Lower Child Count Trend Became Obvious In 2011

In another year-in-review article, Education Daily (12/15, Sherman) reports that when Congress reauthorized IDEA in 2004, one of its priorities was to reduce "the number of children unnecessarily classified as students with disabilities," and it therefore "said districts could use RTI as a way of identifying children with learning disabilities. At its core, RTI suggests that schools should improve the quality of their instruction before making any assumptions about a child's abilities. Likewise, Congress said districts could spend up to 15 percent of their IDEA funds on Coordinated Early Intervening Services." Education Daily credits these actions with five straight years of declining numbers of IDEA Part B students.