schools with 

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State grants: Grants to States

small SWD populations were identified for improvement. The final report is now scheduled for 

release in 2015 rather than 2014, as previously reported.

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Preschool grants

State grants: Preschool grants

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B, Section 619)

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: Indefinite

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$353,238 $403,238 +$50,000

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Preschool Grants program provides formula grants to States, the District of Columbia, and 

Puerto Rico to make available special education and related services for children with 

disabilities aged 3 through 5. In order to be eligible for these grants, States must serve all 

eligible children with disabilities aged 3 through 5 and have an approved application under 

Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). A State that does not make a 

free appropriate public education (FAPE) available to all children with disabilities aged 3 

through 5 cannot receive funds under this program or funds attributable to this age range under 

the Grants to States program. Currently, all States are making FAPE available to all children 

aged 3 through 5 with disabilities. 

At their discretion, States may include preschool-aged children who are experiencing 

developmental delays, as defined by the State and as measured by appropriate diagnostic 

instruments and procedures, who need special education and related services. If consistent 

with State policy, State and local educational agencies also may use funds received under this 

program to provide FAPE to 2-year olds with disabilities who will turn 3 during the school year. 

IDEA requires that, to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities are educated 

with children who are not disabled and that removal of children with disabilities from the regular 

educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is 

such that education in regular classes, with the use of supplementary aids and services, cannot 

be achieved satisfactorily. However, States are not required to provide public preschool 

programs for the general population. For this reason, preschool-aged children with disabilities 

are served in a variety of settings, including public or private preschool programs, regular 

kindergarten, Head Start programs, and child care facilities.

Funds are distributed to eligible entities through a formula based on general population and 

poverty. Under the formula, each State is first allocated an amount equal to its fiscal year 1997 

allocation. For any year in which the appropriation is greater than the prior year level, 

85 percent of the funds above the fiscal year 1997 level are distributed based on each State’s 

relative percentage of the total number of children aged 3 through 5 in the general population. 

The other 15 percent is distributed based on the relative percentage of children aged 3 

through 5 in each State who are living in poverty. The formula provides several floors and 

ceilings regarding the amount a State can receive in any year. No State can receive less than it 

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received in the prior year. In addition, every State must receive an increase equal to the higher 

of: (1) the percent the appropriation grew above the prior year, minus 1.5 percent, or, 

(2) 90 percent of the percentage increase above the prior year. The formula also provides for a 

minimum increase in State allocations of 1/3 of 1 percent of the increase in the appropriation 

over the base year and places a ceiling on how much the allocation to a State may increase, in 

that no State may be allocated an increase above the prior year greater than the percent of 

growth in the appropriation from the prior year plus 1.5 percent. These provisions help ensure 

that every State receives a part of any increase and that there is no radical shift in resources 

among the States. 

States must distribute the bulk of their grant awards to Local Educational Agencies (LEAs). 

They may retain funds for State-level activities up to an amount equal to 25 percent of the 

amount they received for fiscal year 1997 under the Preschool Grants program, adjusted 

upward each year by the lesser of the rate of increase in the State’s allocation or the rate of 

inflation. The amount that may be used for administration is limited to 20 percent of the amount 

available to a State for State-level activities. These funds may also be used for the 

administration of the Grants for Infants and Families program (Part C). State-level activities 

include: (1) support services, including establishing and implementing a mediation process, 

which may benefit children with disabilities younger than 3 or older than 5, as long as those 

services also benefit children with disabilities aged 3 through 5; (2) direct services for children 

eligible under this program; (3) activities at the State and local level to meet the goals 

established by the State for the performance of children with disabilities in the State; and 

(4) supplements to other funds used to develop and implement a statewide coordinated services 

system designed to improve results for children and families, including children with disabilities 

and their families, but not to exceed 1 percent of the amount received by the State under this 

program for a fiscal year. The State may also use its set-aside funds to provide early 

intervention services. These services must include an educational component that promotes 

school readiness and incorporates preliteracy, language, and numeracy skills. In addition, they 

must be provided in accordance with the Grants for Infants and Families program to children 

who are eligible for services under the Preschool Grants program and who previously received 

services under Part C until such children enter or are eligible to enter kindergarten and, at a 

State’s discretion, to continue service coordination or case management for families who 

receive services under Part C. 

The number of children served under this program decreased slightly from 749,166 in fiscal year 

2013 to 744,741 in fiscal year 2014; however, this count does not include data from Wyoming 

due to poor data quality. Based on historical child count data, the 2014 count would be a slight 

decrease from the previous year. The decrease in 2014 was the first since 2009. The 

variations in the total number of children served and data quality issues make it difficult to 

forecast the number of children being served in future fiscal years. In the absence of better 

information, the Department predicts that the number of children with disabilities aged 3 through 

5 will remain at the 2014 level for fiscal years 2015 and 2016.

This is a forward funded program. Funds become available for obligation on July 1 of the fiscal 

year in which they are appropriated and remain available through September 30 of the following 

year. 

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Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands)

2011 ...................................................................................$373,351

2012 .....................................................................................372,646

2013 .....................................................................................353,238

2014 .....................................................................................353,238

2015 .....................................................................................353,238

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration requests $403.2 million for the Preschool Grants program. The request 

would increase funding for this program by $50 million over the fiscal year 2015 level, and 

provide an average of $541 per child, $67 more per child than in fiscal year 2015. These 

averages are based on the assumption that the number of children aged 3 through 5 who will be 

served will remain constant at the 2014 level of 744,741. This increase will provide a much 

needed increase in resources to support activities for young children with disabilities. These 

funds are paired with those available under the Grants to States program under IDEA, Part B. 

The Administration is requesting $11.67 billion for the Grants to States program for fiscal 

year 2016, which will provide an average of $1,768 per child. Funding under Preschool Grants 

supplements the funds provided to States under the Grants to States program, which serves 

children with disabilities aged 3 through 21, including all children served under the Preschool 

Grants program. 

IDEA currently allows LEAs to reserve up to 15 percent of their Part B allocations for 

Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) for students in kindergarten through grade 12 

(with a particular emphasis on students in kindergarten through grade three) who are not 

currently identified as needing special education or related services, but who need additional 

academic and behavioral supports to succeed in a general education environment. The 

Administration is proposing appropriations language to expand access to CEIS to children ages 

3 through 5, which we believe will encourage LEAs to use CEIS funds to develop high quality, 

inclusive preschool programs. In addition to expanding access to CEIS, the Administration is 

requesting appropriations language to provide the Secretary the authority to waive the reporting 

requirements for CEIS for children ages 3 through 5 who are not in kindergarten. The 

Administration believes reducing the reporting burden will encourage LEAs to establish CEIS 

programs for this age range. Moreover, this will allow LEAs to focus on providing expanded 

services to preschool-age children while the Department works to build the capacity of States to 

report accurate early learning data in future years.

Administration’s Early Learning Agenda

The Administration believes high-quality early learning is critical to the future success of all 

children, including children with disabilities, and that improved coordination among State and 

Federal early learning programs will lead to improved services and results. The fiscal year 2016 

Budget includes several new and continuing investments that support this goal. The Budget 

provides $503.6 million, a $65 million increase for the IDEA Grants for infants and families 

program to provide services designed to lessen the needs of infants and toddlers with 

disabilities for future or more extensive services and to ensure that very young children with 

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State grants: Preschool grants

disabilities receive the supports and services they need to prepare them to enter formal 

education. The Preschool Grants to States program also supports the inclusion of young 

children with disabilities in State early learning programs and federally funded programs, such 

as Head Start and child care programs supported under the Department of Health and Human 

Services’ Child Care and Development Block Grants (CCDBG). States frequently use the IDEA 

Preschool Grants program State-level set-aside funds to ensure that children with disabilities 

are included in State early learning programs and programs operated or supported by other 

Federal programs. 

The Administration is proposing to increase support for other early learning programs in the 

School Readiness account that also serve children with disabilities, including increasing the 

Department’s Preschool Development Grants by $500 million in fiscal year 2016 compared to 

2015, for a total investment of $750 million. The Preschool Development Grants provide 

competitive grants to States to support efforts to: (1) build or enhance a preschool program 

infrastructure that would enable the delivery of high-quality preschool services to children, and 

(2) implement and sustain high-quality preschool programs in targeted high-need communities 

that would serve as models for expanding preschool to all 4-year-olds from low- and moderateincome families. This effort will lay the groundwork to ensure that more States are ready to 

participate in the Preschool for All program, a 10-year $75 billion mandatory investment that 

establishes a Federal-State partnership to provide all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds 

with high-quality preschool. 

The Budget also includes almost $10.2 billion for the Department of Health and Human 

Service's Head Start Program (an increase of $1.5 billion over the fiscal year 2015 level), 

including $650 million for Early Head Start and the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships 

that serve low-income infants and toddlers (a $150 million increase over the fiscal year

2015 level). The Budget also expands funding for evidence-based voluntary home visiting 

programs and makes an historic investment in child care assistance to ensure that all eligible 

low- and moderate-income families with children under four have access to high quality care 

that support working families and promote healthy child development.

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES

Measures 2014 2015 footnote2016 footnote

Children Served 1 744,741 2 744,741 2 744,741 2

Share per child (whole 

dollars) $474 2 $474 2 $541 2

_________________

1 States may, at their discretion, provide free appropriate public education to 2-year olds who will turn 3 during 

the school year. However, the figures for the number of children served do not include children served by the States 

who are 2 years old at the time of the count, but will turn 3 during the school year. 2 Estimate, based on State-reported cumulative total for children served in the fall of 2014. Data with 

questionable data quality were not included in this total. 

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History of Children Served and Program Funding

Fiscal Year Children Served

(thousands)

footnote

Appropriation

(dollars in thousands)

footnote

Federal

Share per Child

(whole dollars)

footnote

1977 197 $12,500 $64

1978 201 15,000 81

1979 215 17,500 81

1980 232 25,000 108

1981 237 25,000 105

1982 228 24,000 105

1983 242 25,000 103

1984 243 26,330 108

1985 260 29,000 112

1986 261 28,710 110

1987 266 180,000 677 1

1988 288 201,054 698

1989 322 247,000 767

1990 352 251,510 715

1991 367 292,766 798 2

1992 398 320,000 804

1993 441 325,773 739

1994 479 339,257 709

1995 522 360,265 689

1996 549 360,409 656

1997 562 360,409 642

1998 572 373,985 654

1999 575 373,985 651

2000 589 390,000 662

2001 599 390,000 652

2002 617 390,000 632

2003 647 387,465 599

2004 680 387,699 571

2005 702 384,597 548

2006 704 380,751 546

2007 714 380,751 533

2008 710 374,099 527

_________________

1

 The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986 changed the Preschool Grants program from a 

grant program, that provided an incentive for States to serve children with disabilities aged 3 through 5, to a formula 

grant program. Funding was increased to support the change in statutory authority. 2 Beginning in fiscal year 1991, the IDEA required that services be made available to all eligible children with 

disabilities aged 3 through 5 as a condition for receiving funding for children in this age range under the Grants to 

States program. 

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History of Children Served and Program Funding - Continued

Fiscal Year Children Served

(thousands)

footnote

Appropriation

(dollars in thousands)

Footnote

Federal

Share per Child

(whole dollars)

footnote

2009 709 $774,099 3 $1,092 3

2010 732 374,099 511

2011 738 4 373,351 508

2012 745 4 372,646 500

2013 749 4 353,238 472

2014 745 4 353,238 474

2015 745 4 353,238 474

2016 745 4 403,238 541

_________________

3

 These figures include funds provided under the Recovery Act in fiscal year 2009. 4

 Beginning in fiscal year 2011, this table reports the number of children served by the 50 States, District of 

Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Prior fiscal years also include the number of children served in the Outlying Areas, 

Freely Associated States, and the Bureau of Indian Education, which do not receive Preschool Grant awards.

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in fiscal 

year 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by 

this program. 

Goal: To help preschool children with disabilities enter school ready to succeed by 

assisting States in providing special education and related services.

Objective: Preschool children with disabilities will receive special education and related 

services that result in increased skills that enable them to succeed in school. 

Three of the performance measures for the Preschool Grants program look at the percentage 

increase in growth by preschool children with disabilities in specific areas — positive socialemotional skills (including social relationships), acquisition and use of knowledge and skills, and 

use of appropriate behaviors to meet their needs — as measured from the point of time on 

entering a program to the time the child exits the program. 

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Measure: The percentage of children who entered the program below age expectations in

positive social-emotional skills (including social relationships) who substantially increased their 

rate of growth by the time they exited the program.

Year Target Actual

2011 80% 79%

2012 81 79

2013 82 80

2014 83

2015 84

2016 84

Measure: The percentage of children who entered the program below age expectations in

acquisition and use of knowledge and skills (including early language/communication and early 

literacy) who substantially increased their rate of growth by the time they exited the program.

Year Target Actual

2011 80% 79%

2012 81 80

2013 82 80

2014 83

2015 84

2016 84

Measure: The percentage of children who entered the program below age expectations in the

use of appropriate behaviors to meet their needs who substantially increased their rate of 

growth by the time they exited the program.

Year Target Actual

2011 80% 78%

2012 81 77

2013 82 80

2014 83

2015 84

2016 84

Additional information: Through their Annual Performance Reports (APRs), States report on 

the cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral development of children with disabilities served 

through the Preschool Grants program. The Department, with the assistance of its grantee, the 

Early Childhood Outcomes Center, funded under the Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

program, uses these data to assess outcomes for children served through this program.

Measuring growth in these outcomes, especially for preschool aged children, is a complicated 

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endeavor that requires a significant investment of time and technical assistance at both the 

Federal and State levels to ensure that the data collected are valid, reliable, and meaningful.

The Department has been deliberate in developing these measures due to the challenges of 

assessing program performance based on growth in early childhood outcomes, especially for 

children with disabilities. In 2005, States began developing systems for collecting entry and exit 

data on children with disabilities who receive services through the preschool program and 

remain in the program for at least 6 months. The Department has made substantial investments 

in technical assistance to States to improve data quality concerns since 2010 when all States 

were required to report complete entry and exit data for a full cohort of children with disabilities 

aged 3 through 5 for the first time.

The quality of the data States reported in their APRs since February 2011 has demonstrated 

marked improvement, and the sample of States with the highest quality data increased from 39 

to 41 out of 59 States and jurisdictions in the 2013. To help determine an appropriate baseline 

for these three measures, a weighted data set was derived from these 41 States, excluding from 

the percentage calculation all States that had high proportions of missing data, anomalous 

outcomes, or were known to have other data quality or collection issues. The weighted data 

showed that, of this smaller sample of States, more than 80 percent of preschoolers 

substantially increased their rate of growth by the time they exited the program in each measure 

category: 80 percent in the acquisition and use of knowledge, 80 percent in positive socialemotional skills, and 80 percent in the use of appropriate behavior. These results represent a 

slight decrease from the 2013 school year and do not meet the targets set for each category; 

however, this decrease may be attributed to a larger sample and increased reporting. The 

targets for these measures were set based, in part, on the outcomes of this sample of States 

with higher quality data. As States have improved their data collection, the number of children 

served by this program for whom outcome data are reported has increased substantially each 

year. Since outcomes have generally improved as data are reported for more children and 

States are better able to target program improvement, the Department is optimistic that, within 

the next few years, the national data will demonstrate that the children served by the program 

are improving at levels similar to the children in States with the best data quality.

States are engaged in implementing quality control systems to identify and improve the 

accuracy of local data, and have indicated that they believe the data will be useful in their 

program improvement efforts. The Department acknowledges that some data quality issues still 

exist, particularly with regards to missing data. The extent of missing data is difficult to 

determine precisely because States do not report on the number of children exiting the 

program. Furthermore, States may be unable to collect exit data for all children (e.g., due to a 

move to another State, withdrawal from the program without prior notice, or death). Through its 

technical assistance investments, the Department continues to work with the States to resolve 

implementation issues, improve the validity and reliability of reported data, and use these data 

to inform program improvements.

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Measure: The percentage of children with disabilities (ages 3 through 5) attending a regular 

early childhood program and receiving the majority of hours of special education and related 

services in the regular early childhood program.

Year Target Actual

2013 Baseline 43.5%

2014 44

2015 45

2016 46

Additional information: This measure replaced a previous measure on the extent to which 

children with disabilities receive their special education services in regular education settings. 

The earlier measure required States to report the percentage of children with disabilities (aged 3 

through 5) who receive special education and related services in a regular early learning 

program at least 80 percent of the time; however, the Department revised the Preschool 

Educational Environment reporting categories to better assess the inclusive experiences of 

preschool children with disabilities. In addition, the Department received feedback that the 

previous Preschool Educational Environments reporting categories were challenging to report 

on and provided little information regarding the inclusive experiences of children with disabilities 

in regular early childhood programs. 

In the new measure, the Department simplified data collection and reduced the reporting burden 

by removing the requirement to report the proportion of time that a child spends each week in a 

regular early childhood program. The revised form only requires the IEP team including the 

parents to determine whether the child attends a regular early learning program and, if yes, if it

is less than or more than 10 hours a week. The revised data collection is designed to obtain 

information on where children receive the majority, at least 50 percent of the time, of their 

special education and related services. The first collection of preschool educational 

environment data using the new form was the 2010-11 school year, with the first data reported 

in the Annual Performance Reports in February 2013. The Department developed a baseline in 

2014. 

The Department is using technical assistance providers such as the National Technical 

Assistance Center to Improve State Data Capacity to Accurately Collect and Report IDEA Data, 

the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center, and the Center for Systemic 

Improvement to assist States in collecting the preschool educational environments data, and is 

providing additional technical assistance through mechanisms such as presentations at the 

annual State data managers’ conference and other meetings and the provision of “Frequently 

Asked Questions” documents and a data dictionary 

(http://www.ideadata.org/docs/bdatadictionary.pdf).

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Measure: The number of States with at least 90 percent of special education teachers of 

children with disabilities aged 3 to 5 who are fully certified in the areas in which they are 

teaching.

Year Target Actual

2011 41 45

2012 41 44

2013 42 43

2014 45

2015 46

2016 47

Additional information: The Department exceeded its target for fiscal years 2010 through 

2012, with 2013 being the most recent year for which data are available. From 2007 to 2011, 

performance on this measure increased from 34 States to 45 States that met the 90 percent 

requirement ensuring their special education teachers are fully certified in the areas in which 

they are teaching. This measure includes the 50 States, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Outlying Areas 

and the Bureau of Indian Education. 

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has made a number of investments 

designed to assist States in preparing a sufficient number of qualified preschool special 

education personnel. In 2012, the Department established an Early Childhood Personnel 

Center to improve professional development for personnel working with children with disabilities 

birth through age 5 and their families. This Center helps to address State-identified needs for 

highly qualified personnel in special education, related services, early intervention, and regular 

education to work with infants, toddlers, and children with disabilities and ensure that those 

personnel have the necessary skills and knowledge, derived from practices that have been 

determined through scientifically based research and experience, to be successful in serving 

those children.

The Department also created the National IDEA Technical Assistance Center on Early 

Childhood Longitudinal Data Systems in 2012. This center provides technical assistance on 

developing and expanding statewide, longitudinal data systems that incorporate data required 

under Sections 616 and 618 of IDEA. The center works intensively with 10-12 States in four 

main areas of data collection: defining data elements, acquiring data, validating data, and using 

data to examine validity and program improvement. The center also coordinates with other 

Department initiatives related to data systems and early learning, including Race To the Top –

Early Learning Challenge Fund and the Statewide Longitudinal Data System grant program.

Efficiency Measure

The Department previously collected data through its program monitoring files to determine the 

average number of workdays between the completion of a site visit and the Office of Special 

Education Program's (OSEP) response to the State. In 2010, the last year the Department 

collected this data, the Department reduced the number of days to issue responses to 66 days, 

far exceeding its target of 79 days, by revising its reporting format to remove extraneous 

descriptions and text that is not relevant to the findings. 

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The Department is currently in the process of modifying its accountability system, including the 

onsite visit component, in order to increase efficiency and balance our focus on improved 

results for infants and toddlers with disabilities and compliance with the requirements of the 

IDEA. In the meantime, OSEP continues to meet its statutory monitoring responsibilities 

through the State Performance Plan (SPP)/APR process, fiscal monitoring, and its work with 

State dispute resolution systems. The Department is actively developing new efficiency 

measures aligned to the modified accountability system. The Department does not expect data 

on these new measures to be available until fall 2015 at the earliest.

Other Performance Information

Pre-Elementary Longitudinal Study (PEELS): The PEELS study involved a nationally 

representative sample of children, 3 to 5 years of age when they entered the study, with diverse 

disabilities who are receiving preschool special education services in a variety of settings. The 

study answered questions such as: 

• What are the characteristics of children receiving preschool special education? 

• What services do they receive and in what settings? Who provides these services?

• What child, family, community, and system factors are associated with the services

children receive and the results they attain? 

• What are their transitions like between early intervention (programs for children from 

birth to 3 years old) and preschool, and between preschool and elementary school? 

• To what extent do the children participate in activities with other children their age who 

are not receiving preschool special education services? To what extent are preschool 

special education graduates included in general elementary education classes and 

related activities? 

