The National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: the Collaborative (NTACT:C) Collaborative Assessment Guide for Transition Planning (CAG) is intended to help students, family members, educators, vocational rehabilitation counselors, human services and health agency staff, and other partners develop a coordinated assessment approach for…

This guide describes key steps for developing a well-thought-out plan for evaluating a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). The guide provides considerations for how to incorporate each step into an evaluation plan, as well as a series of worksheets that correspond to each step and can be used to facilitate the planning process. The guide,…

This document provides an overview of the critical role of fiscal data in state Part C systems. This information is intended to help state Part C lead agency staff better understand strategic fiscal policy questions, the fiscal data elements needed to address those questions, and the benefits of using these data. Fiscal data provide powerful…

In the spring of 2020, public schools across the United States were forced to close their campuses due to an emerging public health crisis caused by the detection of the first cases of the COVID-19 virus. Although schools closed their buildings, the delivery of educational services did not stop. This included the ongoing provision of services…

Special educators are required to collect data on student progress and use it as formative data to inform instructional decisions. Being told to collect student data without being shown how to effectively and efficiently collect it, may cause teachers to become overwhelmed. This article provides three easy-to-use templates to facilitate quick data…

The purpose of this document is to support States in writing the narrative for Phase I of the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). It provides an outline for States to use in organizing their narrative content to ensure that all required components are addressed. The outline includes considerations on information States might include in their…

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004), aligned with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), emphasizes improved student academic outcomes. With this focus on academic outcomes and access to the general curriculum, there is increased pressure for accountability in the education of students with disabilities in general…

The detection of cognitive patterns in children with learning disabilities (LD) has been a priority in the identification process. Subtest profile analysis from traditional cognitive assessment has drawn sharp criticism for inaccurate identification and weak connections to educational planning. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to use a new…

With the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), the Council for Exceptional Children's Content Standards for Beginning Special Education Teachers (2002), and the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004), the research to practice gap in special education has garnered increased attention.…

The Study of Monitoring and Improvement Practices under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) examined how states monitored the implementation of IDEA by local special education and early intervention services programs. State monitoring and improvement practices in 2004-05 and 2006-07 were the focus of the study. Prior to the…

The 2006-2007 school year was the eighth annual reporting period since disaggregating the performance of students with disabilities on state and district-wide assessments was required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It is the fifth reporting period since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and the…

States and other educational entities receiving Part B funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) submitted their Annual Performance Reports (APRs) and Section 618 Table 6 data together to the U.S. Secretary of Education on or before February 1, 2009. These reports may have been modified during the following few months,…

This document is intended to assist State Education Agency (SEA) and Lead Agency (LA) staff and technical assistance providers in designing a meaningful evaluation for the State Performance Plan (SPP)/Annual Performance Report (APR) improvement activities. It provides: (1) information about the relevance of evaluation in the context of improvement…

This report summarizes the twelfth survey of states by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) at the University of Minnesota. Results are presented for all 50 states and 8 of the 11 unique states. The purpose of this report is to provide a snapshot of the new initiatives, trends, accomplishments, and emerging issues during this…

In this technical report, we describe the development and piloting of a series of mathematics progress monitoring measures intended for use with students in kindergarten. These measures, available as part of easyCBM[TM], an online progress monitoring assessment system, were developed in 2008 and administered to approximately 2800 students from…