Education Reform, High-Stakes Assessment, and Students with Disabilities

Abstract

Over the past decade, the state of Virginia has been at the forefront of education reform efforts to implement new standards coupled with high-stakes assessments. The Virginia accountability system creates standards for individual students, schools, and school districts. Students with disabilities have been fully included in the Virginia education reform efforts. Participation by students with disabilities in the high-stakes assessment program has been relatively active, and these students have shown small but encouraging improvements in the mastery of state standards. A survey of Virginia special education administrators revealed general support for the inclusion of students with disabilities in the standards movement, but the results also provide cautions regarding the unintended consequences for these students.