• What short- and long-term results do children achieve in preschool, kindergarten, and 

early elementary school? 

Results from the PEELs Study

In October 2010, the National Center for Special Education Research released the report, 

“Access to Educational and Community Activities for Young Children with Disabilities.” As 

reported in parent interviews, participation in community activities such as sports, organized 

clubs, art, and music varied significantly by type of disability and by household income. 

Children from households with annual incomes greater than $40,000 participated in sports with 

greater frequency than children from households with lower incomes. Children of parents who 

perceived their neighborhood to be unsafe or who reported that their transportation did not meet 

their families’ needs were significantly less likely to participate in extracurricular activities. 

Parents also reported on educational settings, and 69 percent said they sent their children to full 

day kindergarten. Children from high wealth districts and those from suburban settings were 

less likely to attend full-day kindergarten than their peers.

In a survey of kindergarten teachers, 73 percent of teachers reported that the regular education 

classroom was the main setting for children receiving special education services. This inclusion 

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rate was significantly higher in very large districts (91 percent) than districts of other sizes, and 

significantly higher in rural districts (86 percent) than in suburban or urban districts. Children in 

very low wealth districts were less likely to have regular classrooms as their main setting 

(59 percent) compared to all other districts. On average, children spent 17.1 hours per week in 

regular classrooms and 7.1 hours in special education settings. 

Teachers also reported on modifications and accommodations provided to children with 

disabilities. Overall, teachers reported using unmodified grade-level materials in 44 percent of 

cases, while 14 percent of children received specialized materials or curricula. There was no 

significant variation in these data across district size or wealth. The study also found that 

children who received special education services in a regular classroom were in classrooms in 

which, on average, 82 percent of students were nondisabled (http://www.peels.org).

In August 2011, the latest report from this study was released, “A Longitudinal View of the 

Receptive Vocabulary and Math Achievement of Young Children with Disabilities.” This report 

was designed to address two PEELS specific research questions: 

• How do children who received preschool special education services perform over time 

on assessments of receptive vocabulary and math skills?

• How does their receptive vocabulary and math performance vary over time by primary 

disability category?

Children who received preschool special education services showed growth each year in 

vocabulary and mathematics; however, growth slowed in both math and vocabulary as they got 

older. Children’s performance varied across assessments and across subgroups defined by 

disability. At age 3, children with a speech or language impairment had higher average scores 

than those with developmental delays. At age 10, the gap between these subgroups persisted, 

and there were no statistically significant differences in growth rates between subgroups. 

Other Studies: The Department also is investing in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study 

program through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This program involves 

two complementary cohort studies, a Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) and a Kindergarten Cohort 

(ECLS-K), that focus on children's early school experiences. The ECLS-K has followed the 

kindergarten class of 1998-99 through eighth grade. The ECLS-K provides descriptive 

information on children's status at entry to school and their transition into school, and their 

progression through middle school. The ECLS-B is designed to follow children from 9 months 

through kindergarten. It focuses on health, development, early care, and education during the 

formative years of children born in 2001. These studies also are providing some data on 

outcomes experienced by children with disabilities participating in preschool programs and 

baseline data on outcomes experienced by nondisabled children. 

OSEP, and subsequently the National Center on Special Education Research, have sponsored 

a special education questionnaire for teachers in the ECLS-K Study and the collection of more 

extensive data on children with disabilities and their programs, including the identification of, 

receipt of services for, and use of special equipment for a number of disabling conditions that 

may interfere with a sampled child’s ability to learn. The children in the ECLS-K cohort were 5 

years of age in school year 2006-07, when the first kindergarten data collection was conducted. 

During this collection, the majority of the children in the cohort were age-eligible for 

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kindergarten, although all sample children were evaluated, regardless of kindergarten 

enrollment status. Since about a quarter of the cohort were not age-eligible for kindergarten 

until fall 2007, a second kindergarten data collection was fielded in 2007 to measure the 

kindergarten experiences of these children. The ECLS-K followed children through the cohort’s 

eighth grade year in school year 2008-09. The final data for the 8th and final year of data 

collection was released in July 2009. A new study, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, 

Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011) replaces the ECLS-K and will be an ongoing 

study sponsored by NCES. The ECLS-K: 2011 will provide descriptive information on children's 

status at entry to school, their transition into school, and their progression through the 

elementary grades.

Data from ECLS-K on demographic and school characteristics indicate that for the cohort of 

students beginning kindergarten in 1998, specific learning disabilities and speech or language 

impairments were the most prevalent primary disabilities over the grades studied. The 

percentage of the student cohort receiving special education grew from 4.1 percent in 

kindergarten to 11.9 percent of students in fifth grade. The results also indicate that higher 

percentages of boys than girls and of poor students than nonpoor students received special 

education. About 12 percent of students receive special education in at least one of the grades: 

kindergarten, first, and third grade, including 16 percent of boys, 8 percent of girls, 18 percent of 

poor children, and 10 percent of nonpoor children. One in three students who receive special 

education in early grades, first receive special education in kindergarten. Half of those who 

begin special education in kindergarten are no longer receiving special education by third grade. 

In addition to students’ gender and poverty status, results are presented separately for other 

student and school characteristics, including race/ethnicity and school control, urbanicity, 

region, and poverty concentration.

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Grant s for infants and f amilies

State grants: Grants for infants and families

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C)

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 0 1

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$438,556 $503,556 +$65,000 _________________

1

 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding is proposed for this program in FY 2016 

through appropriations language.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Grants for Infants and Families program (Part C) awards formula grants to the 50 States, 

District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Department of the Interior, and Outlying Areas to assist 

them in implementing statewide systems of coordinated, comprehensive, multidisciplinary, 

interagency programs and making early intervention services available to children with 

disabilities, aged birth through 2, and their families. Under the program, States are responsible 

for ensuring that appropriate early intervention services are made available to all eligible birththrough-2-year-olds with disabilities and their families, including Indian children and families who 

reside on reservations geographically located in the State. Infants and toddlers with disabilities 

are defined as children who: (1) are experiencing developmental delays, as measured by 

appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following five areas: 

cognitive development, physical development, communication development, social or emotional 

development, or adaptive development; or (2) have a diagnosed physical or mental condition 

that has a high probability of resulting in developmental delay. Within statutory limits, 

"developmental delay" has the meaning given the term by each State. In addition, States have 

the discretion to provide services to infants and toddlers who are at risk of having substantial 

developmental delays if they do not receive appropriate early intervention services. 

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) gives States the discretion to extend 

eligibility for Part C services to children with disabilities who are eligible for services under 

section 619 and who previously received services under Part C, until such children enter or are 

eligible under State law to enter kindergarten or elementary school, as appropriate. The Act 

further stipulates that any Part C programs serving children aged 3 or older must provide an 

educational component that promotes school readiness and incorporates pre-literacy, language, 

and numeracy skills and provide a written notification to parents of their rights regarding the 

continuation of services under Part C and eligibility for services under section 619. In fiscal year 

2009, two States (New Mexico and Maryland) elected to make Part C services available to 

children with disabilities beyond their third birthday and continued to do so in 2010, 2011, and 

2012. New Mexico stopped exercising this flexibility beginning in 2013. No other States have 

elected to implement this option since fiscal year 2009.

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State grants: Grants for infants and families

In any fiscal year in which the appropriation for Part C exceeds $460 million, the statute also 

includes authority for the Department to reserve 15 percent of the amount above $460 million 

for a State Incentive Grants program. The purpose of this program is to provide funding to 

assist States that have elected to extend eligibility for Part C services to children with disabilities 

aged 3 years until entrance into kindergarten or elementary school, or for a portion of this 

period. No State can receive more than 20 percent of the amount available for State Incentive 

Grants in a fiscal year. In fiscal year 2009, due to the addition of funds from the American 

Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the total of funds appropriated for Part C exceeded the $460 

million level. The States that opted to extend their provision of Part C services beyond age 3 

received additional funds through this program, and had until September 30, 2011, to expend 

these funds. The appropriation for fiscal years 2010 through 2015 did not exceed $460 million, 

so the Department did not have authority to award State Incentive Grants in any of these fiscal 

years. 

The statewide system also must comply with additional statutory requirements, including having 

a lead agency designated with the responsibility for the coordination and administration of funds 

and a State Interagency Coordinating Council to advise and assist the lead agency. One of the 

purposes of the Part C program is to assist States to coordinate payment for early intervention 

services from Federal, State, local, and private sources, including public and private insurance 

coverage. These include Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), 

Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income, and Early Head Start.

Funds allocated under this program can be used to: (1) maintain and implement the statewide 

system described above; (2) fund direct early intervention services for infants and toddlers with 

disabilities and their families that are not otherwise provided by other public or private sources; 

(3) expand and improve services that are otherwise available; (4) provide a free appropriate 

public education, in accordance with Part B of the IDEA, to children with disabilities from their 

third birthday to the beginning of the following school year; (5) continue to provide early 

intervention services to children with disabilities from their third birthday until such children enter 

or are eligible to enter kindergarten or elementary school; and (6) initiate, expand, or improve 

collaborative efforts related to identifying, evaluating, referring, and following up on at-risk 

infants and toddlers in States that do not provide direct services for these children. 

The IDEA requires that early intervention services be provided, to the maximum extent 

appropriate, in natural environments. These services can be provided in another setting only 

when early intervention cannot be achieved satisfactorily for the infant or toddler in a natural 

environment. The natural environment includes the home and community settings where 

children would be participating if they did not have a disability. Each child’s individualized family 

service plan (IFSP) must contain a statement of the natural environments in which early 

intervention services will be provided, including a justification of the extent, if any, to which the 

services will not be provided in a natural environment.

Allocations are based on the number of children in the general population aged birth through 

2 years in each State. The Department of Education uses data provided by the United States 

Census Bureau in making this calculation. No State can receive less than 0.5 percent of the 

funds available to all States, or $500,000, whichever is greater. The Outlying Areas may 

receive not more than 1 percent of the funds appropriated. The Department of the Interior, 

Bureau of Indian Education, receives 1.25 percent of the aggregate of the amount available to 

all States. Interior must pass through all the funds it receives to Indian tribes, tribal 

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organizations, or consortia for the coordination of early intervention services on reservations 

with Interior schools. Tribes and tribal organizations can use the funds they receive to provide 

(1) help to States in identifying Indian infants and toddlers with disabilities, (2) parent training, 

and (3) early intervention services. 

This is a forward funded program. Funds become available for obligation on July 1 of the fiscal 

year in which they are appropriated and remain available through September 30 of the following 

year. 

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were as follows:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands) footnot

e

2011................................................................................. $438,548

2012................................................................................... 442,710

2013................................................................................... 419,653

2014................................................................................... 438,498

2015................................................................................... 438,556

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration requests $503.6 million for the Part C program for fiscal year 2016, an 

increase of $65.0 million over the fiscal year 2015 level. The requested amount would provide 

support to increase access to high-quality early childhood programs for children with disabilities. 

These funds would support early intervention programs that provide services designed to lessen 

the needs of infants and toddlers with disabilities for future or more extensive services and to 

ensure that very young children with disabilities receive the supports and services they need to 

prepare them to enter formal education. 

At the requested level, the average State award would increase by approximately $945,000 

over the fiscal year 2015 amount. These additional funds would help States enhance their 

systems for identifying infants and toddlers with disabilities and determining appropriate 

services, and facilitate better coordination with other programs serving young children. 

In addition, because the requested level is above the statutory $460.0 million trigger, the 

Department would be able to make State Incentive Grants to States under section 643(e) of the 

IDEA to promote and facilitate the implementation of policies allowing parents of children with 

disabilities to choose the continuation of early intervention services for their children until they 

are eligible to enter elementary school. The Administration believes that these incentive grants, 

ranging in size based on the number of children in the State (up to a maximum of $1.3 million), 

will encourage a number of additional States to begin to offer this flexibility to parents and 

families.

Pay for Success Early Intervention Pilots

Investment in the early stages of a child’s life and education can pay enormous dividends in the 

future. These dividends accrue not only to the child served, but also to the school districts that 

will later serve these children and to the public, because early intervention reduces the need for 

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costlier supports later on.1 Interventions to reach infants and toddlers at risk of not attaining key 

developmental milestones may be especially powerful.2

 For example, early detection and 

intervention for children with autism has shown promise in reducing the subsequent need for 

more intensive services.3

The Administration strongly supports increased investment in early childhood through traditional 

funding mechanisms. But, in view of ongoing budget constraints in States, the Administration 

also supports testing alternative approaches which draw on non-government sources to support 

expanded provision of services. To this end, the Administration is proposing a $15 million setaside within the Part C program in fiscal year 2016 to support local or regionally focused Pay for 

Success pilots that will expand the availability of early screening and intervention services for 

children with developmental delays.

Pay for Success programs allow private or philanthropic investors to provide the operating funds 

necessary to administer and expand promising social programs in exchange for performancebased payments tied to achieving specific outcomes. If a program fails to reach specified 

performance objectives, the Government does not make a payment and the investor gets 

nothing. The Pay for Success model permits the Government to fund only those programs that 

meet or exceed expectations. 

State and local governments have begun to test out Pay for Success approaches in the early 

childhood arena. The City of Chicago, for example, recently utilized a Pay for Success 

arrangement to expand its Child-Parent Center, a prekindergarten education and family 

engagement program. Likewise, in 2013, the United Way of Salt Lake, local school districts, 

Salt Lake County, and other private and nonprofit groups used a Pay for Success model to grow 

its Utah High Quality Preschool Program. The successes and challenges in these locations will 

provide lessons on which new investments can build.

The Pay for Success pilots in Part C would make performance-based payments to consortia of 

government agencies, non-profit organizations, or other entities that successfully develop and 

implement programs that increase early screening and early intervention services for infants 

1 See, for example: Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Savelyev, P. A., Yavitz, A. (2010). A New cost-benefit 

and rate of return analysis for the Perry Preschool Program: A Summary. National Bureau of Economic Research 

Working Paper 16180. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w16180. 

Reynolds, A. J., Temple, J. A., White, B. A. B., Ou, S., & Robertson, D. L. (2011). Age 26 cost-benefit analysis of 

the Child-Parent Center early education program. Child Development, 82(1), 379 404. 

Schweinhart, L. J., Montie, J., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W. S., Belfield, C. R., & Nores, M. (2005). Lifetime effects: The 

High/Scope Perry Preschool study through age 40. Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research 

Foundation, 14. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. 

http://www.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=219

2 See, for example: Heckman, J. J. and D. V. Masterov (2007). The productivity argument for investing in

young children. Review of Agricultural Economics 29 (3), 446–493.

Deming, D. (2009). Early childhood intervention and life-cycle skill development: Evidence from Head Start. 

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(3), 111-134.

3 See, for example: Baranek, J.T., Watson, L.R., Turner-Brown, L., Field, S.H., Crais, L.R., Wakeford, L., Little, 

L.M., & Reznick, J.S. (2014). Preliminary efficacy of Adapted Responsive Teaching for infants at risk of autism 

spectrum disorder in a community sample. Autism Research and Treatment, 2015.

Dawson, G., Rogers, S., Munson, J., Smith, M., Winter, J., Greenson, J., Donaldson, A., & Varley, J. (2010). 

Randomized, controlled trial of an intervention for toddlers with autism: the Early Start Denver Model. Pediatrics, 

125(1), e17-e23. 

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and toddlers with disabilities, and early screening, evaluation, early intervention, and other 

services to at-risk infants and toddlers who would not otherwise qualify for Part C services in 

their State. Consortia would submit funding applications to the Department identifying key 

partners in the region, a plan for expanding the availability of early screening opportunities and 

expanding service provision, and proposed performance targets. 

In the most typical Pay for Success model, the Department would contract with a given entity 

who would act as an intermediary between the Department, private investors, service providers, 

and third-party evaluators. The intermediary would then raise capital from private investors and 

contract with the service providers, who would provide the interventions, and arrange for an 

independent evaluation of the program. Consortia who submit applications under this program 

may serve as intermediaries, or may consist of entities who serve as both intermediaries and 

service providers. 

While the Department would look to applicants for the establishment of performance targets and 

payment schedules, appropriate targets must incentivize improvement in child outcomes without 

discouraging the provision of appropriate services where needed. During the 5-year project 

period, grantees would provide screenings and early intervention services to infants and 

toddlers within the region and collect outcomes data demonstrating the efficacy of their pilot and 

the degree to which they have met the performance benchmarks. 

The Administration expects the Pay for Success pilots to generate high-quality, robust screening 

and intervention programs that will have lasting positive effects on at-risk, underserved children.

Administration’s Early Learning Agenda

The Administration believes high-quality early learning is critical to the future success of all 

children, including children with disabilities, and that improved coordination among State and 

Federal early learning programs will lead to improved services and results. The fiscal year 2016 

Budget includes several new and continuing investments that support this goal. The Budget 

provides $403 million, a $50 million increase for the IDEA Preschool Grants program to provide 

services needed to prepare young children with disabilities to enter school ready to learn. This 

program also supports the inclusion of young children with disabilities in State early learning 

programs and federally funded programs, such as Head Start and child care programs 

supported under the Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Care and Development 

Block Grants (CCDBG). States frequently use the IDEA Preschool Grants program State-level 

set-aside funds to ensure that children with disabilities are included in State early learning 

programs and programs operated or supported by other Federal programs. 

The Administration is proposing to increase support for other early learning programs in the 

School Readiness account that also serve children with disabilities, including increasing the 

Department’s Preschool Development Grants by $500 million in fiscal year 2016 compared to 

2015, for a total investment of $750 million. The Preschool Development Grants provide 

competitive grants to States to support efforts to: (1) build or enhance a preschool program 

infrastructure that would enable the delivery of high-quality preschool services to children, and 

(2) implement and sustain high-quality preschool programs in targeted high-need communities 

that would serve as models for expanding preschool to all 4-year-olds from low- and moderateincome families. This effort will lay the groundwork to ensure that more States are ready to 

participate in the Preschool for All program, a 10-year $75 billion mandatory investment that 

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establishes a Federal-State partnership to provide all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds 

with high-quality preschool. 

The Budget also includes almost $10.2 billion for the Department of Health and Human 

Service's Head Start Program (an increase of $1.5 billion over the fiscal year 2015 level), 

including $650 million for Early Head Start and the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships 

that serve low-income infants and toddlers (a $150 million increase over the fiscal year

2015 level). The Budget also expands funding for evidence-based voluntary home visiting 

programs and makes an historic investment in child care assistance to ensure that all eligible 

low- and moderate-income families with children under four have access to high quality care 

that support working families and promote healthy child development.

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands) 

Measures 2014 2015 2016

Range in size of awards to States:

Smallest State regular Part C award 1 2 $2,149 $2,149 $2,463

Average State regular Part C award 1 $8,265 $8,265 $9,210

Largest State regular Part C award 1 $53,044 $52,545 $58,266

Children served 3 340,000 340,000 340,000

________________________

1 The calculations exclude funds for the Outlying Areas or the Department of the Interior. 2 IDEA, section 643(c)(2) provides for a minimum allocation to States of the greater of $500,000 or 1⁄2 of 

1 percent of the amount available to States after the reservations for the Outlying Areas and the Bureau of Indian 

Education are excluded. 3 Estimates.

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in fiscal 

year 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by 

this program.

Goal: To enhance the development of infants and toddlers (birth to three) with 

disabilities and support families in meeting the special needs of their child.

Objective: The functional development of infants and toddlers will be enhanced by early 

intervention services.

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Measure: The percentage of infants and toddlers who entered the program below age 

expectations in positive social-emotional skills (including social relationships) who substantially 

increased their rate of growth by the time they exited the program.

Year Target Actual

2011 65% 68%

2012 67 66

2013 69 66

2014 69

2015 70

2016 70

Measure: The percentage of infants and toddlers who entered the program below age 

expectations in acquisition and use of knowledge and skills (including early 

language/communication and early literacy) who substantially increased their rate of growth by 

the time they exited the program.

Year Target Actual

2011 69% 73%

2012 71 72

2013 73 71

2014 73

2015 75

2016 76

Measure: The percentage of infants and toddlers who entered the program below age 

expectations in the use of appropriate behaviors to meet their needs who substantially 

increased their rate of growth by the time they exited the program.

Year Target Actual

2011 69% 73%

2012 71 73

2013 73 71

2014 73

2015 75

2016 77

Additional information: Through their Annual Performance Reports (APRs), States report on 

the cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral development of children with disabilities served 

through the Part C program. The Department, with the assistance of its grantee, the Early 

Childhood Outcomes Center, uses these data to assess outcomes for children served through 

this program. Measuring growth in these outcomes, especially for infants and toddlers, is a 

complicated endeavor that requires a significant investment of time and technical assistance at 

both the Federal and State levels to ensure that the data collected are valid, reliable, and 

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meaningful. The Department has been deliberate in developing this measure due to the 

challenges of assessing program performance based on growth in early childhood outcomes, 

especially for children with disabilities. In 2005, States began developing systems for collecting 

entry and exit data on children with disabilities who receive services through the Part C program 

and remain in the program for at least 6 months. While three States have received approval 

from the Department to collect data for a representative sample of the children they serve 

through the Part C program, all other States are responsible for reporting data on all children 

served. The APRs submitted by States in February 2010 included the first opportunity for 

States to have a set of complete entry and exit data for a full cohort of infants and toddlers, but 

the Department did not publish these data because a large number of States had high 

percentages of missing data or other data quality concerns. 

