Special Topic Area:
Reporting of Participation and Performance of Students with Disabilities

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the best way to report on the participation and performance of students with disabilities?
The most important thing to remember about reporting data (for students with disabilities and other students) is to be very clear about what is being reported. Thus, it is important to report both participation data and performance data together, so that performance data can be interpreted in light of participation rates. Further, for participation, it is important to be clear about how rates or percentages are derived (e.g., all students in the school at the beginning of the year are included in calculating participation rates). For performance, it is important both to include data on participation rates, and to indicate whether any scores are removed when reporting on performance (e.g., data include only those scores from students who took the test under standard procedures).

2. What is the justification for aggregating data as well as disaggregating data?
A simple response to this question is that data are not really disaggregated unless they have previously been included in the aggregate. Beyond this, however, it is important to recognize that the way in which data are reported affects how students are perceived. Students with disabilities are part of the total student body and should be treated as such. In the same way, their data must be treated as part of the data from the total student body. Their data are also disaggregated because we need to pay special attention to their progress, just as we do for students from certain ethnic groups, economic groups, and students with different language backgrounds.

3. How is it possible to report on the performance of students with disabilities when they take tests under different conditions from other students?
Some students with disabilities (but not all) do take tests with accommodations. These accommodations vary, and many do not significantly change the way in which the test is administered or the student responds. Some accommodations involve more significant changes, raising questions about the extent to which the constructs measured have been changed. Unfortunately, for many accommodations, we do not have the research data needed to determine their effects on validity or score comparability, thus making it difficult to justify not reporting the scores of students using those accommodations. For those accommodations where there is consensus that the construct measured may be different, specific strategies - such as collecting an additional body of evidence - may be needed before scores can be reported in the aggregate.

4. Won’t public reporting just show how poorly students with disabilities are performing, and make special education look bad?
Students with disabilities are educated in a variety of settings. For most students, the majority of their time is spent in general education classrooms. The purpose in reporting on their performance is not to evaluate one setting or another, but rather to determine the extent to which educational programs are helping students with disabilities to achieve positive results from their education.

Related NCEO Publications

• 2005 State Special Education Outcomes: Steps Forward in a Decade of Change / PDF Version (3MB)
• Steady Progress: State Public Reporting Practices for Students with Disabilities after the First Year of NCLB (2002-2003) (Technical Report 40) / PDF format
• 2003 State Special Education Outcomes: Marching On / PDF format
• Putting it All Together: Including Students with Disabilities in Assessment and Accountability Systems (Policy Directions 16) / PDF Version
• Going Public: What 2000-2001 Reports Tell Us About the Performance of Students with Disabilities (Technical Report 35) / PDF Version
• 2001 State Special Education Outcomes: A Report on State Activities at the Beginning of a New Decade (2001)
• Interpreting Trends in the Performance of Special Education Students (Technical Report 27 / 2000)
• Where’s Waldo? A Third Search for Students with Disabilities in State Accountability Reports (Technical Report 25 / 2000)

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This page was last updated on April 02, 2008