Disproportionate representation of children from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds in special education has been a longstanding concern that the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) sought to address. The IDEA contains new requirements related to the provision of early intervening services designed to…

In 2002, Project Forum conducted a survey on special education forms and a policy forum on the issue of paperwork in special education. Some recommendations that resulted from those activities were included in the 2004 reauthorization of IDEA. With a new reauthorization pending, the topic has again aroused interest. This document presents the…

A policy forum held May 11-13, 2011 to provide input from stakeholders to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) focused on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) accountability reporting system known as the State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR) process. Participants discussed their assessment of the…

While it is difficult to identify an exact number of children with hearing impairments, the General Accountability Office and IDEAData.org report that the incidence of children who are deaf or hard of hearing is small, representing about 1% of all identified students with disabilities (GAO, May 2011; IDEAData.org, 2009). Variability in the…

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized in 2004, it eliminated the requirement that individualized education programs (IEPs) include short-term objectives or benchmarks, except for students with disabilities who take alternate assessments aligned to alternate achievement standards. Instead, the IDEA regulations…

This document focuses on state education agency (SEA) support for child find, consultation and provision of equitable service provisions for parentally placed private school students with disabilities. In July 2008, Project Forum conducted survey of all stated directors of special education to collect information on their efforts to support LEAs…

Based on the importance of Response to Intervention (RTI) and Early Intervening Services (EIS) for state education agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs), the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) and many other stakeholder groups, Project…

Since its enactment in 1975, the federal special education law, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), has made each state responsible for the compliance of all their local education agencies (LEAs) and other public agencies that provide special education for students with disabilities. The 2004 reauthorization of the…

Historically, many state education agencies (SEAs) have formally or informally used risk pools to provide extra funds to local education agencies (LEAs) serving students with high cost special education needs. With the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), SEAs have been encouraged to formalize their…

The number of children and youth identified with autism has grown exponentially over the past decade and a half. During 1992-93 (the first required reporting year for the category of autism) only 7,168 students with autism ages 6-21 were served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (U.S. Department of Education, 1994). This…

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) both include a commitment to keep the public informed about educational progress that students are making, and both emphasize the importance of involving parents in the education of their children. An underlying assumption of NCLB and IDEA is that in order…

Reflecting the need for updated, comprehensive and accurate information, the Special Education Expenditure Project was included in a series of studies mandated by Congress in 1997 to measure and evaluate the impact of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). SEEP was the first comprehensive, nationally representative study…

Youth with disabilities are significantly overrepresented in the juvenile justice system with recent estimates suggesting that at least 35% of youth in the juvenile justice system are eligible for special education services (Quinn, Rutherford, Leone, Osher & Poirer, 2005). Specific learning disability, emotional disturbance and mental…

When Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1997, it authorized an evaluation to track progress at the state and local levels on the legislative goals of IDEA. The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) commissioned a national longitudinal study, the Study of State and Local…

Requirements under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) for teachers to be highly qualified in specific content areas in which they are teaching has resulted in an increase in the availability of state-approved "alternative routes to certification"…