However, the quality of the data States reported in their APRs in February of 2011, 2012, and 

2013 (providing data on program years 2010, 2011, and 2012, respectively) demonstrated 

marked improvement. In the APRs submitted in 2010, only 19 States provided high quality 

data, meaning that they did not have high proportions of missing data, anomalous outcomes, 

nor were known to have other data quality or collection issues. In the APRs submitted in 2011, 

29 States provided high quality data, increasing to 39 in 2012. Despite a decrease to 33 in 

2013, 41 States provided high quality data in APRs submitted in 2014 (for program year 2013). 

The Department believes that the reduction in the number of States submitting high quality data 

in 2013 was largely the result of shifts in data collection approaches at the State level and that 

these new approaches, in conjunction with broader State efforts to address data quality issues, 

will result in better information moving forward. 

States have indicated that they believe data on these measures will be useful in their program 

improvement efforts. States are engaged in implementing quality control systems to identify 

and improve the accuracy of local data. The Department acknowledges that some data quality 

issues persist, particularly concerning missing data. In some instances, States may be unable 

to collect exit data for all children (e.g., due to a move to another State, withdrawal from the 

program without prior notice, or death). Through its technical assistance investments, the 

Department continues to work with the States to resolve implementation issues, improve the 

validity and reliability of reported data, and use these data to inform program improvements.

At this time, it is difficult to determine trends with such a small number of data points and 

changes in the quality of data being submitted by States. As data quality continues to improve, 

results reported on this measure will converge with actual performance in the field. However, at 

this time, it is not possible to accurately determine whether actual performance is above, below, 

or equal to the results presented above. Data for fiscal year 2014 are expected to be available 

in fall 2015.

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Objective: All infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families will receive early 

intervention services in natural environments that meet their individual needs.

Measure: The number of States that serve at least 1 percent of infants in the general 

population under age 1 through Part C.

Year Target Actual

2011 27 26 

2012 27 28

2013 27 30

2014 28

2015 30

2016 32

Additional information: For a number of years, only 24 or 25 States have served at least 

1 percent of infants in the general population under the age of 1. The program made progress 

in 2012 and 2013, exceeding its targets. The 1 percent threshold for this measure is based on 

data collected by the U.S. Census bureau on prevalence rates for 5 conditions: 0.4 percent -

severe mental retardation1

; 0.2 percent - hearing impairment; 0.1 percent - visual impairment; 

0.2 percent - physical conditions (spina bifida, cerebral palsy, etc.); and 0.1 percent - autism. 

State lead agencies responsible for the implementation of these programs report data annually 

to the Department through their APRs on numbers of infants and toddlers with disabilities 

served under the Grants for Infants and Families program. Through its monitoring and technical 

assistance efforts, the Department is working with States to ensure that they are appropriately 

identifying and serving all eligible infants with disabilities and expects the number of States 

serving at least 1 percent of infants in the general population under age 1 to increase further as 

a result. Data for fiscal year 2014 are expected to be available in fall 2015.

Measure: The number of States that serve at least 2 percent of infants and toddlers in the 

general population, birth through age 2, through Part C.

Year Target Actual

2011 32 42

2012 32 44

2013 42 41

2014 45

2015 45

2016 46

Additional information: The State lead agencies responsible for the implementation of these 

programs report data on the numbers of infants and toddlers with disabilities served under the 

Grants for Infants and Families program annually to the Department through their APRs. The 

Department sets the 2-percent threshold for this measure using data from the U.S. Census 

1 Consistent with P.L. 111-256, the Department uses the term “intellectual disabilities” instead of “mental 

retardation,” but we have retained the term here to permit verification of the data that were used to set the threshold.

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bureau on the percentage of infants and toddlers with disabilities in the general population. 

Through its monitoring and technical assistance efforts, the Department helps States enhance 

their child find systems to ensure that they are appropriately identifying and serving eligible 

toddlers with disabilities. The Department believes that these efforts are partially responsible for 

the improved performance of States under this measure over the past 4 years. Data for fiscal 

year 2014 are expected to be available in fall 2015.

Measure: The percentage of children receiving age-appropriate early intervention services in 

the home or in programs designed for typically developing peers. 

Year Target Actual

2011 93% 95%

2012 93 95

2013 94 95

2014 95

2015 95

2016 95

Additional information: State lead agencies report annually to the Department on the settings 

in which children receive services provided under the Part C program. In 2001, States reported 

that only 76 percent of children receiving early intervention services through the Part C program 

were served in the home or in programs designed for typically developing peers, so 

performance on this indicator has improved dramatically in the past 11 years (by 19 percentage 

points). To assist States to continue to improve their performance in this area, the Department 

provides technical assistance and disseminates information on effective home visits and other 

practices related to providing services in natural settings. Previously, the Administration 

reported that 94 percent of children received age-appropriate early intervention services in the 

home or in programs designed for typically developing peers in 2011. However, the 

Department’s recalculated data for this measure so that 95 percent of children received such 

services in such settings.

Efficiency Measures

The Department previously collected data through its program monitoring files to determine the 

average number of workdays between the completion of a site visit and the Office of Special 

Education Program's (OSEP) response to the State. In 2010, the last year the Department 

collected this data, the Department reduced the number of days to issue responses to 66 days, 

far exceeding its target of 79 days, by revising its reporting format to remove extraneous 

descriptions and text that is not relevant to the findings. 

The Department is currently in the process of modifying its accountability system, including the 

onsite visit component, in order to increase efficiency and balance our focus on improved 

results for infants and toddlers with disabilities and compliance with the requirements of the 

IDEA. In the meantime, OSEP continues to meet its statutory monitoring responsibilities 

through the State Performance Plan (SPP)/APR process, fiscal monitoring, and its work with 

State dispute resolution systems. The Department is actively developing new efficiency 

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measures aligned to the modified accountability system. However, we do not expect data on 

these measures to be available until fall 2015 at the earliest.

Other Performance Information

Through the “Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort” (ECLS-B), the National Center 

for Education Statistics (NCES) collected longitudinal data on a nationally representative sample 

of 14,000 children from their birth in 2001 through their entry into kindergarten. Approximately 

75 percent of the sample entered kindergarten in fall 2006, with the remaining 25 percent 

entering in the following year. The ECLS-B study provides data on the early development of 

these children, their preparation for school, and key transitions experienced by these children 

during the early childhood years. The study includes detailed data on the physical, cognitive, 

social, and emotional development of these children. 

Analyses of the data collected through this study have provided important demographic 

information on infants and toddlers with disabilities. For example, the ECLS-B data collection 

over-sampled moderately low and very low birth weight children because low birth weight was 

believed to be associated with developmental issues, including a variety of disabilities. This 

relationship was confirmed by the study. The Department anticipates that further analyses 

associated with the study may provide additional information about children’s health and 

development that is relevant to children with disabilities. More information on this study is 

available on the NCES Web site at: http://nces.ed.gov/ECLS/birth.asp.

In July 2011, IES published the final report for the “IDEA National Assessment Implementation 

Study.” The report from the congressionally mandated study provides a national picture of State 

agency implementation of early intervention programs for infants and toddlers under Part C of 

IDEA, and both State and school district implementation of special education programs for 

preschool- and school-age children under Part B of IDEA. 

The study was based on surveys of State agency directors and a nationally representative 

sample of district special education directors conducted in 2009. The key findings relating to the 

Part C program include:

• Referral and identification—The most common outreach activity reported by States was the 

development and/or dissemination of written materials for pediatricians and other health 

care providers, followed by Web-based dissemination and outreach to child care providers. 

States reported family members and primary healthcare providers as the most frequent 

sources of referral to the Part C program. 

• Coordination and transition between IDEA programs—At the time the surveys were 

conducted, States reported supporting the transition of young children with disabilities from 

the Part C program to preschool services under section 619 of Part B, but no States 

reported expanding Part C services to serve eligible children with disabilities until they enter 

kindergarten. Forty-six States reported having different coordinators for the Part C and 

Preschool programs, but 67 percent of Part C coordinators reported meeting at least 

monthly with the coordinator for the Preschool program.

• Financing—For the 37 States that provided this information, the average percentage of early 

intervention services funding that came from the Part C program in fiscal year 2009 was 

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21 percent. Twenty-three States indicated that State early intervention services funding 

represented the largest source of funding for early intervention services for infants and 

toddlers with disabilities. The largest sources of funding in other States were: Part C 

(8 States), Medicaid/Title XIX (8 States), local municipality or county funds (4 States), and 

Part B (1 State).

The final report for the “IDEA National Assessment Implementation Study” is available on the 

IES Web site at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20114026/index.asp.

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State person nel d evelop ment

National activities: State personnel development

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part D, Subpart 1) 

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 0 1

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$41,630 $41,630 0

_________________

1 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding is proposed for this program in FY 2016 

through appropriations language.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The State Personnel Development (SPD) program provides grants to assist State educational 

agencies (SEAs) in reforming and improving their systems for personnel preparation and 

professional development of individuals providing early intervention, educational, and transition 

services to improve results for children with disabilities. 

The SPD program focuses on professional development needs. Each State must spend at least 

90 percent of its funds on professional development activities, including the recruitment and 

retention of highly qualified special education teachers. No more than 10 percent of the State’s 

funds can be spent on State activities, such as reforming special education and regular 

education teacher certification (including recertification) or licensing requirements and carrying 

out programs that establish, expand, or improve alternative routes for State certification of 

special education teachers. 

Awards are based on State personnel development plans that identify and address State and 

local needs for the preparation and professional development of personnel who serve infants, 

toddlers, preschoolers, or children with disabilities, as well as individuals who provide direct 

supplementary aids and services to children with disabilities. Plans must be designed to enable 

the State to meet the personnel requirements in Parts B and C (section 612(a)(14) and section 

635(a)(8) and (9)) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These plans must 

also be integrated and aligned, to the maximum extent possible, with State plans and activities 

under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), the Rehabilitation Act of 

1973, and the Higher Education Act of 1965.

Grants are made on a competitive basis for any fiscal year in which the amount appropriated is 

less than $100 million. However, if the amount appropriated is $100 million or greater, funds 

would be distributed as formula grants, with allotments based on the relative portion of the funds 

the State received under Part B of IDEA. Competitive awards are made for periods of 1 to 5 

years with minimum awards to States of not less than $500,000 and not less than $80,000 for 

Outlying Areas. The maximum award that can be made to States is $4 million per fiscal year. 

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The factors used to determine the ultimate amount of each competitive award are: the amount 

of funds available; the relative population of the State or Outlying Area; and the types of 

activities proposed, alignment of proposed activities with the State’s personnel standards, 

alignment of proposed activities with the State’s plan and application under sections 1111 and 

2112 of the ESEA, and the use, as appropriate, of scientifically based research. 

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Year (dollars in thousands)

2011..................................................................................... $46,846

2012....................................................................................... 43,917

2013....................................................................................... 41,630

2014....................................................................................... 41,630

2015....................................................................................... 41,630

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration requests $41.63 million for the State Personnel Development grants 

program to assist State educational agencies to improve results for children with disabilities 

through the delivery of high quality instruction and the recruitment and retention of effective and 

highly qualified personnel. The request, which is level with the fiscal year 2015 appropriation, 

would support 32 continuation awards, 7 new awards, and performance evaluation activities. 

As in fiscal year 2015, the Administration is requesting appropriations language in the 2016

Budget that would provide the Secretary the authority to use SPD funds under section 655 of 

IDEA to carry out performance evaluation activities. SPD is the only program within Part D of 

IDEA that does not have the authority to use funds to evaluate program performance. 

Personnel shortages and inadequately trained teachers in special education are among the 

most pressing and chronic problems facing the field. SPD projects assist in addressing critical 

State and local needs for personnel preparation and professional development identified in the 

State’s Personnel Development Plan. Projects provide personnel with the knowledge and skills 

to meet the needs of, and improve the performance and achievement of infants, toddlers, 

preschoolers, and children with disabilities, and to meet the State’s performance goals 

established in accordance with section 612(a)(15) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education 

Act (IDEA). Support for special education personnel preparation activities is also provided 

through the Personnel Preparation program, under which the Department makes competitive 

awards, primarily to institutions of higher education, to help States meet their responsibility to 

train and employ adequate numbers of fully certified personnel to serve children with disabilities. 

Activities funded through this program are intended to support a statewide strategy to prepare, 

recruit, and retain teachers who are highly qualified under IDEA and the Elementary and 

Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), who are prepared to deliver scientific research-based 

or evidence-based instruction, and who are effective in improving outcomes for children with 

disabilities. States must develop SPD activities in a collaborative fashion and seek the input of 

teachers, principals, parents, administrators, paraprofessionals, and other school personnel. 

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Funding Priorities

To improve the outcomes of children with disabilities, the Department plans to focus the 

program’s available resources in fiscal year 2016 to support projects that: 1) provide evidencebased professional development activities that increase implementation of effective practices;

and 2) provide on-going assistance to personnel who have received SPD-supported 

professional development, including assisting local educational agenceis (LEAs) to build upon 

systems that support implementation of effective practices. Such activities would ensure that 

personnel receive the necessary support to use the acquired knowledge and skills to implement 

practices with fidelity. New projects funded in fiscal year 2016 will be required to use 

technology to provide more efficient and effective ongoing professional development, including 

to personnel in rural areas and to other populations that are less likely to receive comprehensive 

professional development. The SPD program has worked to expand the use of technology that 

can assist projects in becoming more effective and efficient in their delivery of professional 

development. With the increased emphasis on ongoing professional development and 

coaching, increased use of technology is necessary if SPD grantees are to work with more than 

a few sites and/or work with schools in rural areas.

Teacher quality is one of the most important factors in improving student achievement and 

eliminating achievement gaps between our neediest students and their more advantaged peers. 

Research shows that effective teaching is integral to improving the academic achievement of 

students who are at greatest risk of not meeting high academic standards. The SPD program 

provides funding for professional development to improve the knowledge and skills of special 

education and regular education teachers serving children with disabilities. Specifically, SPD 

funds are used to provide training in effective interventions. Examples of such interventions 

include positive behavioral interventions and supports to improve student behavior in the 

classroom, scientifically based reading instruction, early and appropriate interventions to identify 

and help children with disabilities, effective instruction for children with low incidence disabilities, 

and successful transitioning to postsecondary opportunities. Funds also assist States in utilizing 

classroom-based techniques to assist children prior to referral for special education.

Personnel Recruitment and Retention

The SPD program also supports States in developing and implementing strategies that are 

effective in promoting the recruitment and retention of effective and highly qualified special 

education teachers. These include strategies such as teacher mentoring provided by exemplary 

special education teachers, principals, or superintendents; induction and support for special 

education teachers during their first 3 years of employment as teachers; and providing 

incentives, including financial incentives, to retain special education teachers who have a record 

of success in helping students with disabilities. Listed below are examples of how States are 

using SPD funds to improve the knowledge and skills of teachers serving children with 

disabilities. 

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• Louisiana SPD funds support collaboration between the Louisiana Department of 

Education (LDOE) and Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) in Louisiana to increase 

the number of special education teachers graduating each year and also to improve their 

effectiveness. The LDOE worked with IHEs to develop effective reading competencies 

to improve literacy instruction for pre-service teachers. In addition, this funding was 

used to facilitate meetings and provide resources to IHEs that resulted in 50 percent of 

Louisiana’s IHEs receiving approval to implement a blended program. These blended 

programs have been found to increase literacy rates for students with disabilities.

Ten out of 15 (67 percent) districts in Louisiana that received professional development 

in the areas of Family Engagement, Inclusive Practices, Data-Based Decision Making, 

and Culturally Responsive Practices from the Louisiana SPD had an increase of 

5 percent or more in their District Performance Score (DPS) from 2008 to 2011. The 

DPS is a measure that includes a school district’s individual student scores on the 

Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP), the iLEAP score (the LEAP for 

special populations Graduation Exit Exam), and attendance, dropout, and graduation 

data. The other 5 districts made DPS gains, but were below the 5 percent target.

• The Missouri SPD project developed the Missouri Integrated Model (MIM) framework in 

2007-08, which has been implemented with fidelity in 25 schools in 14 districts across 

the State. The MIM design was grounded in research from multiple tiered models: 

(a) Response to Intervention (RTI), (b) Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports, (c) High 

Schools That Work, (d) Reading First, and (e) Professional Learning Communities. The 

percentage of students with disabilities in MIM schools who demonstrate proficiency or 

better on State assessments has risen steadily for both communication arts and for 

math: in 2006-07, the year preceding the first funding year of the MIM, only 14.6 percent 

of students with disabilities demonstrated proficiency or better in communication arts, 

and 17.9 percent demonstrated proficiency or better in math. By 2011-12, these rates 

had risen to 23.89 percent for communication arts, an increase of 9.29 percent, and to 

29.82 percent for math, an increase of 11.9 percent, outpacing statewide increases. 

From 2009 to 2012, MIM schools increased math statewide achievement test scores for 

students with IEPs by 10.7 percent, while non-MIM schools increased students with IEP 

scores by only 3.2 percent. For communication arts, students with IEPs in MIM schools 

increased their scores by 8.59 percent and non-MIM schools increased their scores by 

3.49 percent.

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PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

1

 About $47 thousand of FY 2013 funds were used to support project continuation costs in FY 2014. 2

 About $1,209 thousand of FY 2014 funds will be used to support FY 2015 continuations. 

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, and measures. 

Goal: To assist State educational agencies in reforming and improving their systems for 

providing educational, early intervention, and transitional services, including their 

systems of professional development, technical assistance, and dissemination of 

knowledge about best practices, to improve results for children with disabilities. 

Objective 1: Provide personnel with the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of, and 

improve the performance and achievement of, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and children with 

disabilities.

Objective 2: Improve the quality of professional development available to meet the needs of 

personnel serving infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities.

In fiscal year 2011, the Department revised its measures to better align with the current focus of 

the professional development provided by the program. The measures are based on the belief 

that no intervention practice, no matter what its evidence base, is likely to be learned and 

adopted if the methods and strategies used to teach or train personnel are not themselves 

effective. The new measures were implemented in the project year that began October 1, 2011, 

for SPD cohorts funded in fiscal year 2011 and beyond. Performance data and other 

information reported in 2012 through 2014 were used to refine the measures, methodology, and 

Measures 2014

footnote

2015

Footnote

2016

Project funding:

New SPD awards 0 $8,174 $6,645

Continuation SPD awards $41,630 1 2 33,326 34,855

Performance evaluation 0 92 92

Peer review of new award applications 0 38 38

Total funding 41,630 41,630 41,630

Average award (whole dollars) 1,094 1,068 1,064

Number of awards:

New 0 10 7

Continuations 37 30 32

Total awards 37 40 39

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National activities: State personnel development

scoring. The Department will use data reported in 2012 through 2014 to develop a baseline 

target in 2015. The actual data and targets for these measures will reflect the performance in 

the year the initiative took place, in this case the year the initiative was implemented or 

delivered.

Annual Measures: For each of the three annual performance measures that follow, data are 

collected and analyzed by a contractor using expert panels of reviewers who assess grant 

implementation by reviewing the components of each grantee’s professional development 

system included in their annual performance reports. The data are evaluated on a rubric based 

on the 4 domains of professional development (selection, training, coaching, and performance 

assessment) including 6 components adapted from the work by the National Implementation 

Research Network, Learning Forward, and relevant experts such as Thomas Guskey. Each 

year the grantees included in this measure consist of States in SPD cohorts that are in years 2 

through 5 of their SPD grant implementation. Grantees submit up to two initiatives a year based 

on input from Office of Special Education Programs project officers for each of the measures. 

The specific rubric used to assess initiatives is identified below in the Additional Information 

section following each measure.

Measure: The percentage of SPD-funded initiatives that meet the benchmarks for use of 

evidence-based professional development practices in years 2 to 5.

Additional information: Expert panels review the components of each SPD grant to determine 

whether the initiative has met its benchmark on a scale ranging from 1-4 (1= Inadequate, 

2 = Barely adequate, 3 = Good, or 4 = Exemplary). In order to meet a benchmark, a certain 

percentage of each initiative’s components must receive a score of three or four each year, 

including: (a) 50 percent of components in year 2, (b) 70 percent of components in year 3, and 

(c) 80 percent of components in years 4 and 5. The Department considers individual 

components that receive a total score of 3 or 4 to have met the benchmark.

Measure: The percentage of SPD-funded initiatives that meet the benchmark for improvement 

in implementation in their third through fifth years.

