Report to the Legislature: Annual Report on Students with Disabilities, 2013-2014
Author: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Legal/Legislative/Regulatory Materials
Subjects: Disabilities,Special Education,Alignment (Education),Federal Government,Public Agencies,Compliance (Legal),Accountability,Achievement Gains,Academic Achievement,State Standards,Disability Identification,Student Placement,Low Income Students,At Risk Students,Disproportionate Representation,Inclusion,Minority Group Students,Public Schools,School Districts,Educational Legislation,Equal Education,Federal Legislation,Student Characteristics,Educational Environment,Educational Finance,Health Insurance,Individualized Education Programs,Early Childhood Education,Transitional Programs,Professional Development,Teamwork,Civil Rights,Court Litigation,Meetings,Elementary Secondary Education

This report has been provided to the Legislature on an annual basis since 2000 when the legislature amended the language of G.L. c. 71B to align Massachusetts special education terminology with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This year reports the context of a major change in the way state systems of special education are evaluated by the federal Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). As required by the 2004 Reauthorization of IDEA, the Department submitted an annual report on 20 compliance and performance indicators to OSEP on February 1, 2014. OSEP's accountability system has historically placed heavy emphasis on compliance alone. This year OSEP launched a new Results Driven Accountability (RDA) framework which focuses on states' record of improving educational results and functional outcomes for students with disabilities. Under this new framework, OSEP has determined that Massachusetts &quot;meets requirements&quot; on the basis of students with disabilities' performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and their participation rate in the MCAS, taken together with a high statewide rate of compliance. OSEP's new emphasis on results aligns with the state's longstanding commitment to improving outcomes for all students. As part of that commitment, in 2011 the Department commissioned Harvard Professor Thomas Hehir to investigate the status of special education in Massachusetts and to make specific recommendations in three reports, published from 2012-2013, on special education overall, career-vocational technical education, and out-of-district placements. In September 2014, Dr. Hehir and Associates published a synthesis report with targeted recommendations to address the summary findings of his research. All report findings and recommendations will be discussed in this legislative report: (1) There are substantial differences in the identification, placement, and performance of low-income and non-low-income students with disabilities. Students from low-income families are almost twice as likely to be identified as disabled compared to students from non-low-income families; (2) Students with disabilities who had full inclusion placements appeared to outperform similar students who were not included to the same extent in general education classrooms with their non-disabled peers. Among students with disabilities, students from low-income families and students of color are substantially more likely to be educated in settings that are substantially separate from non-disabled students than are white and non-low-income students with disabilities; (3) Inclusive options for students with disabilities in traditional public schools were limited after the elementary school level; and (4) There were meaningful differences from district to district in special education identification, placement, and performance. [For the previous report &quot;Report to the Legislature: Annual Report on Students with Disabilities, 2012-2013,&quot; see ED593664.]