As part of a special education partnership with states, the U.S. Department of Education today announced that it has awarded more than $14 million in grants to help them meet requirements for students with disabilities under the No Child Left Behind Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

A total of 27 states will benefit from the awards in a grant program in which states were encouraged to work together and apply for funding in a consortium with other states.

"These funds will be used to develop more appropriate assessments for a small group of students with disabilities who cannot take the general assessment," said Deputy Secretary Raymond Simon. "With more appropriate assessments, we can better determine what children know and can do, which will help improve instruction and make sure they receive the help that they need."

The funds will be used for developing:

• Modified academic achievement standards.

• Alternate academic achievement standards (for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities).

• State assessments based on modified or alternate academic achievement standards.

• Clear and appropriate guidelines for Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams, which include parents, to identify children with disabilities who should be assessed based on alternate or modified academic achievement standards.

• Training on those guidelines for IEP teams.

During the past few years, the Education Department has announced major steps to help states meet the requirements for serving students with disabilities under the No Child Left Behind Act and IDEA.

In 2003, the department said that when measuring adequate yearly progress (AYP), states and school districts could count the proficient and advanced scores of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who take alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards -- so long as the number of those proficient and advanced scores did not exceed one percent of all students in the grades assessed.

This so-called "one percent cap" amounts to about 10 percent of the total population of students with disabilities.

Then, in 2005, the department announced that states could include proficient and advanced scores of students who take assessments based on modified academic achievement standards in determining AYP, capped at two percent of the tested population at the district and state levels.

That group amounts to about 20 percent of the special education population. Consistent with the department's longstanding position to hold all students to the highest standards, the department has emphasized that modified academic achievement standards must be based on grade-level content standards.

For more information on the IDEA General Supervision Enhancement Grant program, see http://www.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/index.html.

Following is a list of the states to be served, along with the grant recipients.

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SPECIAL EDUCATION--TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE ON STATE DATA COLLECTION IDEA GENERAL SUPERVISION ENHANCEMENT GRANT RECIPIENTS

EDITOR'S NOTE: In several instances below, multiple states formed a consortium to submit a single application through a university or other organization.

TWO PERCENT APPLICATIONS FUNDED (For alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards.)

Grant Recipient, Amount of Award

• Alabama State Department of Education, Montgomery, $396,020.
• Georgia Department of Education, Atlanta, $400,000.
• Iowa Department of Education, Des Moines, $400,000.
• Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13/Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network, Lancaster, Pa., on behalf of Pennsylvania, $400,000.
• Maryland State Department of Education, Annapolis, $396,330.
• Michigan Department of Education, Lansing, $399,999.
• Montana Office of Public Instruction, Helena, $400,000.
• Nebraska Department of Education, Lincoln, $400,000.
• Ohio Department of Education, Columbus, on behalf of Ohio, Minnesota and Oregon, $1 million.
• Regents of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, on behalf of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, $1.4 million.
• South Carolina Department of Education, Columbia, $298,737.
• SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., on behalf of Oklahoma, $399,693.
• Vanderbilt University, Nashville, on behalf of Arizona and Indiana, $799,999.
• Virginia Department of Education, Richmond, $400,000.
• WestEd, San Francisco, on behalf of Kansas and Louisiana, $774,608.
• West Virginia Department of Education, Charleston, $400,000.

ONE PERCENT APPLICATIONS FUNDED (For alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards.)

Grant Recipient, Amount of Award

• Idaho Department of Education, Boise, $386,663.
• Minnesota Department of Education, Minneapolis, $398,382.
• Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Miss., $395,863.
• Regents of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, on behalf of Hawaii, Tennessee, South Dakota and Wisconsin, $470,000.
• University of Guam, Hagåtña, on behalf of Guam, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia, $1.3 million.
• University of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington, Ky., on behalf of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico, $1.99 million.
• University of New Hampshire, Durham, on behalf of New Hampshire, $400,000.

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