Additional information: This measure represents the percentage of SPD-funded professional 

development projects demonstrating improvement in implementation of SPD-supported 

practices in project performance years 3 through 5. Expert panels assess the implementation of 

each initiative as measured by a fidelity measure that denotes the presence or absence of the 

core features of the set of practices, innovation, program, or system representing the focus of 

the training initiative. Panels review the data reported that indicates the evidence of fidelity of 

implementation of evidence based practices (EBP’s) in targeted programs. Grantees report 

surveys from targeted programs and the number and percentage of participants in these 

programs determined to be implementing EBPs at the benchmark level. Each grantee creates a 

plan indicating (a) how they will collect implementation data, (b) the population universe, and 

(c) yearly fidelity benchmarks for each cohort of trainees. The data reported is evaluated with 

respect to each specific initiative to determine whether it has met its benchmark. The total 

number of initiatives meeting improvement benchmarks is then divided by the total number of 

initiatives to produce this measure. 

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National activities: State personnel development

Measure: The percentage of initiatives that meet targets for their use of funds to sustain SPDsupported practices.

Additional information: Grantees submit data describing the cost of the fidelity activities 

designed to sustain individual initiatives divided by the total cost of all professional development 

activities carried out for that initiative. Targets for each initiative are set in conjunction with the 

grantee, and expert panels review the data to determine whether the grantee has met the target 

for spending on that initiative within 5 percent of the target. 

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Tech nical assistan ce an d dissemin ation

National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part D, Subpart 2, Section 663)

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 0 1

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$44,345 $54,345 2+$10,000 _________________

1 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding is proposed for this program in FY 2016 

through appropriations language. 2 Includes $10,000 thousand for new Results Driven Accountability Implementation grants.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Technical Assistance and Dissemination program is the Department’s primary vehicle 

under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for providing educators, 

policymakers, other service providers, and parents of children with disabilities with information 

on effective practices for meeting the needs of children with disabilities and their families. The 

program makes competitive awards to provide technical assistance, support model 

demonstration projects, disseminate useful information, and implement activities that are 

supported by scientific research. These awards are intended to improve services provided 

under the IDEA, including the practices of professionals and others involved in providing 

services that promote academic achievement and improve results for children with disabilities. 

A majority of the grants currently funded under the Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

program support technical assistance centers that focus on a particular topic, population, or age 

range, such as early intervening services, dispute resolution, early childhood, college- and 

career-readiness, and positive behavioral interventions and supports to improve results fro 

children with disabilities. Most centers use a service model that provides three levels of 

technical assistance: intensive/sustained, targeted/specific, and general/universal. At the 

intensive/sustained level, a handful of States receive on-site, ongoing planned assistance 

designed to reach an outcome desired by the recipient. Through targeted/specific services, 

centers support activities based on the topical or technical needs common to multiple recipients 

and can be one-time or short-term events such as consultation services or presentations at

conferences. The centers also provide general/universal technical assistance services that 

permit a broader audience to access information and services through presentations, 

newsletters, or research syntheses that are made available on center websites. Most activities 

supported through this program are designed to address the needs of a variety of audiences. 

While these audiences vary, in general, they include teachers, related services personnel, early 

intervention personnel, administrators, parents, and individuals with disabilities. 

In addition to facilitating the adoption of model practices, technical assistance and dissemination 

activities promote the application of knowledge to improve practice by: determining areas where 

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National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

technical assistance and information are needed, preparing or ensuring that materials are 

prepared in formats that are appropriate for a wide variety of audiences, making technical 

assistance and information accessible to consumers, and promoting communication links 

among consumers. 

The technical assistance and dissemination activities supported through this program are based 

on the best information available. One source of the scientifically based research findings that 

are used to inform technical assistance and dissemination activities is the What Works 

Clearinghouse in the Institute of Education Sciences. This is particularly true in cases where 

there is alignment between the topical focus of a center and work being supported through the 

What Works Clearinghouse, such as dropout prevention. 

The duration of awards varies with the award's purpose. Most individual awards are made for a 

period of 5 years.

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands) footnote

2011.....................................................................................$48,806 

2012....................................................................................... 46,7811

2013....................................................................................... 44,3452

2014....................................................................................... 44,3452

2015....................................................................................... 44,3452

_________________

1

 Excludes $8,000 thousand in funds used to support the Special Olympics. 2

 Excludes $7,583 thousand in funds used to support the Special Olympics. 

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

For fiscal year 2016, the Administration is requesting $54.3 million for the Technical Assistance 

and Dissemination (TA&D) program, an increase of $10 million more than the fiscal year 2015 

level. In fiscal year 2016, 70 percent of the funds requested would be used to support 

continuation costs and $16.3 million would be used to fund new competitions, including 

$10 million for new Results Driven Accountability (RDA) Implementation grants. The 

Administration is also requesting appropriations language to extend the availability of funds for 

RDA Implementation grants over 2 years, and provide States additional flexibility through 

subgranting and subcontracting authority. 

TA&D activities support the application of knowledge to improve practices among professionals 

and others involved in providing services that promote academic achievement and improve 

results for children with disabilities. TA&D activities combine the identification and 

dissemination of evidence-based practices with an effort to build capacity at the State and local 

levels to implement, sustain, and scale-up such practices. These activities have facilitated the 

adoption and spread of evidence-based practices such as positive behavioral interventions and 

supports (PBIS), which have been implemented in more than 21,000 schools nationwide, and 

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, which have been implemented and widely used throughout the 

country as a framework for delivering differentiated instruction.

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National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

Results Driven Accountability Implementation Grants

As the Department shifts to a RDA framework, States, lead agencies, districts, and early 

childhood providers will need support on multiple fronts in identifying, prioritizing, and 

implementing evidence-based practices to improve results for children with disabilities. In 

addition to the requested $175 million increase in the Grants to States program, the $50 million 

increase to the Preschool Grants to States program, and the $65 million increase to the Grants 

for Infants and families program, the Administration proposes to provide $10 million for RDA 

Implementation grants. These competitive grants would provide funds to States and lead 

agencies for statewide technical assistance, professional development, or other coordinated 

activities across a broad range of service providers while also ensuring that local education 

agencies and early childhood providers have additional resources to provide high quality direct 

services to children with disabilities and their families. These funds would provide additional 

resources to Part B and C lead agencies to develop capacity to implement the State Systemic 

Improvement Plans (SSIPs) that States are required to submit to the Department in April of 

2015. 

These 4-year grants will be used by States to build State capacity to implement promising, 

evidence-based reforms that will improve service delivery for children with disabilities while also 

building local capacity to continue to improve long-term outcomes for children with disabilities.

States receiving implementation grants would have a demonstrated commitment to using results 

data in their IDEA-required local determinations, consistent with the Office of Special Education 

Program’s (OSEP’s) RDA framework, to support their efforts to implement evidence-based 

practices that have a demonstrated positive impact on results for children with disabilities.

Examples of evidence-based practices include: (1) instructional coaching to improve 

effectiveness of teachers and leaders; (2) high-quality early learning programs and services; (3) 

multi-tiered systems of support; (4) early literacy activities; and (5) robust secondary transition 

systems. States receiving grants would be encouraged to coordinate these activities with other 

improvement initiatives in the State, such as ESEA Flexibility, School Improvement Grants, and 

Preschool Development Grants.

Each State has unique needs and will face different challenges when implementing these 

changes. Through the SSIPs, States may identify evidence-based practices addressing needs 

of students in varying age ranges, in multiple instructional settings, in differing levels of 

urbanicity, and within differing sizes of State populations. As such, the Administration would 

support grants of varying sizes depending on these factors. In addition, the Administration 

would give States flexibility on the manner in which they implement their SSIPs and focus on 

how best to improve outcomes for children with disabilities. While the actual number and size of 

grants would be dependent on the applications for funding received, the Administration currently 

anticipates awarding 8 grants, ranging from $500,000 to $800,000, to States focusing on Part B 

systems, and 8 grants, ranging from $400,000 to $600,000, to States focusing on reforms in 

Part C systems. Additionally, the Administration plans to reserve a portion of RDA funds for 

rigorous formative and summative evaluations of State reforms to learn from improvement 

efforts and build communities of practice across States.

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Additional Technical Assistance Activities

The Administration’s request includes $6.3 million for other new awards in fiscal year 2016 that

will focus on areas of specific need. For example, the Administration plans to fund a new center 

to provide technical assistance on and dissemination of evidence-based intensive interventions 

for students with persistent learning or behavioral difficulties. This center will work with Local 

Educational Agencies (LEAs) to identify and enhance the system components that promote the 

implementation and sustainability of such interventions. In addition, the Administration plans to 

fund a new center on educational outcomes to provide technical assistance on improving results 

for students with disabilities by increasing their participation rates in high quality assessment 

and accountability systems, improving the quality of assessments in which they participate, 

improving the capacity of States to meet data collection requirements, and strengthening 

accountability for results. The Administration will also provide funding for a new model 

demonstration project focused on building an inventory of practices with a strong theory or 

evidence of promise. Finally, funding would support a new center to support the Department’s 

statutory requirement to address the postsecondary, vocational, technical, continuing, and adult 

education needs of individuals with deafness. 

Continuation funding would be provided for a variety of projects, including those that focus on 

particular topics, age ranges of children, and student needs or disabilities. These include, for 

example: 

Projects focusing on particular topical areas:

Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE) – CADRE provides 

State Education Agencies(SEAs) and Part C Lead Agencies with resources that can help them 

effectively implement a range of dispute resolution options, including strategies that other SEAs 

and Part C Lead Agencies use to address the State Systematic Improvement Plan indicators 

related to dispute resolution. CADRE helps ensure that parents and families get the information 

they need about various methods for resolving disputes and helps avoid costly adversarial due 

process hearings. 

Support for the Comprehensive Centers administered by the Office of Elementary and 

Secondary Education (OESE) – OSEP will provide $750,000 for activities related to the 

Comprehensive Centers in 2016. As part of the Comprehensive Center on Effective Teachers 

and Leaders’ overall work on teacher evaluation, funds will supplement this Center’s work on 

developing effective teacher evaluation systems for special education personnel. 

Comprehensive centers are part of the Department’s comprehensive wide-ranging technical 

assistance network that includes the regional educational laboratories (RELs), What Works 

Clearinghouse (WWC), Equity Assistance Centers, OSEP-funded Technical Assistance 

Centers, and other Department-supported single centers, designed to provide high-quality 

support to SEAs, LEAs, and schools that is accessible, comprehensive, and relevant.

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National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

Projects focusing on supporting State’s Transition to Results Driven Accountability

National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI) – NCSI provides States with technical 

assistance to support LEAs and local early intervention service providers in improving 

educational results and functional outcomes for children with disabilities. NCSI is also 

supporting States in the development of their State Systemic Improvement Plans, which is a key 

component of RDA. NCSI works collaboratively with other OSEP-funded TA centers to focus on 

areas such as special education fiscal management, early-childhood programs, and 

postsecondary transition. 

Projects focusing on children with disabilities by age or grade:

Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center – This Center provides technical assistance to 

States to help them develop early childhood data systems for children with disabilities. Its focus 

is on helping States develop the capacity to use data for program improvement to improve early 

learning outcomes, to enable more data-based decision making, and to support programs or 

practices with strong or moderate evidence of effectiveness. 

Projects focusing on children with particular needs:

Deaf-Blindness Projects – The Department supports State and multi-State projects providing 

technical assistance on services for children who are both deaf and blind. The Department also 

supports a coordinating center that provides technical assistance to State and multi-State 

projects

For more information on the OSEPs technical assistance Centers, visit: http://www.tadnet.org/. 

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National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 2015 2016

Program Funding:

Specialized technical assistance and 

dissemination:

zed technical assistance and dissemi nation:New 0 0 $3,851

zed technical assistance and dissemi nation: Continuations $10,319 1 $10,719 2 6,851

Specialized technical assistance and dissemi nation: Subtotal 10,319 10,719 10,702

Model demonstration centers:

Model demonstration centers: New 0 1,200 1,200

Model demonstration centers: Continuations 2,666 1,196 1,200

Model demonstration centers: Subtotal 2,666 2,396 2,400

Regional/Federal Resource Centers:

Regional/F eder al Resource Centers: New 8,910 3 0 0

Regional/F eder al Resource Centers: Continuations 0 8,772 8,772 

Regional/F eder al Resource Centers: Subtotal 8,910 8,772 8,772

Early childhood technical assistance:

Earl y childhood technical assistance: New 0 0 0

Earl y childhood technical assistance: Continuations 4,500 4,500 4,500

Earl y childhood technical assistance: Subtotal 4,500 4,500 4,500

Secondary, transition and postsecondary technical 

assistance:

 on and postsecondar y technical assistance: New 2,100 0 1,300

 on and postsecondar y technical assistance: Continuations 1,300 3,400 2,100

Secondar y, transiti on and postsecondar y technical assistance: Subtotal 3,400 3,400 3,400

Technical assistance for children who are both 

deaf and blind:

 ce for children who ar e both deaf and blind: Continuations 11,350 11,350 11,350

Technical assistance for children who ar e both deaf and blind: Subtotal 11,350 11,350 11,350

_________________

1

 About $16 thousand of fiscal year 2013 funds were used to pay 2014 continuation costs. 2

 About $384 thousand of fiscal year 2015 funds will be used to pay 2016 continuation costs. 3

 About $138 thousand of fiscal 2014 funds were used to pay 2015 continuation costs.

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National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands) (continued)

Measures 2014 2015 2016

Transfers to Elementary and Secondary 

Education for comprehensive centers:

 Continuations $750 $750 $750

 Subtotal 750 750 750

Results Driven Accountability Implementation 

Grants

 New 0 0 10,000

 Subtotal 0 0 10,000

Federal technical assistance; technical assistance

on data analysis; State, and Federal 

information exchange; other:

: SISEP Center (grant)1 1,100 1,100 1,100

: ACDM contract2 625 620 606

: Performance Measures contract 90 92 94

: CIPP contract3 133 148 100

: Annual Report to Congress contract 454 467 481

 Subtotal 2,402 2,427 2,381

 New, Subtotal 625 0 0

 Continuations, Subtotal 1,777 2,427 2,381

Peer review of new award applications: 48 31 90

Total program funding:

New 11,635 1,200 16,351

Continuations 32,662 43,114 37,904

Peer review 48 31 90

Total 44,345

4

44,345

4

54,345

_________________

1 State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center.

2 Analysis, Communications, Dissemination, and Meetings contract.

3 Center to Improve Project Performance contract.

4 Excludes $7,583 thousand for the Special Olympics in fiscal years 2014 and 2015.

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National activities: Technical assistance and dissemination

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in 

FY 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by this 

program. 

Goal: To assist States and their partners in systems improvement through the 

integration of scientifically-based practices. 

Objective 1: States and other recipients of Special Education Technical Assistance and 

Dissemination program services will implement scientifically or evidence-based practices for 

infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities.

Objective 2: Improve the quality of Special Education Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

projects.

Objective 3: The Special Education Technical Assistance and Dissemination program will 

identify, implement, and evaluate evidence-based models to improve outcomes for infants, 

toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities.

Six performance measures were developed for the Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

program. Three of these measures are annual measures, two are long-term, and the last is a 

measure of efficiency.

Annual Measures: The three annual measures deal with the quality, relevance, and usefulness 

of products and services provided by the program. These measures were developed as part of 

an effort to make measures relating to technical assistance and dissemination activities more 

consistent Departmentwide. However, the measures have been adapted to reflect the unique 

purposes of the TA&D program. Targets for 2011 and beyond were revised in 2010 to reflect 

strong performance that exceeded targets. 

The actual data and targets for these measures were adjusted in the fiscal year 2012 

Congressional Justification from prior year Congressional Justifications to more accurately 

reflect the performance in the year that the activity took place, in this case the year the product 

or service was developed or delivered. In previous years, the Department reported data by the 

year in which those data were collected.

For each of the three annual performance measures that follow, data are collected and 

analyzed by a contractor, using expert panels of reviewers who assess grant implementation by 

reviewing a sample of products and services developed by grantees. Products and services are 

reviewed against a listing of evidence-based practices in key target areas that the Department 

has identified as critical. The sample of grantees included in this measure for each year 

consists of approximately 11 TA&D centers and 10 State Deaf-Blind programs. Each TA&D 

center included in the sample submits a list of every new product and service from the previous 

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year, from which one new product and service are selected to be reviewed. Each State DeafBlind grantee included in the sample is asked to submit a list of every new service from the 

previous year, from which one product is selected to be reviewed. Products and services are 

divided into the categories of policy and practice. Items that are considered to be in the area of 

practice are reviewed by the science panel, and policy items are reviewed by the State 

representative stakeholder panel. 

Panels of experts review and score all products and services based on an OSEP-designed 

rubric that is specific to each performance measure, rating the products and services on the 

extent to which they meet the measure’s performance indicators. Data for each indicator are 

calculated by dividing the number of TA&D center products and services that received an 

average quality rating of six or better, out of nine possible points, by the total number of TA&D 

products and services reviewed. The Department performs the same calculation for the 

services provided by State Deaf-Blind grantees, assigns weights to each of these calculations to 

correspond to the proportion of total program funds expended in each area, and then adds the 

figures together to produce an overall quality rating for the program. The specific rubric used to 

assess products and services for each measure is identified below in the Additional Information 

section following the Measure.

Measure: The percentage of Technical Assistance and Dissemination products and services 

deemed to be of high quality by an independent review panel of experts qualified to review the 

substantive content of the products and services.

Year Target Actual

2011 90% 91%

2012 92 100

2013 94 81

2014 95

2015 95

2016 95

Additional information: Expert panels review all products and services and score them based 

on a rubric that assesses the extent to which the content of these materials is: evidence-based, 

valid, complete, and up-to-date. Specifically, the panels assess the quality of the materials on 

the following dimensions: (1) Substance (Does the product reflect the best of current research 

and theory or policy guidance, as demonstrated by a scientifically- or evidence-based approach, 

a solid conceptual framework, appropriate citations and other evidence of conceptual 

soundness?); and (2) Communication (Does the product have clarity in its presentation, as 

evidenced by being free of editorial errors, appropriately formatted, and well organized?). The 

total score for any individual product or service reviewed is the sum of the two quality dimension 

sub-scores. The Department considers any individual product or service that receives a total 

score of six or higher out of nine possible points to be of high quality.

Actual performance failed to meet the performance target in 2013 after meeting targets for this 

measure over the previous 4 years. Based on the most recent data available, in 2013, the 

program fell short of the target with 25 out of 31 products and services meeting the standard for 

high quality. The Department is examining why the performance of this measure did not meet 

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the high standard from previous years, and will monitor any individual grantees that receive 

lower scores more aggressively to improve program performance and ensure that these 

grantees take steps to improve the quality of their products and services.

Measure: The percentage of Technical Assistance and Dissemination products and services 

deemed by an independent review panel of qualified experts to be of high relevance to 

educational and early intervention policy or practice.

Year Target Actual

2011 94% 100%

2012 95 94

2013 95 94

2014 95

2015 95

2016 95

Additional information: Expert panels review the products and services and score them 

based on a rubric that assesses the extent to which the content of materials is responsive to 

priority issues and challenges confronting the target groups. Specifically, the rubric is designed 

to yield ratings on the basis of the following three dimensions related to relevance: (1) Need 

(Does the content of the material attempt to solve an important problem or critical issue?); 

(2) Pertinence (Does the content of the material match the problem or issue facing the target 

group or groups?); and (3) Reach (To what extent is the content of the material applicable to 

diverse populations within the target group?). The total score for any individual product or 

service reviewed is the sum of the three quality dimension sub-scores. High relevance for any 

individual product or service is defined as a total score of six or higher of nine possible points.

Overall performance under this measure has been strong in every year for which data have 

been collected. Based on the most recent data available, in 2013, the program fell just short of 

the target with 29 out of 31 products and services meeting the standard for high relevance. The 

Department seeks to maintain the high levels of performance for this measure and will monitor 

any individual grantees that receive lower scores more aggressively to improve program 

performance and ensure that these grantees take steps to improve the relevance of their 

products and services.

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Measure: The percentage of all Special Education Technical Assistance and Dissemination 

products and services deemed by an independent review panel of qualified experts to be useful 

to improve educational or early intervention policy or practice.

Year Target Actual

2011 89% 93%

2012 92 83

2013 95 84

2014 95

2015 95

2016 95

Additional information: Expert panels review the products and services and score them 

based on a rubric that assesses the extent to which the content of materials can be easily and 

quickly adopted or adapted by the target group, and the likelihood that the product or service, if 

adopted, will produce the desired result. Specifically, the rubric is designed to yield ratings on 

the basis of the following three dimensions related to usefulness: (1) Ease (Does the content of 

the product or service description address a problem or issue in an easily understood way, with 

directions or guidance regarding how a problem or issue can be addressed?); (2) Replicability 

(Is it likely that the information derived from the product or service will eventually be used by the 

target group to achieve the benefit intended?); and (3) Sustainability (Is it likely that the 

information derived from the product or service will eventually be used in more than one setting 

successfully over and over again to achieve the intended benefit?). The total score for any 

individual product or service reviewed is the sum of the three quality dimension sub-scores. 

High usefulness for any individual product or service is defined as a total score of six or higher 

of nine possible points.

Actual performance at the program level exceeded established targets in 2007 through 2011. 

