ABSTRACT

These “access to the general education curriculum” requirements were implemented to ensure that students with disabilities were not excluded from the accountability systems linked with standards-based reform inherent in the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires states to establish challenging academic content and student achievement standards that apply to all students, including students with severe disabilities. To that end, under NCLB, states may establish alternate achievement standards for students with the most signifi cant cognitive disabilities. The act does not defi ne “students with the most signifi cant disabilities” explicitly, but instead caps “the number of profi cient and advanced scores based on alternate achievement standards included in annual yearly progress (AYP) decisions” to “1.0 percent of the number of students enrolled in tested grades” (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). Thus, by default, students with the most signifi cant cognitive disabilities refer to the lowest performing 1.0% of students in public schools. These students, in general, overlap with students who are receiving special education services under the categorical areas of intellectual disability, deaf-blindness, autism, and multiple disabilities, although it’s important to note that the determination as to whether a student receives alternate assessments linked to the alternate achievement standards is an IEP team decision and not linked solely to disability labels, and not every student in these categorical areas will be eligible for alternate assessments.