50 years after IDEA, a yawning achievement gap

More than 50 years ago, on Nov. 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law landmark legislation known today as the Individual with Disabilities Education Act. It guarantees the right of every child with a disability to a free and appropriate education, alongside their general education peers to the extent possible.

Before the legislation, many students with disabilities were excluded from public education. By 2022-23, 7.5 million students ages 3-21 were being educated under IDEA nationwide, an increase of over 1 million from 2012-13. While we can all celebrate IDEA's achievement of accessibility and opportunity, are students with disabilities achieving academically?

New York State School Report Card data for 2024-25 show modest overall growth for Long Island students in grades 3-8 in both English language arts and math. In ELA the percentage of students meeting or exceeding proficiency increased by 7.4%, based on state test scores, and in math by 2.4%, Newsday's news division reported.

What those overall results don't show is how various subgroups are performing. At the state level there is a significant discrepancy between general education students and students with disabilities, who make up 20% of New York's K-12 enrollment. 60% of general education students met or exceeded proficiency in English language arts while only 26% of students with disabilities did. In math, 65% of general education students reached proficiency, while only 29% of students with disabilities were able to achieve at that level.

The state doesn't publish a consolidated school report card for Nassau and Suffolk counties' proficiency rates for ELA and math. So I randomly selected for review five districts, representing a different geographical area in each quadrant of Long Island, along with a mid-Island location. I then determined aggregate proficiency scores for grades 3 and 5 for each county and content area.

For ELA in Nassau County, 75% of general education students were proficient, while only 36% of students with disabilities were. In Suffolk 60% of general education students were proficient, compared with a dismal 16.7% of students with disabilities.

The comparisons in math were similar: in Nassau 85% of general education students were proficient in contrast to 44% for students with disabilities, while in Suffolk the rates were 60% and 26%, respectively.

These numbers show a significant lack of achievement demonstrated by students with disabilities, as general education students outperform them at far higher proficiency rates.

How can we explain this? The resources are there. Districts spend an average of $20,820 more per student with disabilities than on a general education student, according to the state comptroller's office.

Let us not blame the low scores on students' disabilities. More than three-quarters of students with disabilities in New York have mild disabilities, and are taught in a general education classroom.

What, then? It is difficult to measure attitudes, but that might be the answer. The attitude by all — teachers, parents and administrators — must be that students with disabilities can achieve at a level much closer to their peers without disabilities than is reported here. It is essential to make that change and remove instructional barriers as we continue toward the ideal of IDEA: an even playing field for students with disabilities.

Fifty years of IDEA should be celebrated. This legislation cannot be denied for its profound impact on education. Yet what IDEA has accomplished in accessibility and opportunity must be replicated for academic outcomes. Failure to do so will result in failure for students with disabilities.

This guest essay reflects the views of Philip S. Cicero, retired superintendent of Lynbrook Public Schools.