Grantees failed to meet the target in 2012 and 2013, the most recent data available. Overall, 26 

out of 31 products and services met the standard for high usefulness. To ensure that grantees 

continue to improve their performance under this indicator, the Department will monitor more 

aggressively any individual grantees that receive relatively lower scores to improve program 

performance and ensure that they take steps to improve over time.

Long-term Measures: The Department established two long-term measures for this program. 

Data for the long-term measures are collected every 2 years. 

Measure: The percentage of effective evidence-based program models developed by model 

demonstration projects that are promoted to States and their partners through the TA&D 

Network. 

In 2010, the Department began developing a new long-term pilot measure because the previous 

measure did not provide meaningful data for program improvement. This new measure will 

provide the Department valuable data on how well model demonstration projects are 

disseminating effective practices, a key component of this program. In November 2012, the 

Department began collecting the new data using a revised methodology, and will use the results 

to continue to refine the measure and set performance targets for future years. 

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Measure: The percentage of school districts and service agencies receiving technical 

assistance and dissemination services regarding scientifically- or evidence-based practices for 

infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities that implement those practices.

Year Target Actual

2009 79%

2011 86

2013 86% 83

2015 87

Additional information: Experts review data from States that have received intensive 

technical assistance from OSEP TA&D Centers in six focus areas. These areas include 

assessment, behavior, instructional strategies, early intervention, secondary transition, and 

inclusive practices. Scientifically or evidence-based practices are defined as practices that have 

been demonstrated as effective within multiple settings through rigorous studies that document 

similar outcomes, and State implementation is defined as having practitioners within some 

portion of the school district or service agency use the practice.

In 2009, the first year data were collected for this measure, 79 percent of districts and agencies 

sampled were implementing evidence-based practices. In 2011, this figure increased to 

86 percent of districts and agencies sampled. In 2013, the Department did not meet the target; 

however, the Department was able to obtain data demonstrating 5 out of 6 States did implement 

evidence-based practices for which they received technical assistance. Due to staff turnover at 

the State level, the Department did not have enough data to determine whether the sixth State 

is implementing evidence-based practices. OSEP will aggressively monitor any individual 

grantees that receive relatively lower scores to ensure that they take steps to improve over time. 

Efficiency Measures

The Department developed a common efficiency measure for OSEP programs that provide 

technical assistance. The measure is “the cost per unit of technical assistance.” The TA&D 

program uses a slightly modified “cost per unit of target audience,” which divides the total cost 

of a product or service by the number of target audience units that receive the technical 

assistance. A target audience unit may be an individual, such as a teacher, or an organization, 

such as a State educational agency. To calculate this measure, each year the Department uses 

the cost per unit data of a product and a service developed in the most recent fiscal year from a 

sample of approximately 11 TA&D centers and the cost per unit data for services of 10 State 

Deaf-Blind programs. 

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Measure: The Federal cost per unit of technical assistance provided by the Special Education 

Technical Assistance and Dissemination program, by category.

Year Target Actual

2011 $651

2012 890

2013

2014 TBD

2015 TBD

2016 TBD

Since 2008, the first year of data collection, the Department has struggled to produce a reliable 

cost per unit of target audience results. Due to concerns about data quality, compliance, and 

methodology, the Department has since enhanced guidance and changed methodologies. 

Beginning in 2009, the Department realized that aggregate data were not useful because the 

cost of providing technical assistance varies significantly based on the sample and decided 

instead to disaggregate the cost per unit based on three levels of intensity of technical 

assistance (intensive/sustained, targeted/specific, and general/universal). In 2010, the cost per 

unit was $5,786, which subsequently fell to $651 in 2011, and rose to $890 in 2012. These

variable results demonstrate the lack of reliability in the current measure and a need for an 

improved methodology. The Department is exploring different alternatives to evaluate the 

efficiency of TA&D investments and began piloting a new measure in 2013. Therefore, no 

targets have been set for fiscal years 2014-2016.

Other Performance Information

In August 2009, as part of the ongoing National Assessment of IDEA, the Institute of Education 

Sciences (IES) launched a 5-year evaluation of the IDEA TA&D program and various technical 

assistance activities that are currently supported under the other IDEA, Part D programs, such 

as centers that provide technical assistance on specific topical areas. The initial goals of this 

evaluation were to inform policymakers and practitioners about (a) the nature of the technical 

assistance services provided by TA&D grantees, (b) the experiences of SEAs and LEAs that 

interact with such grantees, (c) the implementation of practices recommended by such 

grantees, and (d) whether implementation of recommended practices is associated with 

improved outcomes for children and youth with disabilities. 

Initial data collection and analysis revealed limitations of the data, so the objectives of the 

evaluation were revised to determine (a) the needs and uses for TA&D services, (b) what 

services are seen as most helpful in contributing to the improvement of key student outcomes, 

(c) the perceived barriers to local level implementation, (d) how TA&D grantees identify their 

clients, assess their needs, and develop and maintain their relationship with clients, and (e) the 

extent to which assistance from TA&D grantees relate to implementation of special education 

policies and practices that support the implementation of IDEA. The evaluation addresses 

these research questions using data gathered from OSEP, through EDFacts1

, and through new 

surveys of TA&D grantees, SEA officials responsible for IDEA implementation, and school 

district special education directors. 

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In October 2013, IES released an interim report, the “National Evaluation of the IDEA Technical 

Assistance & Dissemination Program.” Technical assistance providers most commonly 

reported providing technical assistance on the topics of “parent and family involvement”, and 

“data systems and use of data for improvement.” Recipients of technical assistance identified 

General Supervision/Monitoring, early childhood transition, special education finance, and 

Response to Intervention as the topics for which they had the greatest need for technical 

assistance in the 2010–11 school year. In addition, this analysis found some potential 

duplication of services provided by technical assistance providers; however, this analysis was 

unable to establish whether such cases were indicators of inefficiency or of complementary and 

coordinated services. 

The report found that 71 percent of technical assistance recipients had a "very satisfactory" 

overall experience. On average, customers receiving high intensity technical assistance were 

significantly more satisfied than those receiving lower intensity technical assistance 

(i.e., infrequent training and consultation or web-only support). The final report is now

scheduled to be published in 2016, rather than 2014 has previously reported.

_________________

1

 EDFacts is a U. S. Department of Education initiative to put performance data at the center of policy, 

management and budget decisions for all K-12 education programs. EDFacts centralizes performance data supplied 

by K-12 State educational agencies (SEAs) with other data assets, such as financial grant information, within the 

Department to enable better analysis and use in policy development, planning and management. EDFacts relies on 

the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN), a centralized portal through which States submit their educational 

data to the U.S. Department of Education.

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Personn el preparation

National activities: Personnel preparation

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part D, Subpart 2, Sections 661 and 662) 

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 0 1

Budget Authority:

2015 2016 Change

$83,700 $83,700 0 _________________

1

 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding is proposed for this program in FY 2016 

through appropriations language.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Personnel Preparation program helps meet State-identified needs for adequate numbers of 

fully certified personnel to serve children with disabilities by supporting competitive awards to:

• Provide research-based training and professional development to prepare special 

education, related services, early intervention, and regular education personnel to work with 

children with disabilities;

• Ensure that those personnel are highly qualified, and possess the skills and knowledge that 

are needed to serve children with disabilities; and

• Ensure that regular education teachers have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide 

instruction to students with disabilities in regular education classrooms.

The Department is required to make competitive grants that support training activities in a few 

high priority areas, including: general personnel development and preparing beginning special 

educators, personnel serving children with low incidence disabilities, and leadership personnel. 

These grants are typically 5 years in length.

Personnel Development. This broad authority requires the Department to support at least one 

of the following activities: (a) promoting partnerships and collaborative personnel preparation 

and training between institutions of higher education (IHEs) and local educational 

agencies (LEAs), (b) developing, evaluating, and disseminating innovative models for the 

recruitment, induction, retention, and assessment of highly qualified teachers, (c) providing 

continuous training and professional development to support special education and general 

education teachers and related services personnel, (d) developing and improving programs for 

paraprofessionals to become special educators, (e) promoting instructional leadership and 

improved collaboration between general and special education, (f) supporting IHEs with minority 

enrollment of not less than 25 percent, and (g) developing and improving programs to train 

special educators to develop expertise in autism spectrum disorders.

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Beginning Special Educators. The Department also is required to provide support to beginning 

special educators. Specifically, the Department is required to make at least one award to: 

(a) enhance and restructure existing teacher education programs or develop teacher education 

programs that prepare special education teachers by incorporating an extended clinical learning 

opportunity, field experience, or supervised practicum (e.g., an additional 5th year), or (b) create 

and support teacher-faculty partnerships between LEAs and IHEs (e.g., professional 

development schools) that provide high-quality mentoring and induction opportunities with 

ongoing support for beginning special educators or in-service support and professional 

development opportunities.

Personnel to Serve Children with Low Incidence Disabilities. Awards to support personnel to 

serve children with low incidence disabilities are designed to help ensure the availability of 

quality personnel in this area by providing financial aid as an incentive to the pursuit of careers 

in special education, related services, and early intervention. Under this authority, the term “low 

incidence disabilities” primarily refers to visual or hearing impairments and significant intellectual 

disabilities, however, beginning in fiscal year 2014, the Administration expanded the definition to 

also include persistent and severe learning and behavioral problems that need the most 

intensive individualized supports. In carrying out this authority, the Department is required to 

support activities that benefit children with low incidence disabilities, such as: preparing 

personnel; providing personnel from various disciplines with interdisciplinary training that will 

contribute to improvements in early intervention and educational outcomes for children with low 

incidence disabilities; and preparing personnel in the innovative uses of technology to enhance 

educational outcomes for children with low incidence disabilities, and to improve communication 

with parents.

Leadership Personnel. Leadership preparation activities focus on improving results for students 

with disabilities by ensuring that leadership personnel in both regular and special education 

have the skills and training to help students with disabilities achieve to high standards. Under 

this authority, leadership personnel may include a variety of different personnel, such as teacher 

preparation and related service faculty, administrators, researchers, supervisors, and principals. 

Authorized activities include preparing personnel at the graduate, postgraduate, and doctoral 

levels, and providing interdisciplinary training for various types of leadership personnel.

All Personnel Preparation competitions emphasize the value of incorporating best practices, as 

determined through research, evaluations, and experience. These include practices related to 

personnel training and professional development, as well as the provision of special education, 

related services, and early intervention services.

While individuals and students are not eligible for awards under the Personnel Preparation 

program, many grantees are required to use at least 65 percent of their award(s) for student 

support (e.g. tuition, stipends, and payment of fees). Students who receive financial assistance 

from projects funded under the program are required to pay back such assistance, either by 

working for a period of time after they complete their training in the area(s) for which they 

received training, or by making a cash repayment to the Federal Government. In recent years, 

approximately half of the program’s total appropriations have been used to support student 

scholarships. 

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National activities: Personnel preparation

A large majority of grants awarded through this program goes to IHEs to provide scholarships to 

train additional special education and early intervention personnel. However, the Department 

also makes awards to centers under this program. Unlike awards that provide support for 

scholarships, which are designed primarily to increase the supply of personnel, center-based 

awards tend to focus on enhancing the quality of work in a particular topical area through such 

activities as professional development, technical assistance, partnerships, or the development 

of materials and best practices. 

Additional support for personnel preparation activities is provided through the State Personnel 

Development Grants program, under which the Department makes competitive awards to help 

SEAs reform and improve in-service training and professional development activities for 

teachers, including the recruitment and retention of highly qualified special education teachers. 

A variety of other programs administered by the Department also make competitive awards that 

support training and professional development activities that are designed to improve the 

effectiveness of teachers, including special education personnel.

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands) footnot

e

2011................................................................................... $88,466

2012..................................................................................... 88,299

2013..................................................................................... 83,700

2014..................................................................................... 83,700

2015..................................................................................... 83,700

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

For fiscal year 2016, the Administration requests $83.7 million for the Personnel Preparation

program, level with the fiscal year 2015 amount. Of this amount, approximately $15.0 million 

would be used for new projects (including peer review costs of approximately $400,000) and 

$68.7 million would support the continuation of grants made in prior years. Approximately 

$9.5 million of the funding for new projects in fiscal year 2016 would be used to support training 

for special education and early intervention personnel, and approximately $3.3 million would be 

used to support the training of special education leadership personnel. The remaining 

additional funding would be used to support training for personnel regarding postsecondary 

education for the deaf.

Program Funding Priorities

The Administration continues to explore how funds available to support new activities under this 

program can be better targeted to support human capital systems that effectively prepare, 

recruit, support, evaluate, compensate and retain effective educators, and to address 

Administration priorities relating to the special education personnel workforce. Administration 

priorities in this area include: ensuring teachers enter the classroom with the skills they need to 

provide effective education through better teacher preparation program information and 

accountability, addressing the inequities in the distribution of effective and highly qualified 

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teachers (consistent with Section 14005(d)(2) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 

(Recovery Act)); implementing high quality teacher and principal evaluation and support 

systems that take into account student growth and provide useful feedback to inform instruction 

and professional development; alleviating ongoing personnel shortages by targeting funds on 

training programs that provide for alternative certification and dual certification; increasing the 

supply of principals who are adequately prepared to ensure the provision of evidence-based 

services for children with disabilities; and improving the quality of teacher pre-service 

preparation programs through the use of data on the effectiveness of graduates in the 

classroom.

To address these priorities, beginning in fiscal year 2010, the Administration included provisions 

in its two largest competitions in this program to encourage grantees to provide scholar 

practicum experiences in high-poverty and/or low-performing schools and track and evaluate 

program graduates to ensure that they possess the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of 

students with disabilities in high-need schools. 

Since fiscal year 2011, the Administration has continued these efforts to bolster highly-effective 

human capital systems in new grant competitions each year in a number of different areas by 

requiring preparation programs supported under this program to track the impact that program 

completers had on students after they completed their training and entered the field. 

Specifically, grantees are required, during their project periods, to track impacts on student 

growth and social, emotional, and academic development, as appropriate. These requirements 

will be continued in new competitions in fiscal year 2016. 

In fiscal year 2012, the Administration also funded a new technical assistance center to, among 

other things, assist States and institutions of higher education in evaluating and improving 

personnel preparation programs by using data on outcomes for students with disabilities. Fiscal 

year 2016 will be the final year of funding for this center.

Additionally, while the funds available through this program are by no means sufficient to 

resolve ongoing nationwide personnel shortages in special education, they do contribute to: the 

on-going development of best practices; improvements in the overall quality of training offered; 

and the training of additional special education, related services, and leadership personnel in 

certain high priority areas where program investments have been targeted over time, such as 

training personnel to provide services to students with low incidence disabilities.

Data on Personnel Shortages

Available data relating to personnel shortages in special education, including State-reported 

data outlining the percentage of special education teachers fully certified in States and Outlying 

Areas, strongly support the need for continued Federal investment in this area. Persistent 

shortages of qualified personnel have been reported since the enactment of the Individuals with 

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975. While States and local educational agencies across 

the country experience personnel shortages, recruiting and retaining special educators is 

particularly challenging for schools in high-poverty districts. Data from “Teacher Quality Under 

No Child Left Behind: Final Report,” illustrate the challenge. According to this study, completed 

by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for the Department in January 2009, 

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approximately half of all districts in the country reported difficulty attracting highly qualified 

special education teachers in the 2006-2007 school year, while 90 percent of high-poverty 

districts reported the same difficulty (see http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/teaching/nclbfinal/index.html). 

According to data that States are required to report pursuant to Title II of the Higher Education 

Act (HEA), through the 2009-2010 academic year, more States reported shortages in special 

education personnel than in any other area. Forty-nine States, the District of Columbia, 

American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and Virgin Islands reported 

shortages in special education (see https://title2.ed.gov/TitleIIReport13.pdf). 

The National Assessment of IDEA also found that 51 percent of district Part B special education 

administrators reported that their districts routinely had difficulty finding qualified special 

education applicants over the past 3 years, and approximately 5 percent of preschool-age and 

school-age special education teacher full-time positions were left vacant in the 2008-2009 

academic year (see http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20114026/pdf/20114026.pdf). 

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 footnote 2015 footnote 2016

Program Funding:

Low incidence disabilities grants:

New Low incidence disabilities grants $6,272 $2,485 $4,149

Continuations Low incidence disabilities grants 12,862 12,790 13,806

Subtotal Low incidence disabilities grants 19,134 15,275 17,955

Leadership training grants:

New Leadership training grants 3,999 3,750 3,250

Continuations Leadership training grants 11,673 1 13,593 2 14,755

Subtotal Leadership training grants 15,672 17,343 18,005

Minority institution grants:3

New Minority institution grants 2,389 2,007 1,978

Continuations Minority institution grants 6,390 8,686 8,525

Subtotal Minority institution grants 8,779 10,693 10,503

Program improvement grants:

Continuations Program improvement grants 13,486 9,088 6,500

Subtotal Program improvement grants 13,486 9,088 6,500

Early childhood grants:

New Early childhood grants 4,672 3,926 3,867

Continuations Early childhood grants 13,699 18,189 17,875

Subtotal Early childhood grants 18,371 22,115 21,742

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PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 footnote 2015 footnote 2016

Other personnel development grants:

New Other personnel development grants $1,606 $1,349 $1,330

Continuations Other personnel development grants 4,297 5,840 5,733

Subtotal Other personnel development grants 5,903 7,189 7,063

National Activities:

New national activities 642 0 0

Continuations national activities 1,259 1,567 1,532

Subtotal national activities 1,901 1,567 1,532

Peer review of new award 

applications 454 430 400

Total Program Funding:

New total program funding 19,637 13,517 14,574

Continuations total program funding 63,609 69,753 68,726

Peer review of new award 

applications 454 430 400

Total 83,700 83,700 83,700

________________

1 The fiscal year 2014 continuation awards total includes approximately $1,726 thousand in fiscal year 2014 

funds for support of fiscal year 2015 continuation costs. 2 The fiscal year 2015 continuation awards total includes approximately $1,713 thousand in fiscal year 2015

funds for support of fiscal year 2016 continuation costs. 3 This category includes awards to institutions with minority enrollments of not less than 25 percent. Under 

IDEA, Part D, Sec. 681(c)(2), the Department is required to reserve not less than 2 percent of the total amount of 

funds appropriated under Part D, subparts 2 and 3, for outreach and technical assistance activities for historically 

Black colleges and universities and IHEs with minority enrollments of not less than 25 percent.

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in fiscal 

year 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by 

this program.

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Goal: To prepare service providers and leadership personnel in areas of critical need 

who are highly qualified to improve outcomes for children with disabilities. 

Objective 1: Improve the curricula of IDEA training programs to ensure that personnel 

preparing to serve children with disabilities are knowledgeable and skilled in practices that 

reflect the current knowledge base.

Objective 2: Increase the supply of teachers and service providers who are highly qualified for 

and serve in positions for which they are trained.

Objective 3: Enhance the efficiency of the expenditure of Federal dollars under the program.

Long-Term Performance Measures

The program has two long-term measures that are designed to provide information on the 

quality of the program by looking at the skills of scholars supported using program funds. 

Measure: Percentage of degree/certification recipients who maintain employment for 3 or more 

years in the area(s) for which they were trained and who are fully qualified under IDEA.

Additional Information: In recent years, the Department has found it difficult to accurately and 

meaningfully calculate and report data on this measure. As such, we are currently evaluating 

this measure and the available methodologies for accurately calculating it. The Department 

expects a revised measure or methodology to be in place by March 2015.

Measure: Percentage of scholars completing Special Education Personnel Preparation funded 

training programs who are knowledgeable and skilled in evidence-based practices for children 

with disabilities.

Year Target Actual

2011 51% 88%

2012 85 80

2013 85

2014 85

2015 90

2016 90

Additional Information: Grantees submit data annually through the Department Personnel 

Preparation Data Report (PPD) Web-based data collection (see: http://www.oseppdp.ed.gov). 

This measure presents information on the percentage of scholars completing programs who 

passed an independent exam, such as the Praxis II, that is designed to assess the knowledge 

and skills of special educators. This measure is calculated by dividing the total number of 

scholars who graduated in a given year and pass an exam demonstrating knowledge and skills 

in evidence-based practices for children with disabilities (1,274 students in fiscal year 2012) by 

the total number of students who completed training programs – including students who passed 

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a test (1,274 students), students who did not take a test (145 students), students who did not 

pass a test or whose testing status or results are missing or unknown (168 students), and 

students for whom testing was not applicable (2 students). Data for fiscal year 2013 are 

expected to be available in fall 2015.

The Department does not currently require IHEs receiving program funds to use an independent 

assessment to assess the knowledge and skills of individuals graduating from institutions 

supported with program funds. Historically, actual data and targets for this measure were 

unusually low because, while all scholars receiving program funds are included in the 

denominator, a substantial number of those scholars (approximately 908 out of 2,712, or 

33 percent, in fiscal year 2008) did not participate in independent assessments according to 

grantees. While these scholars attend programs at IHEs located in States that did not require 

graduates to pass an independent assessment to measure the knowledge and skills of 

graduates, the Department has worked closely with grantees to improve data collection on 

graduates who take other, non-required assessments and to ensure that data on nonstandardized measures of knowledge and skills are reported by grantees (such as an oral 

examination administered by faculty at the IHE). However, despite these efforts, there was 

another increase in the number of scholars for whom testing status was not known by the 

grantee in 2012 (increasing from 34 in 2011 to 136 in 2012), resulting again in lower 

performance on this measure overall. The Department will continue to work with grantees to 

ensure that, whenever possible, data on scholar performance on assessments is gathered and 

reported. 

