Why We Can't Say Much about Students with Disabilities during Education Reform

Education reform initiatives throughout the entire educational system have focused attention on outcomes and quantifiable data. With increasing frequency, the data needed to monitor and evaluate reform initiatives are being drawn from large-scale state and national data collection programs. Although sufficient national level school completion outcome indicators and state goal statements suggest the potential for evaluating the outcomes of students with disabilities, the exclusion of significant numbers of these students from both state and national data collection programs made it all but impossible to describe their status. Recommendations are offered for improving the collection and reporting of information in state and national data collection programs.