What Is The State Performance Plan?
What are the SPP Annual Reporting Requirements?
How are Data for Reporting Local Performance Obtained?
How are the Indicators Defined?
How do You Interpret the Data Reports
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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 requires every state to develop a State Performance Plan (SPP). Pennsylvania’s Part B SPP was submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), in December 2005. The SPP describes how the state will improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities, ages 3-21, and comply with IDEA 2004. It is a six-year plan covering Federal Fiscal Years 2005-2010. Pennsylvania's SPP was developed with significant input from the State Special Education Advisory Panel and other stakeholders.

On March 13, 2006 Pennsylvania received notification from OSEP that the state’s SPP meets federal requirements. The SPP is available online at www.pde.state.pa.us and www.pattan.net by searching for "State Performance Plan.” All states were required to update their SPP in 2007 and 2008. Pennsylvania submitted these updates in accordance with federal timelines. Following OSEP review, the updated SPPs are posted at the above web addresses.

The SPP is built upon 20 federally mandated Indicators of compliance and performance. Each Indicator includes baseline data, annual measurable and rigorous targets, and improvement activities. The SPP is data driven, and therefore all data reported and used for planning must be valid, reliable, and verified at both the local and state level.

In addition to the SPP, IDEA ’04 requires that each state submit an Annual Performance Report (APR) to OSEP that describes the state’s status in meeting SPP targets. There are also public reporting requirements. States must report annually to the public on:

1. 1. The State’s progress and/or slippage in meeting the measurable and rigorous targets in the SPP and;
2. 2. The performance of each Local Education Agency (LEA) (school districts, charter schools and Early Intervention MAWA agencies) in the state on the targets of the SPP.

Pennsylvania addresses the state level reporting requirements by publishing the APR. Following OSEP review, APRs are posted with the SPP at the above web addresses.

To comply with annual reporting requirements, states must report to the public on the performance of each LEA in the state on several SPP Indicators. This is done through the Special Education Data Reports (SEDRs). In 2008, states must publicly report on the following Indicators:

1. Indicator 1 Graduation rates
2. Indicator 2 Drop out rates
3. Indicator 3 Student participation and performance on statewide assessments (PSSA/PASA)
4. Indicator 4 Suspension and expulsion rates
5. Indicator 5 Educational placement (LRE)
6. Indicator 8 School facilitated parent involvement
7. Indicator 9 Disproportionate representation by race/ethnicity
8. Indicator 10 Disproportionate representation by race/ethnicity in disability categories
9. Indicator 11 Timelines for initial evaluation
10. Indicator 13 IEP postsecondary transition goals and services


11. Note: public reporting on SPP Indicators pertaining to services for children ages 3-5 is also required, and is done by the Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL). These reports are available at http://penndata.hbg.psu.edu/MAWA/index.aspx

For Indicator 1 (Graduation rates), Indicator 2 (Dropout rates), Indicator 4 (Suspension and expulsion rates), Indicator 5 (Educational placement-LRE), and Indicators 9 and 10 (disproportionate representation), data are collected from school districts, charter schools, and intermediate units through Pennsylvania’s PennData System. The majority of this data comes from a statewide collection conducted on December 1 of each year (commonly referred to as “the federal child count”). Information on compliance with timelines for initial evaluation of students to determine eligibility for special education (Indicator 11) is collected statewide in July of each year through a submission to PennData. The PennData system ensures accuracy of local and state data through a series of edit checks and other verification procedures.

Data for Indicator 3 (Student participation and performance on statewide assessments) is obtained from the Bureau of Assessment and Accountability in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. School facilitated parent involvement data (Indicator 8) are collected through a parent survey conducted in approximately one-fifth of the LEAs in the state each year. Finally, data for Indicator 13 (IEP postsecondary transition goals and services) is collected through cyclical monitoring conducted on-site in school districts and charter schools by the Bureau of Special Education (BSE).

This PennData website includes a “Special Education Data Report Glossary”. Readers may wish to reference that Glossary for a more complete definition of data terms.

1. 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.

   Persons reviewing these online Special Education Data Reports should be aware that graduation and drop out rates being reported for 2006-07 may vary considerably and generally show decline from the previous year’s reports. This is primarily due to changes in the data collection timeframe. 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.

2. Dropout rates (Indicator 2) means the percentage of students with disabilities, ages 14-21, who dropped out of school. Pennsylvania 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 above of changes affecting reporting of graduation and dropout rates.

3. 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 SEDR, only those students in the IEP subgroup are reported. Conclusions drawn from this subset of data may contradict AYP designations from the Office of Assessment and Accountability.

4. Suspension and expulsion rates (Indicator 4) are reported as the percentage of LEAs identified by the State as having a significant discrepancy in the rates of suspensions and expulsions of children with disabilities for greater than 10 school days in a school year. A district or charter school will be identified in the 2006-07 Special Education Data Report as not meeting the SPP target if it suspended students at a significantly higher rate (4 times or greater) than other LEAs in the state.

5. 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) Removed from regular class less than 21% of the day; (b) Removed from regular class greater than 60% of the day; (c) Served in public or private separate schools, residential placements, or homebound or hospital placements.

6. 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 this 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 an independent expert. Survey results for those LEAs included in the 2007 mailing are presented on the 2006-07 Special Education Data Reports 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/

7. 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.

8. 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. This is also calculated using the Weighted Risk Ratio described above. 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.

9. 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 2006-07 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.

10. IEP postsecondary transition goals and services (Indicator 13) This data is collected through BSE cyclical monitoring. Only those LEAs that had cyclical monitoring during 2006-07 will have data reported. To determine an LEA 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.

The data displays for each Indicator are user-friendly and easily understandable. Generally, these include:

The SPP Target – This is the target that was established in the SPP for 2006-07.

The State Data - This shows the 2006-07 statewide performance for all LEAs.

The LEA Data - This is the 2006-07 performance of that LEA.

A Conclusion - The conclusion is whether the LEA met the SPP target. This will be “Yes”, “No”, “Not Reported” or “Not Applicable.”

Click here for SD/CS Reports (Alphabetic)

Click here for SD/CS Reports (By Intermediate Units)