Annual Performance Measures

The program has five annual performance measures. All five of these measures are designed 

to provide information on various aspects of program quality, including scholars who receive 

funding through the program. These measures are:

Measure: Percentage of projects that incorporate scientifically- or evidence-based practices in 

their curricula.

Year Target Actual

2011 90% 74%

2012 95 89

2013 90 82

2014 90

2015 90

2016 90

Additional Information: Data are collected and analyzed by a contractor using a panel of five

to seven experts, who review a randomly selected sample of 50 percent of grantee course 

syllabi submitted by funded applicants in the same cohort of grantees. Syllabi, which are taken 

from grantee applications, are reviewed for the inclusion of between five and seven scientifically 

or evidence-based practices in key target areas that have been identified by the Department as 

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critical for all projects -- including assessment, behavior, inclusive practices, instructional 

strategies, literacy, transition, and early childhood, as appropriate. The score for every 

individual syllabus is the sum of the evidence-based practices observable in that syllabus. In 

order to meet the standard for incorporating evidence-based practices, all evidence-based 

practice areas reviewed must be identifiable in the syllabus.

In the fiscal year 2014 review, 33 syllabi from fiscal year 2013 personnel development grantees 

and fiscal year 2009 through 2011 program improvement grantees were included from the 

following types of projects: early childhood (5 syllabi scored), leadership (8 syllabi scored), low 

incidence (7 syllabi scored), high incidence (7 syllabi scored) and minority institutions (6 syllabi 

scored). 

Performance under this measure in 2009 and 2010 was well above established targets, which 

led the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to increase the criteria for a set of syllabi 

under review to be identified as “evidence-based” across all five domains for the review of 2011 

grantees – from 50 percent agreement to at least two-thirds. While there was a drop in 

performance in 2011, the Department believes that it is largely a result of the higher standard 

rather than any decrease in actual quality of syllabi. In 2012 and 2013, the syllabi review was 

conducted by expert panels grouped according to area of specialization (e.g., early childhood, 

low-incidence). With higher standards and content-specific review panels, performance on this 

measure increased dramatically from the prior year. Moving forward, the Department believes 

that this higher standard and review process will ultimately lead to better data on this measure 

and the quality of projects funded under this program.

Measure: Percentage of scholars who exit training programs prior to completion due to poor 

academic performance.

Year Target Actual

2011 1.9% 1.7%

2012 1.9 1.6

2013 1.9

2014 1.9

2015 1.9

2016 1.9

Additional Information: Grantees submit data annually through the Department Personnel 

Preparation Data Report (PPD) Web-based data collection (see: http://www.oseppdp.ed.gov). 

No calculation is necessary. The data are taken directly from the PPD data collection. 

Approximately 1.6 percent of all scholars receiving program funds exited their training programs 

early due to poor academic performance in 2012, down from 2.0 percent, 1.9 percent, and 

1.7 percent in 2009, 2010, and 2011, respectively, but still higher than 1.4 percent in 2007 and 

1.6 percent in 2008. This measure is calculated by dividing the total number of scholars exiting 

their training program due to poor academic performance (n=27 in 2012) and dividing it by the 

total number of scholars completing a training program (n=1,590 in 2012) and the number of 

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scholars exiting their training program prior to completion for any reason (n=101 in 2012). Data 

for fiscal year 2013 are expected to be available in fall 2015.

A low number of scholars exiting their training programs early could reflect either a strong 

recruitment effort by IHEs to ensure high quality students receive Federal scholarship funds or a 

strong student support network in programs receiving Federal funds. While there is still room 

for improvement, IHEs on average seem to be adequately ensuring that scholars do not exit 

training programs prior to completion due to poor academic performance. However, despite the 

reasonably strong performance of grantees on this measure, the Department believes that this 

measure is essential to maintain to ensure that grantees continue to maintain high standards 

when recruiting scholars.

Measure: Percentage of degree/certification recipients who are working in the area(s) for which 

they are trained upon program completion.

Year Target Actual

2011 84% 82%

2012 84

2013 85

2014 85

2015 85

2016 85

Additional Information: Grantees submit data annually through the PPD Web-based data 

collection. This measure is calculated by dividing the total number of degree and certification 

recipients who were working in the area(s) for which they received training at the completion of 

the program by all degree and certification recipients who were employed in their area of 

training, recipients who were not employed in their area of training, recipients for whom 

grantees did not know if they were employed upon program completion, recipients who were not 

employed, and recipients for whom employment data were missing. Individuals who received 

only an endorsement are excluded from all calculations. 

Although performance on this measure increased from the prior year, approximately 1 in 5 

degree/certification recipients funded through this program do not work in the area for which 

they were trained upon graduation. It is difficult to determine the ultimate driver of this trend. It 

is possible that a number of degree recipients are doing so purposefully. While the program has 

in place a service obligation requirement that mandates that degree recipients provide services 

to infants, toddlers, and children with disabilities, it is possible that a portion of graduates have 

chosen to provide special education and related services outside of their area of expertise or to 

not provide special education and related services at all. Additionally, teaching assignments are 

not wholly at the discretion of the program’s graduates, but are instead largely at the discretion 

of LEAs and schools that may opt to place a teacher in an assignment that is out of area. Given 

the continuing impacts of the recession, shrinking local and State government budgets, and the 

increased number of teacher layoffs, we are likely to see a number of teachers placed “out-ofarea” as LEAs attempt to cope with smaller numbers of personnel. With smaller local budgets 

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and fewer LEAs hiring, program graduates may accept teaching positions outside of their field of 

training in order to secure employment with a view to transition to their area of expertise in a 

number of years. The Department is currently conducting a review to determine if those 

graduates who are not working in the area for which they were trained are nevertheless 

employed in special education or if they are working in non-special education placements. The 

Department is also considering additional steps to ensure that grantees more effectively recruit 

and train students who will work in the area for which they received training; to improve training 

courses and curricula to ensure that graduates are competitive in the market; and to promote 

high quality residency programs that help graduates build relationships with LEAs and increase 

their competitiveness. 

In January 2015, the Department shifted its data collection tool for this measure to a new online 

survey instrument which will increase data validity and reliability. Data from the new survey 

instrument for fiscal year 2012 will be available beginning in summer 2015.

Measure: Percentage of degree/certification recipients who are working in the area(s) for which 

they are trained upon program completion and who are fully qualified under IDEA.

Year Target Actual

2011 80% 79%

2012 83

2013 83

2014 83

2015 83

2016 83

Additional Information: Grantees submit data annually through the PPD Web-based data 

collection. This measure is calculated by dividing the total number of non-leadership degree 

recipients who were working in the area(s) for which they received training at the completion of 

the program and who are highly qualified by all degree recipients who were employed, who 

were not employed, and for whom the employment status was not known, minus students 

working in positions for which the State does not have certification or licensure requirements. 

Note that the population included in calculations for this measure differs from the population 

included in the previous measure. While the denominator in the previous measure includes all 

students currently employed, not employed, and those for whom employment status was not 

known, the denominator here excludes students working in positions for which the State has no 

licensure or certification requirements. Additionally, scholars who received only an 

endorsement, as well as students who received leadership training, are excluded from all 

calculations because highly qualified status does not apply to these individuals. 

As noted in the discussion of the previous measure, there are a number of reasons why 

degree/certification recipients funded through this program may not work in the area for which 

they were trained upon program completion. More importantly, the comparison of this measure 

to the previous one provides an important insight into the alignment of training programs 

supported under this program and the certification standards outlined in IDEA. Despite 

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improvement in this measure over the last 4 years, this measure has consistently lagged behind 

the previous one by 3 to 5 percentage points, indicating that, even of those individuals who 

obtain employment in the area for which they were trained, a consistent subset do not meet the 

certification standards of the field despite program regulations that require program graduates to 

meet State certification and licensure standards. The Department is currently taking several 

steps to determine the full extent and cause of this shortfall and address it. Through updated 

data collection instruments employed in fiscal year 2011, the Department seeks to gather more 

information about the subset of scholars who do not meet State certification and licensure 

standards and the specific causes (e.g., not taking or failing State licensure exams, or a lack of 

appropriate coursework). In its grant application review process, the Department has provided 

greater direction to reviewers and applicants to ensure a more thorough review of course syllabi 

submitted by applicants to ensure that program funds are used to support high quality 

programs. Additionally, through a new technical assistance center funded in fiscal year 2012, 

the Department is providing support to a number of teacher and paraprofessional training 

programs to restructure their curricula to align with State standards for certification and 

accreditation. 

In January 2015, the Department shifted its data collection tool for this measure to a new online 

survey instrument which will increase data validity and reliability. Data from the new survey 

instrument for fiscal year 2012 will be available beginning in summer 2015.

Efficiency Measures

The Department established one efficiency measure for the Personnel Preparation program. 

This measure is: 

Measure: The Federal cost per degree or certification program recipient working in the area(s) 

in which they were trained upon program completion.

Year Target Actual

2011 $25,000 $32,822

2012 25,000 30,256

2013 25,000

2014 25,000

2015 25,000

2016 25,000

Additional Information: This measure links directly to the program’s annual performance 

measures, and should enable comparisons across grantees or sub-sets of similar grantees. 

The Department is currently working with a contractor to analyze grantee-level results to identify 

high performing institutions that other grantees can look to as examples for improving program 

performance. Grantee-level data will also be used to compare the relative efficiency of program 

grantees, both in relation to one another as well as in relation to other Federal programs that 

provide graduate level scholarships. 

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The data used to calculate this measure come from the Department’s PPD Web-based data 

collection. The cost per degree/certification program recipient is calculated for individual 

cohorts of grantees by dividing the sum of all project costs supported with Federal funds (across 

all years of each individual scholar’s training) ($40,150,210 in fiscal year 2012) by the number of 

degree recipients who successfully completed funded training programs closing in that year and 

who are fully qualified (1,327 in 2012). Results on this measure were higher in fiscal years 2011 

and 2012 than in previous years, but the Department believes these increased costs actually 

reflect the fact that a larger proportion of grants expiring in that year supported doctoral training 

programs (30 percent of grants in 2012, compared to only 25 percent of grants in 2010), which 

tend to be more expensive per scholar than those at the masters’ level. Data for fiscal 

year 2013 are expected to be available in fall 2015.

Other Performance Information

At the end of fiscal year 2007, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) awarded a $2.8 million, 

4-year contract for the evaluation of the Personnel Development Program. The evaluation 

included two separate components. The first was a study of IHEs that have applied for funds to 

train personnel under the program. This portion of the study was designed to: (1) collect 

descriptive data from all the funded and non-funded applicants to the fiscal year 2006 and fiscal 

year 2007 competitions (approximately 185 funded and 265 non-funded), and (2) document 

changes to the funded applicants’ courses of study. The second component of the evaluation 

was a study of the national centers funded under the program. This component of the 

evaluation was designed to: (1) document the products and services generated by the national 

centers; (2) produce a rough estimate of their costs; and (3) rate the quality, relevance, and 

usefulness of a sample of those products and services. The study of the national centers 

included all 12 of the centers funded between 2001 and 2008.

The study (see http://ies.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=NCEE20144007) determined 

that, in the fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2007 competitions, the percentage of successful 

applications was higher for public IHEs than for private IHEs (37 percent versus 32 percent), for 

doctorate-granting IHEs than for non-doctorate-granting IHEs (38 percent versus 25 percent), 

and for minority institutions than for non-minority institutions (38 percent versus 34 percent). Of 

the 190 applications that were funded in the fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2007 competitions, 

53 percent of funded applications proposed new courses of study. Of unsuccessful applicants 

proposing a new course of study in their application, only 8 percent were developed without 

funding (compared to 88 percent of existing courses of study that were maintained without 

funding).

In funded training programs in which scholar stipends were required, 73 percent of grant funds 

were used for monetary support for scholars. An additional 18 percent of grant funding was 

used to support faculty in that training program. Additionally, in supported programs, 88 percent 

of enrolled students received monetary support from the grant in the 2008-2009 academic year, 

averaging $11,558 per scholar.

By the 2008-2009 academic year, 3,038 scholars enrolled in courses of study funded in the 

fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2007 competitions had completed their training, averaging 17 

scholars per program, with 86 percent receiving State-issued credentials and 46 percent 

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earning a master’s or education specialist degree. The study also determined that the average 

number of enrollees, scholars, and completers in funded training programs increased from the 

academic year preceding funding to the first year of full grant funding.

In funded training programs that identified changes made since the time of application, an 

expert panel determined that 58 percent of those changes were of “high” or “very high” quality, 

and 55 percent were of “high” or “very high” relevance/usefulness.

Of non-funded training programs in the fiscal year 2006 competition, 70 percent reapplied to the 

same priority/focus area within 4 years, and 50 percent were funded. Of those with non-funded 

applications in the fiscal year 2007 competition, 57 percent reapplied to the same priority/focus 

area within 3 years and 33 percent were funded.

The study also assessed the work of national centers funded under this program between fiscal 

years 2001 and 2007. They determined that 77 percent of “signature” products/services of 

these centers were “high” or “very high” quality and 82 percent of them were “high” or “very 

high” relevance/usefulness. They also determined that 73 percent of “nonsignature” 

products/services of these centers were “high” or “very high” quality and 68 percent were “high” 

or “very high” relevance/usefulness. 

The study also examined the costs of various products and services provided by the centers, 

where possible. The largest number of products and services identified were presentations and 

webinars (47 percent of all identified). Only 10 of 12 centers were able to provide individualized 

costs for products and services, and they reported them for 51 percent of the total produced by 

all 12 centers. The largest share of costs reported by the centers was for 69 conferences, 

institutes, or workshops, totaling 48 percent of the identified costs. These included centerproduced events for the purposes of training recipients, providing general TA, or disseminating 

information to targeted recipients. 

 

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Parent information centers

National activities: Parent information centers

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part D, Subpart 3, Sections 671-673)

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 01

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$27,411 $27,411 0

_________________

1 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding for this program is proposed in fiscal year 

2016 through appropriations language.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Parent Information Centers program is one of the primary vehicles under the Individuals 

with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for providing information and training to parents of 

children with disabilities. The program supports competitive awards to help ensure that:

• Children with disabilities and their parents receive training and information designed to 

assist these children in meeting developmental and functional goals and challenging 

academic achievement goals, and in being prepared to lead productive independent adult 

lives;

• Children with disabilities and their parents receive training and information on their rights, 

responsibilities, and protections under IDEA, in order to develop the skills necessary to 

cooperatively and effectively participate in planning and decision making relating to early 

intervention, educational, and transitional services; and

• Parents receive coordinated and accessible technical assistance and information to assist 

them in improving early intervention, educational, and transitional services and results for 

their children and families. 

The IDEA authorizes three types of competitive projects: parent training and information 

centers, community parent resource centers, and technical assistance for parent centers. The 

award period for these projects is typically 5 years.

Parent training and information centers must serve parents of children of all ages (birth to 26) 

and all types of disabilities. Awards are made only to parent organizations as defined by IDEA. 

The training and information provided by the centers must meet the training and information 

needs of parents of children with disabilities living in areas served by the centers, particularly 

underserved parents and parents of children who may be inappropriately identified. At least one 

award for a parent training and information center must be made in each State, subject to the 

receipt of acceptable applications. Large and heavily populated States have multiple centers 

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that serve designated counties. One center specifically serves the unique needs of military 

families and another center serves Native American families across the country.

The parent centers also play an important role in dispute resolution by explaining to parents the 

benefits of alternative methods of dispute resolution, such as mediation, which States are 

required, by the IDEA, to make available. Parent center staff attended or facilitated over 1,000 

alternative dispute resolution sessions in 2014. These alternative methods of dispute resolution 

can help avoid costly litigation. As part of that role, parent centers are required, if State 

educational agencies choose, to contract with those State educational agencies to provide 

individuals who will meet with parents to explain the IDEA-mandated mediation process.

The Department allocates funds to parent centers through a formula based on three weighted 

indicators of need: State population of ages 0 to 26 (85 percent), child poverty (10 percent), and 

rural school enrollment (5 percent), with all centers receiving at least $200,000. No center will 

receive a reduction of more than 20 percent below the amount of their fiscal year 2007 grant. 

When the appropriation for the program increases, this formula ensures that centers in States 

with the greatest need and the lowest per capita funding receive more funds. 

Community parent resource centers are parent training and information centers, operated by 

local parent organizations, that help ensure underserved parents of children with disabilities, 

including low-income parents, parents of children who are English learners, and parents with 

disabilities, have the training and information they need to enable them to participate effectively 

in helping their children. Community parent resource centers are required to establish 

cooperative partnerships with the other parent training and information centers in their States.

Technical assistance is authorized to assist parent training and information centers, including 

community centers, in areas such as coordinating parent training efforts, disseminating 

scientifically based research and information, and the effective use of technology. These 

technical assistance services enhance the capacity of parent centers to serve parents 

effectively. The parent technical assistance center network maintains a Web site with a wide 

variety of information and materials for parents and professionals, as well as a directory of the 

parent centers (http://www.parentcenternetwork.org/).

In order to receive an award for a parent center, the IDEA requires that applicants must be a 

parent organization that has a board of directors, the majority of which must consist of parents 

of children with disabilities. The board must also include individuals with disabilities and 

individuals working in the fields of special education, related services, or early intervention. The 

parent and professional members of the board must be broadly representative of the population 

to be served, including low-income parents and parents of English learners.

While parent centers serve as direct resources for parents and families, they also act as referral 

points to other resources such as those available under the Technical Assistance and 

Dissemination program and from the Institute of Education Sciences. Technical Assistance and 

Dissemination activities are coordinated with Parent Information Centers program activities to 

ensure that parents participating in parent training projects as well as other parents have access 

to valid information that is designed to address their needs.

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Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands)

2011.................................................................................... $27,972

2012 ..................................................................................... 28,917

2013...................................................................................... 27,411

2014...................................................................................... 27,411

2015...................................................................................... 27,411

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration’s request of $27.4 million for fiscal year 2016 for the Parent Information 

Centers program would provide $3.0 million for new awards to Community Parent Resource 

Centers (CPRCs) and $24.3 million for continuing awards to Parent Training and Information 

Centers (PTIs) and technical assistance centers. The request would support a total of 103 

Centers, including 64 PTIs, 30 CPRCs, and 9 Technical Assistance Centers. Together, 

these centers provide training and information to over one million parents and professionals 

each year. Family involvement in children's learning is critical to achieving high-quality 

education. Decades of research show that positive school-family partnerships can be built to 

inform families about and involve families in their children's learning. Studies show that all 

families can take concrete steps that significantly help their children succeed in school, 

regardless of their income, education, disability status, or knowledge of the English language.

The training and information provided by the parent centers help ensure that parents have the 

knowledge and skills to help their children with disabilities succeed. In addition to assisting 

parents to understand better the nature of their children's disabilities and their educational and 

developmental needs, the centers provide training and information on how parents can work 

with professionals serving their children. For parents of school-aged children, this includes 

participating with administrators and teachers in the development of their child’s individualized 

education programs (IEPs), as provided for by the IDEA. For parents of infants and toddlers 

receiving early intervention services, it means participating with a multidisciplinary team in the 

development of individualized family service plans (IFSPs). Parent centers also serve as 

sources of information and training for hundreds of thousands of teachers and other 

professionals each year. 

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which includes provisions that affect all 

children, emphasizes the role of parents in education through provisions that stress shared 

accountability between schools and parents for high student achievement, educational options, 

local development of parental involvement plans, and building parents’ capacity for using 

effective practices to improve their children’s academic achievement. For a non-regulatory 

guidance document that provides a detailed overview of parent involvement in the context of 

ESEA, see: http://www.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/parentinvguid.doc. 

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Parent centers use a variety of mechanisms for providing information to parents and 

professionals. These include Web sites, one-on-one support, telephone call-in numbers, 

training workshops, and dissemination of written materials. In recent years, the Office of 

Special Education Programs (OSEP) has worked with parent centers to improve their Web sites 

and make their resources available in languages other than English, particularly Spanish (see 

http://www.neparentcenters.org/glossary/index.html). 

