Estimating the Effectiveness of Special Education Using Large-Scale Assessment Data.

The inclusion of students with disabilities in large scale assessment and accountability programs has provided new opportunities to examine the impact of special education services on student achievement. Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (1998, 2002) evaluated the effectiveness of special education programs by examining students’ gains on a large-scale assessment of student achievement in Texas as they entered and exited special education programs. They found that special education placement resulted in an overall increase in the achievement scores of students with disabilities. The current study aimed to replicate and extend Hanushek et al.’s research using scores from the End-of-Grade Tests of Reading Comprehension and Mathematics for 396,828 students with and without disabilities who participated in special and/or general education programs over 5 academic years in the state of North Carolina. Results of multiple regression analyses revealed support for the effectiveness of special education programs. After controlling for school characteristics, cohort, regression to the mean, and accommodations use, entry into special education programs remained a significant predictor of students’ gain scores on large-scale assessments of reading and mathematics. Students with disabilities made significantly larger gains when enrolled in special education programs than when enrolled in general education programs, and gains were found for most of the subgroups of special education students examined in the study. A discussion of the implications for practice, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Author dc:creator

• Ewing, Katherine Anne

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Ann Schulte, Committee Chair
• Jeffery Braden, Committee Member
• William Erchul, Committee Member
• Susan Osborne, Committee Member

• high-stakes tests
• large-scale assessments
• special education
• students with disabilities
• achievement

Statement dc:rights

• I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dis sertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to NC State University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

Dc Identifier Other

etd-08172009-171328

OAI record oai:identifier

https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Arepository.lib.ncsu.edu%3A1840.16%2F5138