Secondary School Programs and Performance of Students With Disabilities

NCES) has periodically surveyed the status of curricula being implemented in America’s high schools and the course-taking patterns of high school students, as identified from their transcripts. Data from the High School Transcript Study (HSTS), conducted in conjunction with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), serve a valuable accountability function in that they can capture course-taking patterns at a time when major curriculum changes or educational policy initiatives are being implemented. Although for many years, this important data source did not provide information on students with disabilities, the most recent report from 2009 (Nord et al. 2011) takes a cursory look at this important population, providing information on credits earned overall and in core academic, other academic, or nonacademic courses; and average GPA. However, many questions remain unanswered about the school programs and performance of students with disabilities. For example, the extent to which students took their courses in general education or special education settings is unaddressed, as are the wide-ranging differences in the school programs of students who differ in the nature of the disability that qualifies them for special education services.
The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) provides a unique source of information on these and other important questions for students with disabilities. The study addresses questions about youth with disabilities by providing information over a 10-year period about a nationally representative sample of secondary school students with disabilities, including information that details for policymakers, educators, parents, and students a national picture of what courses students with disabilities took in high school, in what settings, and with what success in terms of credits and grades earned. This report describes course taking primarily through the lens of course credits earned. To progress toward graduation, students need not only to take a particular distribution of courses but also to meet the performance standards for those courses, resulting in earned credits. Specifically, this report addresses the following questions for students with disabilities who attended typical high schools:1
• How many credits did students with disabilities earn during high school and in what types of courses?
• What proportion of credits did students with disabilities earn in general and special education settings?
• What grades did they receive in their classes?
• How did the high school credit-earning and grade-performance experiences of students with disabilities compare with those of their peers in the general population?
• How did the high school credit-earning and grade-performance experiences differ for students who differed in disability category, demographic characteristics, grade levels, and school completion status?