The Effect of No Child Left behind on Rural Students with Low Incidence Disabilities

Abstract As part of a doctoral level seminar, students read recent articles on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, summarized and developed a list of probable issues that face students with low incidence disabilities in rural areas, and then interviewed directors of special education. The five doctoral students contacted 14 directors of special education in rural districts and discussed the issues that they had identified. The results of these discussions are reported and involve various themes (e.g., school choice, transition, alternate assessment, etc.). In addition, a discussion section includes recommendations for service planning for students with low incidence disabilities in rural areas. There is no doubt that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has had an impact on educational processes in the United States. As is true with most creative initiatives, there are unforeseen problems that may arise causing the need for subsequent adjustments. For example, a recent newspaper editorial in an urban newspaper (Stewart, 2004) commented on the difficulty schools have been encountering in transferring students from low-performing schools to high-performing schools, an option available to parents under NCLB. The author commented that his child's newly remodeled school was one of the high-performing schools designated for students opting to transfer. Because around one hundred students elected to transfer, the school was filled beyond capacity within a week of the beginning of the school year, with counselors shuffling to change the class schedules of the entire student body. Six weeks into the semester, students were sitting on the floor because there were not enough desks or chairs, teachers were conducting instruction in the cafeteria because there were not enough classrooms, and students were without texts because more had to be ordered and had not yet been shipped. The students who elected to transfer to the high-performing school tended to be those with high grade point averages and high test scores and with parents who were involved in the life of the school, while the students left behind in the lowperforming schools tended to be those whose families were less involved in their children's education or who lived in unstable home situations, such as foster care sites. NCLB has posed issues in the education of students with disabilities as well. NCLB requires that all students meet the same high standards. Because of the nature of their disabilities, this may be unattainable for some children, although they can make progress toward these standards. Thus, alternate assessment has become necessary for those students who qualify as having a low incidence disability (Browder, Fallin, Davis, & Karvonen, 2003; Browder et al., 2003). Because students with low incidence disabilities follow Individual Education Plans, as dictated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), many have had IEPs that focused on functional life skills rather than academic skills. Thus, a further issue has become how to mesh the need for functional life skills with the need to demonstrate progress on general education core content (Browder & Cooper-Duffy, 2003; Browder et al., 2004). The ability of rural school districts to meet the requirements of NCLB presents problems in addition to those already cited. Historically, rural districts have struggled with the recruitment and retention of special education teachers (Bornfield, Hall, Hall, & Hoover, 1997; Rosenkoetter, Irwin, & Saceda, 2004; Westling & Whitten, 1996). Because NCLB requires that all schools employ highly qualified teachers, the problem is exacerbated. In the area of low incidence disabilities, there may be only one certified teacher within a district or working across several districts (Bruce & Hwang, 2001; Grisham-Brown & Collins, 2002). If a school is designated as low performing, it may be difficult enough for rural students without disabilities to locate an alternate school that is high performing. …