Special Education Law Relationship of the No Child Left Behind Act and IDEA

"Special Education Law Relationship of the No Child Left Behind Act and IDEA" (registration required)is an interesting November 27, 2007 New York Law Journal article by Phyllis K. Saxe.

In this article, Ms. Saxe explores the conflicting goals of the IDEA which focus on the individual needs of students and the No Child Left Behind Act which focus on accountability and achieving goals. As the article states:

With respect to students with disabilities, a debate has surfaced concerning whether accountability standards should require complete inclusion of children with special needs. As one commentator has noted. "Nearly 79 percent of parents" would like to see schools "pay more attention to the academic progress of students with special needs."¹³ However, two-thirds of the same parents are worried about their children being forced to take tests that they may not be able to pass. In addition, half of these parents wanted their children to receive necessary accommodations when taking the test.¹⁴

The NCLBA regulations allows for "reasonable adaptions and accommodations for students with disabilities necessary to measure the academic achievement of such students."

Mitchell H. Rubinstein