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 2015 2016

Program Funding:

Parent Training & Information Centers:

New: Parent Training & Info Centers $6,646 $14,118 0

Continuations : Parent Trai ning & Info C enters 14,953 7,264 $21,184

Subtotal: Par ent Trai ning & Info C enters 21,599 21,382 21,184

Community Parent Resource Centers:

New: Community Parent Resource Centers 0 0 3,052

Continuations: Communi ty Par ent R esource C enters 2,800 2,800 0

Subtotal: Community Parent Resource Centers 2,800 2,800 3,052

Technical Assistance Centers:

New: Technical Assistance 302 0 0

Continuations: Technical Assistance 2,398 2,893 2,899

Subtotal: Technical Assistance 2,700 2,893 2,899

Other (contracts):

New 88 0 0

Continuations: Other 160 256 216

Subtotal: Other 248 256 216

Peer Review of new award applications: 64 80 60

Total Program Funding:

New: Total 7,036 14,118 3,052

Continuations: Total 20,311 13,213 24,299

Peer Review: Total 64 80 60

Total 27,411 27,411 27,411

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PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 2015 2016

Number of Projects:

Parent Training & Information Centers:

New: Parent Training & Info Centers 23 41 0

Continuations: Parent Training & Info Centers 43 23 64

Community Parent Resource Centers:

New: Community Parent Resource Centers 0 0 30

Continuations: Community Parent Resource Centers 28 28 0

Technical Assistance Centers:

New: Technical Assistance 1 0 0

Continuations: Technical Assistance 8 9 9

Total number of grant projects:

New: Total 24 41 30

Continuations: Total 79 60 73

Total 103 101 103

Other (contracts):

New 1 0 0

Continuations: Other 2 3 3

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in fiscal 

year 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by 

this program.

Goal: To provide training and information to parents of children with disabilities. 

Objective 1: Improve the quality of parent training and information projects.

Objective 2: Parents served by Special Education Parent Information Centers will be 

knowledgeable about their IDEA rights and responsibilities. 

Objective 3: Parents served by Special Education Parent Information Centers will be able to 

advocate for scientifically or evidence-based practices for their child.

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Six performance measures have been developed for the Parent Information Centers program. 

There are three annual measures, two long-term measures, and one efficiency measure.

Annual Measures

The three annual measures deal with the quality, relevance, and usefulness of products and 

services provided by the program. These measures were developed as part of a crossdepartmental effort to make measures relating to technical assistance and dissemination 

activities more consistent Departmentwide. However, the measures were adapted to reflect the 

unique purposes of the Parent Information Centers program. Targets for 2012 through 2016

were established based on performance data from 2007 to 2013. The measures are:

Measure: The percentage of materials used by Parent Information Centers projects that are 

deemed to be of high quality by an independent review panel of qualified experts or individuals 

with appropriate expertise to review the substantive content of the products and services.

Year Target Actual

2011 76% 89%

2012 78 96

2013 80 100

2014 97 79

2015 97

2016 97

Additional Information: Data are collected and analyzed by a contractor, using expert panels 

of reviewers who assess grant implementation by reviewing a randomly selected sample of 

materials disseminated by centers for the purpose of training and informing parents. In an effort 

to ensure that the sample materials reviewed in 2013 were representative of all grantees, 

1 service was drawn from a stratified random sample of CPRCs and PTIs, for a total of 

28 services reviewed. Prior to 2013, OSEP collected and analyzed data on this measure for 

both products and services. However, because the primary focus of CPRCs and PTIs is on the 

provision of services, beginning in 2013, the Department no longer collected information on 

products in order to more accurately reflect the work of these centers.

All services are reviewed and scored on the basis of a rubric, developed by the OSEP, that is 

designed to yield ratings on the extent to which the content of submitted materials is: evidencebased, valid, complete, and up-to-date. Specifically, the rubric is designed to yield ratings on 

the basis of the following two quality dimensions: (1) Substance (does the service reflect the 

best of current research and theory or policy guidance, as demonstrated by a scientifically- or 

evidence-based approach, a solid conceptual framework, appropriate citations, and other 

evidence of conceptual soundness?); and (2) Communication (does the service have clarity in 

its presentation, as evidenced by being free of errors, appropriately formatted, and well 

organized?). The total score for any individual service reviewed is the sum of the two quality 

dimension sub-scores. High quality for any individual service is defined as a total score of six or 

higher of nine possible points. Prior to 2013, this same methodology was used for both 

products and services.

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This measure is calculated by dividing the number of individual services that received an 

average quality rating of six or better (27 services) by the total number of services reviewed 

(34), multiplied by 100 percent. Prior to 2013, this same methodology was used for both 

products and services. For 2014, 79 percent (27/34 = 0.794 x 100 percent = 79.4 percent) of 

services were deemed to be of high quality, which is a decrease compared to 2013 and falls 

short of the target level. The Department continues to use the feedback from the expert panel 

to work with grantees to improve continuously their services. 

Measure: The percentage of Parent Information Centers products and services deemed to be 

of high relevance to educational and early intervention policy or practice by an independent 

review panel of qualified members of the Parent Information Centers target audience. 

Year Target Actual

2011 96% 99%

2012 96 100

2013 96 96

2014 97 85

2015 97

2016 97

Additional Information: Data are collected and analyzed by a contractor, using panels of 

special education parent stakeholders to review a randomly selected sample of materials 

disseminated by centers for the purpose of training and informing parents. In an effort to ensure 

that the sample materials reviewed in 2013 were representative, 1 service was drawn from a 

stratified random sample of CPRCs and PTIs, for a total of 28 services reviewed. Prior to 2013, 

OSEP collected and analyzed data on this measure for both products and services. However, 

because the primary focus of CPRCs and PTIs is on the provision of services, beginning 

in 2013, the Department no longer collected information on products in order to more accurately 

reflect the work of these centers.

All materials are reviewed and scored on the basis of a rubric, developed by OSEP, that is 

designed to yield ratings on the materials’ responsiveness to priority issues and challenges 

confronting the target groups. Specifically, the rubric is designed to yield ratings on the basis of 

the following three dimensions related to relevance: (1) Need (does the content of the material 

attempt to solve an important problem or critical issue?); (2) Pertinence (does the content of the 

material match the problem or issue facing the target group or groups?); and (3) Reach (to what 

extent is the content of the material applicable to diverse populations within the target group?). 

The total score for any individual service reviewed is the sum of the three relevance dimension 

sub-scores. High relevance for any individual service is defined as a total score of six or higher 

of nine possible points.

This measure is calculated by dividing the number of individual services that received an 

average relevance rating of six or better (29 services) by the total number of services reviewed 

(34), multiplied by 100 percent. Prior to 2013, this same methodology was used for both 

products and services. For fiscal year 2014, 85.3 percent (29/34 = 0.853 x 100 percent = 

96.4 percent) of services were deemed to be of high relevance.

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National activities: Parent information centers

Based on the most recent years of data it appears that program grantees generally do a good 

job of ensuring that products and services are of high relevance to education and early 

intervention policy or practice. The actual percentage of materials judged to be of high 

relevance did not meet the target, but only one of the grantees that failed to be judged of high 

relevance scored below a five of nine possible points.) The Department is using the feedback 

from the expert panel to work with grantees to improve their services and maintain the high 

standard achieved in 2013. 

Measure: The percentage of all Parent Information Centers products and services deemed to 

be useful by target audiences to improve educational or early intervention policy or practice. 

Year Target Actual

2011 95% 92%

2012 95 100

2013 96 93

2014 97 88

2015 97

2016 97

Additional Information: Data are collected and analyzed by a contractor, using a panel of six 

to eight parent stakeholders who assess grant implementation by reviewing a randomly selected 

sample of materials (n = 28) disseminated by the centers. In an effort to ensure that the sample 

materials reviewed were representative, 1 service were drawn from a stratified random sample 

of 28 CPRCs and PTIs, for a total of 28 services reviewed. Prior to 2013, OSEP collected and

analyzed data on this measure for both products and services. However, because the primary 

focus of CPRCs and PTIs is on the provision of services, beginning in 2013, the Department no 

longer collected information on products in order to more accurately reflect the work of these 

centers.

All materials are reviewed and scored on the basis of a rubric, developed by OSEP, that is 

designed to yield ratings on the extent to which the content can be easily and quickly adopted or 

adapted by the target group, and the likelihood that the product or service, if adopted, will 

produce the desired result. Specifically, the rubric is designed to yield ratings on the basis of 

the following three dimensions related to usefulness: (1) Ease (does the content of the service

description address a problem or issue in an easily understood way, with directions or guidance 

regarding how a problem or issue can be addressed?); (2) Replicability (is it likely that the 

information derived from the service will eventually be used by the target group in multiple 

settings to achieve the intended benefit?); and (3) Pertinence (does the content of the material 

match the problem or issue facing the target group or groups?). The total score for any 

individual service reviewed is the sum of the three quality dimension sub-scores. High 

usefulness for any individual product or service is defined as a total score of six or higher of nine

possible points. 

This measure is calculated by dividing the number of individual services that received an 

average usefulness rating of six or better (30 services) by the total number of services 

reviewed (34), multiplied by 100 percent. Prior to 2013, this same methodology was used for 

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National activities: Parent information centers

both products and services. For fiscal year 2014, 88.2 percent (30/34 = 0.882 x 100 percent = 

88.2 percent) of services were deemed to be useful by target audiences. 

Based on the most recent years of data it appears that the program’s grantees generally 

produce products and services that are useful to target audiences. The actual percentage of 

materials judged to be useful decreased from the prior year and failed to meet the target. The 

Department is using the feedback from the expert panel to work with grantees to improve their 

services and maintain the high standard achieved in previous fiscal years.

Long-Term Measures

Two long-term measures have been developed for the program. Data are collected every 

2 years through an OSEP-supported survey of parents who had received services from the 

parent centers. In 2009, OSEP conducted an independent survey of the same population to 

test the validity of these measures. The survey found parents’ answers to questions were not 

significantly different from the original data and confirmed the accuracy of the data collection 

methods used for the following long-term measures:

Measure: The percentage of parents receiving Special Education Parent Information Centers 

services who promote scientifically- or evidence-based practices for their infants, toddlers, 

children and youth.

Year Target Actual

2009 74% 79%

2011 75 77

2013 76 80

2015 77

Additional Information: Data are collected by the parent centers every 2 years using 

telephone interviews with 25 randomly selected parent stakeholders per center (n = 3,195). The 

National PTI Technical Assistance Center developed the survey. To calculate the measure, a 

weighted sum of the number of parents whose answers displayed an enhanced knowledge of 

evidence-based practices is divided by the total number of parents who responded to four 

relevant survey questions. Baseline data for this relatively new measure were first collected in 

2007 and used to establish targets for later years.

Based on the most recent years of data, it appears that program grantees do a reasonably good 

job of ensuring that parents receiving parent information centers services promote sound 

practices for their children. The Department uses the results of this measure and the annual 

quality measure to provide the centers with feedback on how they can better align their products 

and services with evidence-based practices.

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National activities: Parent information centers

Measure: The percentage of parents receiving Special Education Parent Information Centers 

services who report enhanced knowledge of IDEA rights and responsibilities.

Year Target Actual

2009 85% 91%

2011 87 85

2013 89 88

2015 91

Additional Information: Data are collected for this measure by the parent centers every 

2 years using telephone interviews with 25 randomly selected parent stakeholders per center 

(n = 3,195). The National PTI Technical Assistance Center developed the survey. To calculate 

the measure, a weighted sum of the number of parents whose answers displayed an enhanced 

knowledge of IDEA rights and responsibilities is divided by the total number of parents who 

responded to three relevant survey questions. The targets were established based on results 

from the survey in prior years.

Data for this measure suggest that most of the parents receiving services from the grantees 

believe they enhanced their understanding of their rights and responsibilities under IDEA. 

However, while the actual percentage of parents who reported enhanced knowledge increased 

from last year, performance on this measure still fell below the target level.

Efficiency Measure

Measure: The Federal cost per unit of output provided by the Special Education Parent 

Training and Information Centers, by category.

Year Target Actual

2011 $1.14 $1.13

2012 1.12 1.26

2013 1.10 1.17

2014 1.08 1.14

2015 1.08

2016 1.08

Additional Information: The efficiency measure for the Parent Information Centers program is 

“the cost per output, by category, weighted by an intensity rating.” From 2012 through 2014, the 

cost per unit of services exceeded the target level. The Department believes that data for 2012 

represent an outlier, given performance on this measure in 2011 and 2013, which were 

significantly lower than in 2012. 

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National activities: Parent information centers

The data for this measure are collected by a survey developed by the National PTI Technical 

Assistance Center. The measure is calculated by dividing the total value of all Federal funds in 

the Parent Information Centers program by the number of parents reported to be served under 

the program weighted by an index reflecting the intensity of the services provided 

($28,917,243 / 25,419,128 = $1.14). The intensity weights represent the amount of interaction 

and support required to render each type of service. High intensity services such as IEP 

facilitation meetings receive a weight of four; medium intensity services such as group trainings 

and counseling phone calls receive a weight of three and two, respectively; and low intensity 

services such as visits to parent center Web sites receive a weight of one. However, these 

whole number intensity weights do not reflect precise estimates of the relative amounts of time 

and resources associated with different types of services. The Department has examined 

revising these weights, but an analysis of data and input from performance measures specialists 

and parent center directors found that the weights could have a wide range of possible values, 

depending on the mix of services and costs at each parent center. In light of these findings, the 

Department has kept the weights unchanged to preserve the simplicity and transparency of this 

measure. 

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Education al technolog y, media, and materials 

National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part D, Subpart 3, Section 674)

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 01

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$28,047 $28,047 0

_________________

1 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding for this program is proposed in fiscal year 

2016 through appropriations language.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program (formerly known as the Technology 

and Media Services program) is the primary source of support for accessible technology and 

media-related activities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 

Technology activities promote the development, demonstration, and use of technology. It 

includes research on using technology to improve learning and provide access to curricula, and 

technical assistance and dissemination activities to enhance the use of technology by parents 

and teachers. Media and materials activities include closed captioning, video description, timely 

provision of books and other educational materials in accessible formats, and other activities to

improve access to education for students with disabilities. 

The Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program ensures that educational media 

that are not otherwise required to be made accessible are available to students with disabilities. 

Despite the passage of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, 

which expanded the range of media that must be closed captioned and updated accessibility 

standards to include emerging Internet and mobile technologies, significant gaps in captioning 

coverage remain. Mandatory captioning only applies to broadcast television, not to video

broadcast exclusively over the Internet or video produced for classroom viewing. Funding for 

this program supports the captioning and nationwide distribution of thousands of titles of 

educational media per year. 

Video description consists of verbal explanations of key visual elements in a video or television 

program that are inserted into natural pauses in the spoken dialogue. These descriptions 

supplement the regular audio track of the program. They provide individuals with visual 

impairments access to television and other media that include visual images. Federal law only 

requires video description of 4 hours of television programming a week on each broadcast 

television network and the five most watched cable networks. All other video programming, 

including increasingly popular Internet media, are not subject to description requirements. In 

2013, over 1,200 hours of educational video were described by grantees funded through this 

program. The IDEA requires that description and captioning funds be used only for programs 

that are suitable for use in a classroom setting. These funds may not be used to describe or 

caption news programs even when they are suitable for use in classrooms. 

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Educational materials activities include the preparation of electronic files suitable for efficient 

conversion into specialized accessible formats. The educational materials provided by this 

program are written and published for instructional purposes of students with disabilities in the 

classroom and are required by a State educational agency or local educational agency. As 

such, the timely delivery of these materials supports students’ access to the general curriculum 

and participation in statewide assessments. 

The single largest grant in this program provides funding for the production and distribution of 

textbooks and other educational materials in accessible formats to students with visual 

impairments and other print disabilities. These activities can be accomplished more rapidly and 

cheaply than ever before due to recent advances in digital technologies. In 2013, this grantee 

provided more than 1.3 million accessible books and other materials at no cost to eligible 

students across the country.

The Department makes awards for projects throughout the fiscal year. The initial project 

periods of most awards start at the beginning of the fiscal year following the year of the 

appropriation. The duration of awards typically varies from 3 to 5 years.

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands)

2011 .................................................................................... $28,644

2012 ...................................................................................... 29,588

2013 ...................................................................................... 28,047

2014 ...................................................................................... 28,047

2015 ...................................................................................... 28,047 

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration’s request for fiscal year 2016 for the Educational Technology, Media, and 

Materials program is $28.0 million, the same as the 2015 level. The fiscal year 2016 request 

would provide approximately $6.7 million for about 7 new awards and approximately 

$21.3 million for 27 continuation projects. 

Projects funded under the program support improved access to, and participation in, the general 

education curriculum; developmentally appropriate activities for preschool children; and 

statewide assessments. By supporting research on, and dissemination of, accessible 

instructional materials and technology, this program helps ensure that students with disabilities 

receive a free appropriate public education guaranteed for them under the IDEA. This program 

funds innovations in accessible technologies and broadens the understanding of how 

technology can be effectively utilized to increase academic achievement. The Administration

believes that improved access and participation result in higher expectations and improved 

outcomes for children with disabilities. 

Educational Technology

The request includes $15.1 million for Technology activities, which promote the development, 

demonstration, and use of accessible technology. This is accomplished primarily through 

research, for which at least $12.7 million is proposed, including $2 million to support 4 new 

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Stepping Up Technology Implementation awards and $8 million for 18 continuing Stepping Up 

projects. These model demonstration grants validate and scale up promising technology-based 

products or interventions such as curriculum materials, accessible products, or instructional 

methodologies. 

Of the $15.1 million research request, about $1.5 million in new funding would be used for the

Center on Online Learning for Students with Disabilities (http://centerononlinelearning.org/). 

This project investigates how the rapid growth of instruction delivered through the Internet 

affects students with disabilities, both positively and negatively, and develops promising 

practices for delivering online instruction to these students. Approximately $1.2 million would 

provide continuation funding for early childhood technology model demonstration grants.

In addition to research projects, the request for Technology activities includes $1.4 million for a 

continuation award to support technical assistance and dissemination activities carried out by 

the Center on Technology and Disability (http://ctdinstitute.org/). This Center is designed to 

increase the capacity of families and providers to advocate for, acquire, and implement effective 

assistive and instructional technology practices, devices, and services. 

The request also would provide $1 million for an award to address the needs of postsecondary 

institutions related to recruiting, enrolling, retaining, and instructing students who are deaf, and 

addressing the varying communication and technology needs of and methods used by 

individuals who are deaf. This project is jointly supported with funds from the Personnel 

Preparation and Technical Assistance and Dissemination programs. Under IDEA section 

682(d)(1)(B), the Department is required to provide at least $4 million of the funds provided for 

programs authorized under subparts 2 and 3 of Part D of IDEA “to address the postsecondary, 

vocational, technical, continuing, and adult education needs of individuals with deafness.” 

Educational Media and Materials

Media and materials activities include a variety of activities targeted toward providing 

educational materials, such as textbooks, in accessible formats for individuals with disabilities, 

particularly deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals and blind and other visually impaired 

individuals. In fiscal year 2016, $12.5 million would be allocated to these activities. 

About $2.2 million of the request would be available for new awards in 2016. Approximately 

$1.5 million would support a new award under the Described and Captioned Media Program

(http://www.dcmp.org), which makes accessible media (video other than television) available at 

no cost to students. This project not only captions and describes educational media, but also 

efficiently distributes the media to schools via the Internet and other channels. The support for 

video description of educational programming is essential for individuals with visual impairments 

because, unlike closed captioning, there are few Federal requirements for providing video 

descriptions. Teachers and students can browse the media library of over 4,000 titles.

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

The IDEA requires the Department to support the National Instructional Materials Access Center 

(NIMAC), which is awarded noncompetitively to the American Printing House for the Blind. The 

NIMAC (http://www.nimac.us/) is a national electronic file repository that makes electronic files 

that comply with the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) available 

for the production of print instructional materials in specialized formats. NIMAC receives source 

files from textbook publishers and provides these files to State and local educational agencies 

for use in producing materials in accessible media, such as braille, audio, and digital text. 

NIMAC contained over 36,000 books and other items as of January 2014. The request includes 

$650,000 for a new award for this project in fiscal year 2016. 

The 2016 request for continuation activities in educational media and materials includes a total 

of $8.4 million for accessible books and other instructional materials. Of this, $6.5 million is for 

an award to support the development, production, and distribution of educational materials in 

accessible formats to students with visual impairments and other print disabilities. The current 

grantee, Bookshare for Education (http://www.bookshare.org), has transformed the provision of 

educational materials in accessible formats by nationally providing free educational media, 

including textbooks, much more efficiently and quickly than was previously possible. 

Approximately $1.2 million of this funding would provide continued support for a project awarded 

in fiscal year 2014 that provides technical assistance to States and other entities on the 

provision of books and other educational materials in accessible formats. In prior years, the 

Department has funded similar projects that developed and supported the widespread use of 

NIMAS, which sets clear guidelines for converting educational media into a variety of accessible 

formats for use by publishers, educational agencies, and students with disabilities.

Continuation projects also include $2.0 million for projects to provide access—through video 

description and captioning—of television programs that are appropriate for use in the classroom 

setting and are not otherwise required to be captioned by the Federal Communications 

Commission. These projects fill in the gaps in Federal accessibility policies to ensure that as 

many educational television programs as possible are accessible to students with visual or 

hearing impairments. The current grantee, the DIAGRAM Center

(http://www.diagramcenter.org/), has developed new standards and open-source software for 

making digital images accessible for students with disabilities. Images and graphics are 

considerably more difficult to make accessible than basic text, but this Center’s tools make 

creating and using accessible images easier, faster, and more cost effective. Prior Department 

investments in this area have made over 1,200 hours of programming accessible per year that 

would otherwise be unavailable to these students. 

