No Child Left Behind: Issues of assessing students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Education and Training

Neither school reform nor the focus on devel-oping accountability systems that measure and evaluate the success of schooling are new or innovative educational practices. Even before the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, many states had changed or were chang-ing their accountability and assessment sys-tems. Similarly, individual school districts or local education authorities, often in the name of school reform, were using their own stan-dards or benchmarks to assess progress for school improvement purposes and for fulfill-ing long-term district goals. However, with the NCLB mandate, state departments of educa-tion have had to specify what all students mus