Graduation rates (Indicator 1) means the percentage of students with disabilities, ages 14-21, who graduated from school. Pennsylvania uses a formula developed and approved by OSEP for calculating this rate. That formula is: the number of graduates, divided by the number of graduates plus the number who received GEDs, plus the number of drop outs, plus those that reached maximum age, plus any students that died, times 100.
In 2005-06, graduation and drop out rates were calculated based on students who were in school at the time of the December 1 child count. Beginning in 2006-07, the rates were based on all students who attended school from July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007. This revised reporting aligns more accurately with how states report graduation rates for all students under the No Child Left Behind requirements. A few LEAs do not have graduation/drop out rates on their SEDR, usually because they do not serve secondary students.

Dropout rates (Indicator 2) means the percentage of students with disabilities, ages 14-21, who dropped out of school. Pennsylvania also uses the OSEP formula for calculating this rate. That formula is: the number of dropouts, divided by the number of graduates plus the number of students who received a GED, plus the number of dropouts, plus those that reached maximum age, plus any students that died, times 100. See description in Indicator 1 of changes affecting reporting of graduation and dropout rates.

Student participation and performance on statewide assessments (the PSSA and PASA) (Indicator 3) is measured to address three targets of the SPP.

• First, students are grouped by grade spans within the LEA, specifically grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Calculations are made on LEA performance in meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements.
• Second, the number of students participating in statewide assessments in the LEA is compared to the number of students with disabilities enrolled in those same grade levels to ensure that at least 95% of the students participated.
• Third, the proportions of students that earned a score of proficient or advanced in reading and math in the state assessment are compared to SPP targets.
• The calculations for rates of participation and proficiency are based on the number of students in the December 1 federal child count, not the count of students assessed. To ensure conformance with federal requirements for the protection of personally identifiable information, only those LEAs with greater than 40 students with disabilities per grade span will have data reported.
• It should be noted that there are variations in how data are examined to make these determinations. The Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Assessment and Accountability uses data for all students assessed in making their determinations, while the SPP reporting uses a subset of those data - those describing the performance of students with disabilities. In some cases, the performance of non-IEP students is high enough to mask lower performing students in the IEP subgroup, and allows LEAs to meet their overall AYP target. In the SEDRs, only those students in the IEP subgroup are reported. Conclusions drawn from this subset of data may contradict AYP designations from the Bureau of Assessment and Accountability.

Suspension and expulsion rates (Indicator 4) are reported to OSEP as the percentage of LEAs that have a significant discrepancy in their rate of suspension and expulsion of children with disabilities for greater than 10 school days in a school year. A significant discrepancy is defined as two times or greater than the state baseline rate. A district or charter school will be identified on the 2007-08 Special Education Data Report as not meeting the SPP target if it suspended students 4 times or greater than the statewide baseline rate.

Educational placement - LRE (Indicator 5) Data are derived from students' IEPs. The percentage of students assigned to each of three settings must be reported. These are: percentage of children with IEPs aged 6 through 21 who are: (a) Inside the regular class 80% or more of the day; (b) Inside the regular class less than 40% of the day; (c) Served in public or private separate schools, residential placements, or homebound or hospital placements.

School facilitated parent involvement (Indicator 8) Pennsylvania is using a large-scale survey developed and validated by the National Center for Special Education Accountability Monitoring (NCSEAM) to collect these data. Each year, parents of school-aged students with disabilities in approximately one-fifth of the state's LEAs receive the NCSEAM survey by mail and are asked to complete it. The survey consists of 25 questions designed to measure schools' efforts to partner with parents. Results are compiled and calculated by independent experts. Survey results for those LEAs included in the 2008 mailing are presented on the 2007-08 SEDRs unless response rates were too low to be valid. Also provided on the report is a confidence interval to help explain the calculated score obtained from the NCSEAM Parent Survey. For SPP purposes, a 95% confidence interval was selected, meaning that we can be 95% confident that the true score on this measure for that LEA falls within that interval. The calculated score for each LEA is different from the true score an LEA would have received if all the surveys distributed to parents in that LEA were completed and returned for analysis. When more parents respond to the survey, we have more confidence that the calculated score represents the general opinion of all parents of students with disabilities, and the confidence interval becomes narrower. When fewer surveys are returned for an LEA, we have less confidence in the result, and the interval needed to reach the desired 95% level of confidence becomes wider. Additional information about the NCSEAM Survey can be found at http://parent.pattan.net/

Disproportionate representation by race/ethnicity (Indicator 9) This Indicator reports whether there is disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups receiving special education and related services to the extent that the representation is the result of inappropriate identification. A number of states, including Pennsylvania, use a Weighted Risk Ratio (WRR), to make these calculations. Using the WRR, representation by race/ethnicity of students receiving special education has remained within acceptable ranges at the state and local level. The BSE analyzes local data annually. Should disproportionate representation be identified under the WRR formula, the BSE would conduct monitoring to determine whether the disproportionality is the result of inappropriate identification.

Disproportionate representation by race/ethnicity in specific disability categories (Indicator 10) This Indicator reports whether there is disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories to the extent that the representation is the result of inappropriate identification. Using the WRR, representation by race/ethnicity of students in specific disability categories has remained within acceptable ranges at the state and local level. Monitoring by the BSE would also occur if disproportionality were identified.

Timelines for initial evaluation (Indicator 11) This Indicator addresses the degree to which LEAs conduct timely evaluations of students to determine their eligibility for special education. The timelines apply only to initial evaluations, not reevaluations. State regulations in effect for the 2007-08 school year required that school districts conduct initial evaluations within 60 school days of receiving written parental consent; charter schools were required to conduct evaluations within 60 calendar days. The LEA rate on the SEDR is the overall percentage of students that were evaluated within the required timeline, including those determined to be eligible for special education and those determined not eligible.

IEP postsecondary transition goals and services (Indicator 13) These data are collected through BSE cyclical monitoring. Only those LEAs that had cyclical monitoring during 2007-08 will have data reported. To determine an LEA's compliance level, students eligible for secondary transition are selected by the BSE as part of a stratified random sample of students with disabilities within the LEA. Records of students eligible for secondary transition are reviewed to determine whether the LEA has complied with regulatory requirements for IEP content. The LEA rate displayed on the SEDR is the percentage of compliance found during the onsite monitoring for the secondary transition reporting requirements. The LEA must correct all noncompliance within one year of the notification of noncompliance. The BSE monitors LEAs to ensure timely correction.

Postsecondary employment and/or education (Indicator 14) This indicatoraddresses the extent to which students are engaged in employment and/or education after high school. Once, over a five-year cycle, each school district and charter school is required to survey all student leavers who had IEPs (graduates, dropouts and students that reached maximum age.)  The Pennsylvania Post School Outcome Survey (PaPOS) is used to gather these data.  The random sampling process used to assign each LEA to one of the five years of the cycle ensures that the LEAs selected each year are representative of the Commonwealth as a whole with regard to LEA size, disability category, ethnicity, LRE status, and gender. Results for those LEAs included in the 2008 survey are presented on the 2007-08 Special Education Data Reports unless response rates were too low to be valid.