The request also includes $700,000 for ongoing support of activities to improve the accessibility 

of educational materials. The new software and hardware used to deliver educational content 

are often not accessible to students with disabilities, even as a greater portion of classroom 

materials are published digitally.

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 ootnote2015 Footnote2016footnote

Program Funding:

Technology:

Technolog y Research:

New technology research $1,492 $1,000 $3,523

Continuations technology research 10,117 11,6401 9,171

Subtotal technology research 11,609 12,640 12,694

Technolog y Technical assistance and dissemination:

New technolog y technical assistance and disseminati on 0 0 0

Continuations technol ogy technical assistance and dissemi nation 1,431 1,435 1,435

Subtotal technolog y technical assistance and disseminati on 1,431 1,435 1,435

Technolog y Projects to address the postsecondary, 

vocational, technical, and adult education 

needs of individuals with deafness:

New 0 0 1,000

Continuations Technolog y Proj ects to address the postsecondar y, vocational, technical, and adult educati on needs of indi vi duals with deafness: 1,000 1,000 0

Subtotal Technolog y Proj ects to address the postsecondar y, vocational, technical, and adul t education needs of indi viduals with deafness: 1,000 1,000 1,000

Subtotal, Technology:

New pr ogram fundi ng subtotal, technolog y 1,492 1,000 4,523

Continuations program funding subtotal , technolog y 12,548 14,075 10,606

Subtotal program fundi ng subtotal, technolog y 14,040 15,075 15,129

Media and Materials:

Medi a ser vicesCaptioned & described accessible media:

New 0 1,955 1,500

Continuations medi a ser vices captioned & described accessibl e medi a 3,998 1,500 1,955

Subtotal medi a ser vices captioned & described accessi ble media 3,998 3,455 3,455

Medi a ser vicesBooks and other instructional materials in 

accessible formats:

New medi a ser vices books and other instructional materials in accessi ble formats 1,218 700 0

Continuations medi a ser vices books and other i nstructional materi als in accessibl e for mats 7,500 1 7,682 8,400

Subtotal medi a ser vices captioned & described accessi ble media 8,718 8,382 8,400

1 Approximately $259 thousand of fiscal year 2014 funds for media services will cover a portion of the 

continuation costs for this activity in fiscal year 2015.

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES (dollars in thousands)

Measures 2014 footnote2015 Footnote2016footnote

Medi a ser vicesNational Instructional Materials Access 

Center (NIMAC) – Statutory earmark

New 0 0 $650

Continuations medi a ser vices national i nstr ucti onal materials access center statutor y earmar k $604 $649 0

Subtotal medi a ser vices nati onal i nstr ucti onal materials access center statutor y ear mar k 604 649 650

Subtotal, Media and Materials:

New pr ogram fundi ng subtotal, media services 1,218 2,655 2,150

Continuations program funding subtotal , medi a ser vices 12,102 9,831 10,355

Subtotal program fundi ng subtotal, media services 13,320 12,486 12,505

Other (e.g. program evaluation contracts):

New 154 0 0

Continuations other 454 368 318

Subtotal, Other, other 608 368 318

Peer review of new award applications: 79 118 95

Total Program Funding: 

New total program funding 2,864 3,655 6,673

Continuations total program funding 25,104 24,274 21,279

Peer review 79 118 95

Total program funding 28,047 28,047 28,047

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in 

FY 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by this 

program.

Seven performance measures have been developed for the Educational Technology, Media, 

and Materials program. Three of these measures are annual measures, two are long-term, and 

the last two are measures of efficiency.

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Annual Measures

The three annual measures deal with the relevance, quality, and usefulness of products and 

services provided by the program.

In assessing the performance under each measure, panels of six to eight experts reviewed a 

sample of products from 28 of the program’s projects. Each project submitted a product or 

multiple products that represents the primary or typical products/services released by that 

grantee during the prior fiscal year. 

Goal: To promote the development, demonstration, and use of accessible technology 

and media services to improve results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with 

disabilities.

Objective: Improve the quality of products produced by projects in the Special Education 

Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program.

Measure: The percentage of Educational Technology, Media, and Materials projects judged to 

be of high quality.

Year Target Actual

2011 97% 97%

2012 97 92

2013 97 94

2014 94 89

2015 94

2016 94

Additional Information: The quality dimensions measured are (1) Substance – does the 

product/service description reflect the best of current research and theory or policy guidance, as 

demonstrated by a scientifically or evidence-based approach, a solid conceptual framework, 

appropriate citations and other evidence of conceptual soundness?; and (2) Communication –

does the product/service description have clarity in its presentation, as evidenced by being free 

of editorial errors, appropriately formatted, and well organized? All of the selected products are 

reviewed and scored on whether the product content is evidence-based, valid, complete, and 

up-to-date. Products and services that receive an average total panel rating of 6 or higher 

across the two criteria are deemed to be of high quality.

The percentage of products judged to be of high quality decreased and did not meet the target 

in fiscal year 2014. However, a high percentage of products were still reported to be of high 

quality. The reviewers judged 25 of the 28 products in the sample to be of high quality. Due to 

the small number of projects that are eligible for this measure, minor changes in the number of 

projects that submit acceptable evidence can cause large drops in the reported percentages. 

As such, the Department plans to reconsider this measure in 2015.

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Measure: The percentage of Educational Technology, Media, and Materials projects judged to 

be of high relevance to improving outcomes of infants, toddlers, children and youth with 

disabilities.

Year Target Actual

2011 97% 91%

2012 97 100

2013 98 94

2014 94 93

2015 94

2016 94

Additional information: All of the selected products were assessed on whether the product 

content was responsive to priority issues and challenges confronting the target groups and 

judged on three dimensions of relevance: (1) Need – does the content of the material attempt 

to solve an important problem or critical issue?; (2) Pertinence – does the content of the 

material match the problem or issue facing the target group or groups?; and (3) Reach – is the 

content of the material applicable to diverse populations within the target group? Products and 

services receiving an average total panel rating of 6 or higher across the three criteria are 

deemed to be of high relevance.

In fiscal year 2014, the percentage of products judged to be of high relevance for this measure 

decreased and did not meet the target level. However, the panel found 26 out of the 28 

products in the sample to be highly relevant for the intended users. Due to the small number of 

projects that are eligible for this measure, minor changes in the number of projects that submit 

acceptable evidence can cause large drops in the reported percentages. As such, the 

Department plans to reconsider this measure in 2015.

Measure: The percentage of Special Education Educational Technology, Media, and Materials 

projects that produce findings, products, and/or services that contribute to improving results for 

infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities.

Year Target Actual

2011 97% 97%

2012 97 92

2013 98 94

2014 94 79

2015 94

2016 94

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Additional information: All selected products were reviewed and scored on whether the 

product content could be easily and quickly adopted or adapted by the target group and produce 

the desired result. The products were judged on three dimensions of usefulness: (1) Ease –

does the content of the product or service description address a problem or issue in an easily 

understood way, with directions or guidance regarding how a problem or issue can be 

addressed?; (2) Replicability – is it likely that the information derived from the product or service 

will eventually be used by the target group to achieve the benefit intended?; and 

(3) Sustainability – is it likely that the information derived from the product or service will 

eventually be used in more than one setting successfully over and over again to achieve the 

intended benefit? Products and services receiving an average panel rating of 6 or higher across 

the three criteria are deemed to be of high usefulness.

Performance on this measure declined in fiscal year 2014 and the target was not met. The 

panel found 22 out of the 28 products in the sample contributed to improving results for children 

with disabilities. Fiscal year 2015 data should make it more evident whether the 15 percentage 

point drop is an anomaly or indicative of a larger trend. 

Long-Term Measures

The following two long-term measures have been developed for the program to provide 

information about the potential impacts of the projects’ products and services on the target 

population. Evidence about outcomes of the target population may take more than 1 year to 

become available; therefore, in fiscal year 2011, the Department modified the data collection to 

every 2 years for both of these measures.

Objective: Investments in the Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program will 

develop and validate current and emerging technologies that incorporate scientifically or 

evidence-based materials and services.

Measure: The percentage of Special Education Educational Technology, Media, and Materials 

projects that validate their products and services.

Year Target Actual

2012 70% 70%

2014 72 100

2016 72

Additional information: Panelists individually assess the strength of the evidence supporting 

the case that each grantee’s products and services have resulted in improving outcomes of 

interest for children with disabilities on a 4-point scale defined differently for research grants and 

technology utilization and technical assistance grants. Grants receiving an average panel score 

of 2 or higher are determined as having validated their products and services.

For research grants, the scale is 3, signifying Superior (one or more well-designed randomized 

controlled trials, quasi-experiment, or single-subject research studies conducted by the project 

that support the case that the project’s products and services result in improving the outcomes 

of interest); 2, signifying Acceptable (any of the types of evidence described above with 

limitations that prevent a rating of 3); 1, signifying Low (any of the types of evidence described 

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

above, but with weaknesses of a substantial degree that result in an unconvincing case that the 

product or service results in improving the outcomes of interest); and 0, signifying Unacceptable 

(little or no evidence of results in improving the outcomes of interest).

For technical assistance and service grants, to receive a rating of 3, the project must meet one 

or more of the following standards: (a) a review of high-quality research that clearly applies to 

the project’s products and services and supports its efficacy in improving the outcomes of 

interest; (b) an evaluation study and/or qualitative study providing evidence that the project’s 

products and services result in improving the outcome of interest; (c) ratings of the project’s 

product and services obtained from users, focus groups, review panel, etc., when used in 

combination with a type of evidence such as (a) or (b) above; or (d) expert opinion derived from 

strong findings or theories in related areas and/or expert opinion buttressed by direct evidence. 

Additionally, the evidence must be of high technical quality and make a convincing case that the 

project’s products and services result in improving the outcomes of interest. For a rating of 2, 

the project may demonstrate any of the types of evidence described above with limitations that 

prevent a rating of 3. For a rating of 1, a project may demonstrate any of the types of evidence 

described above, but with weaknesses of a substantial degree that result in an unconvincing 

case that the product or service results in improving the outcomes of interest. For a rating of 0, 

a project demonstrates little or no evidence of results in improving the outcomes of interest.

This measure only includes projects that have entered the dissemination phase of their grants 

or completed the final year of their grants and submitted a final report. Each of the four projects 

that were rated in the 2014 data collection submitted acceptable evidence of validity. 

Objective: Investments in the Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program will 

make validated, evidence-based technologies to improve results for infants, toddlers, children 

and youth with disabilities available for widespread use. 

Measure: The percentage of Special Education Educational Technology, Media, and Materials 

projects that make validated technology products and services available for widespread use. 

Year Target Actual

2012 100% 83%

2014 95 50

2016 95

Additional information: This measure evaluates the extent to which each project rated in the 

measure above as “validated” has submitted evidence of the availability of, and customer 

support for, their technology-based products and services. In fiscal year 2014, the panel 

reviewed evidence from four centers that entered the dissemination phase of their projects or 

completed the final year of their grants and submitted a final report. Two centers that were 

rated as “validated” submitted sufficient evidence of the availability of their products or services 

to the target population. By comparison, five of the six centers reviewed in 2012 were rated as 

“validated.” Due to the small number of projects that are eligible for this measure, minor 

changes in the number of projects that submit acceptable evidence can cause large drops in the 

reported percentages. As such, the Department plans to reconsider this measure in 2015.

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National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Efficiency Measures

The Department has established two efficiency measures for the Educational Technology, 

Media, and Materials program. The two measures provide data on accessible book distribution 

and on video captioning and description projects, respectively. The Department recently 

eliminated a measure on the efficiency of research projects due to concerns about the 

transparency and validity of the measure’s calculation methodology.

Measure: The Federal cost per download from the accessible educational materials production 

and distribution project funded by the Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program. 

Year Target Actual

2011 $7.0

2012 5.5

2013 $5.5 5.0

2014 5.0 4.1

2015 5.0

2016 5.0

Additional Information: One of the major activities supported by this program is the 

development, production, and distribution of educational books and materials in accessible 

formats to students with visual impairments and other print disabilities. The current grantee 

performing activities under the Department’s accessible educational materials priority is 

Bookshare, Inc. This measure, new in 2011, is calculated as the annual amount of Federal 

funding for the project divided by the number of files downloaded from the project by eligible 

students or teachers and sponsors on behalf of eligible students (In 2013: $6,500,000 / 

1,600,985 = $4.10). After downloading these files, eligible students can access the content in 

specialized formats, such as audiobooks or braille. Bookshare is the most widely used 

accessible book producer and distributor in the country. This project works in conjunction with 

other Department-funded projects, such as the National Instructional Materials Access Center, 

to ensure that eligible students have appropriate materials needed to access the general 

curriculum. The Department established targets for 2014 through 2016 in fiscal year 2014. 

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

National activities: Educational technology, media, and materials

Measure: The Federal cost per hour of video description funded by the Educational 

Technology, Media, and Materials program.

Year Target Actual

2011 $2,258

2012 1,962

2013 2,442

2014 $1,669 2,548

2015 1,669

2016 1,669

Additional information: The educational media measure is calculated as the total amount of 

funding provided for description activities ($2,499,516 in 2014) divided by the total number of 

hours of accessible described media produced (981 hours in 2014). The cost of an hour of 

media description increased from fiscal years 2013 to 2014. Recent advances in technology 

have increased automation in the descriptioning process; however, costs increased in 2014

because of the shift from closed captioning projects to video descriptioning projects, which are 

more time intensive. No target is shown for 2013 because the target in that year was based on 

incorrectly reported data. Targets in 2014 and subsequent years are based on corrected data

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Special Ol ympics educati on pr ograms

Special Olympics education programs

(Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act of 2004, section 3(a))

(dollars in thousands)

FY 2016 Authorization: 0 1

Budget Authority: 

2015 2016 Change

$7,583 $7,583 0

_________________

1 The GEPA extension expired September 30, 2011; continued funding is proposed for this program in FY 2016 

through appropriations language.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act of 2004 authorizes the Departments of 

Education, State, and Health and Human Services to make discretionary grant awards to the 

Special Olympics to support activities in a number of areas related to the Special Olympics. 

The Department of Education is authorized to make awards for:

1) Activities to promote the expansion of Special Olympics, including activities to increase the 

participation of individuals with intellectual disabilities within the United States; and

2) The design and implementation of Special Olympics education programs, including character 

education and volunteer programs that support the purposes of the Special Olympics Sport and

Empowerment Act of 2004, that can be integrated into classroom instruction and are consistent 

with academic content standards.

In addition to funds appropriated under this authority, Special Olympics has received over 

$5 million in non-competitive grant awards from the Department since fiscal year 1999, including 

funds for national and world games and affiliated programs.

Funding levels for the past 5 fiscal years were:

Fiscal Year (dollars in thousands) footnote

2011....................................................................................... $8,079

2012 ........................................................................................ 8,000

2013......................................................................................... 7,583

2014......................................................................................... 7,583

2015......................................................................................... 7,583

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Special Olympics education programs

FY 2016 BUDGET REQUEST

The Administration requests $7.6 million for Special Olympics education programs, the same as 

the fiscal year 2015 level. The Administration’s request would support efforts to promote the 

expansion of Special Olympics and the design and implementation of Special Olympics 

education programs, specifically, the Special Olympics National Youth Activation Demonstration 

Project (Project UNIFY).

Project UNIFY, a national youth sports demonstration program, is the major activity funded by 

this direct appropriation. In addition to sports and physical education in integrated settings, this 

project also provides opportunities for youth to participate in leadership development, service 

learning, and structured interpersonal communication and socialization activities. The activities 

supported under this program assist individuals with intellectual disabilities in becoming 

productive members of their communities by dispelling negative stereotypes and promoting 

positive and inclusive learning environments.

PROGRAM OUTPUT MEASURES

Measures 2014 2015 2016

Project UNIFY

Number of funded State programs 38 38 38

Number of schools participating 2,400 2,500 2,600

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Performance Measures

This section presents selected program performance information, including, for example, GPRA 

goals, objectives, measures, and performance targets and data; and an assessment of the 

progress made toward achieving program results. Achievement of program results is based on 

the cumulative effect of the resources provided in previous years and those requested in 

FY 2016 and future years, as well as the resources and efforts invested by those served by this 

program. 

Objective: The Special Olympics will increase the inclusion and awareness of students with 

intellectual disabilities.

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Special Olympics education programs

Measure: The percent of school liaisons who report that Project UNIFY helps raise awareness 

about students with intellectual disabilities.

Year Target Actual

2011 66%

2012 65

2013 66

2014 67%

2015 67

2016 67

Measure: The percent of school liaisons who report that Project UNIFY increases opportunities 

for students with intellectual disabilities to be involved in school activities.

Year Target Actual

2011 52%

2012 58

2013 60

2014 61%

2015 61

2016 61

Additional information: Data were reported for these measures starting in 2011. To collect

the data, Special Olympics engaged external evaluators to survey school liaisons at the end of 

the program year. School liaisons are volunteers, typically teachers, who administer Special 

Olympics programming at the school level. Their perceptions are not direct indicators of 

programmatic outcomes. However, they are informed by close experience with participating 

students and the Special Olympics organization. These annual measures provide perspectives 

on the level of success that the Special Olympics achieves in promoting positive and inclusive 

learning environments. The data indicate the program is improving the awareness of and 

opportunities for students with disabilities. 

Objective: The Special Olympics will promote the expansion of opportunities provided by 

Special Olympics programs for students with intellectual disabilities to participate in service 

learning, character education, and structured interpersonal communication and socialization 

activities that can be integrated into classroom instruction and are consistent with academic 

content standards.

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Special Olympics education programs

Measure: The number of schools participating in Project UNIFY.

Year Target Actual

2011 2,025

2012 2,150

2013 2,310

2014 2,400

2015 2,500

2016 2,600

Measure: The number of schools participating in a Project UNIFY High Activation Program.

Year Target Actual

2011 810

2012 924

2013 987

2014 1,056

2015 1,150

2016 1,200

Additional information: Special Olympics has aggressively expanded the reach of Project 

UNIFY during recent years to more than 2,310 locations in 38 states. There were 718 

elementary schools, 481 middle schools, and 1,028 high schools, and 83 other schools 

participating in Project UNIFY in 2012. Schools typically offer programming at one of two 

intensity levels: High Activation or Building Bridges. High Activation schools feature a higher 

intensity and variety of activities, and, therefore, are likely to have a larger impact on 

participating students. Building Bridges schools offer fewer activities and generally include 

schools new to the program. Schools with High Activation programs also generally require a 

greater commitment of resources. In 2013, 43 percent of all participating schools were in the 

High Activation category, the same as 2012.

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Special Olympics education programs

Objective: The Special Olympics will develop efficient programs at the national, State, and 

school level.

Measure: The average total Federal cost per school.

Year Target Actual

2011 $3,997

2012 3,758

2013 3,463

2014 $3,160

2015 3,033

2016 3,033

Measure: The percent of Federal funds spent on administration.

Year Target Actual

2011 33%

2012 25

2013 22

2014 20%

2015 20

2016 20

Additional information: These two measures provide basic information on the efficiency of the 

program. The decrease in the cost per school reflects an increase in the number of participating 

schools and a slight decline in the Federal appropriation for this program since fiscal year 2013. 

The measure on administrative costs includes administrative expenses at the State level and 

national level charged to the Federal grant. These administrative expenses pay for 

management, oversight, and coordination functions that make possible the ongoing 

implementation of programming in schools. Administrative costs vary among the Department’s 

grants with respect to the type of entity, activity performed, structure of the grantee, and the 

efficiency of the project’s operations. This program has continued to decrease the percentage 

of funds spent on administration every year since 2011. 

Other Performance Information

Project reports indicate that State and local coordinators were given significant latitude in 

developing programs. This flexibility has resulted in significant differences in the approaches 

taken to achieving Project UNIFY’s goals and presented challenges for evaluating success. For 

example, the intensity of services offered varied substantially among participating schools.

Project UNIFY has engaged external evaluators from the University of Massachusetts to 

conduct a formative evaluation. Data from surveys of school liaisons in 954 schools indicated 

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SPECIAL EDUCATION 

Special Olympics education programs

that Project UNIFY had an inconclusive impact on the attitudes and behaviors of participating 

students toward individuals with intellectual disabilities. The evaluators commented that the 

effect of Project UNIFY may be limited by the self-selection into the program by students who 

already had positive attitudes and behaviors. It is difficult to avoid this self-selection effect 

because participation in Special Olympics activities is voluntary and non-random. The project’s 

impact on academic outcomes was not measured because improving academic achievement 

was not the primary goal of this program. 

The formative evaluation also found that the majority of school staff involved with the project 

believed that Project UNIFY helped raise awareness about students with intellectual disabilities, 

increased interaction between students with and without intellectual disabilities, and increased 

the confidence of students with intellectual disabilities. Surveys showed that most participating 

schools have hosted both inclusive sports programs and youth leadership/activation activities. 

Schools with the highest levels of involvement generally featured extra-curricular clubs that 

provided a venue for students with and without intellectual disabilities to participate in sports and 

social activities that promote inclusive school environments. The evaluators concluded that 

these clubs are a best practice that can provide a model for other participating schools.

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State Tables

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