Abstract
Legislation protecting the rights of disabled students has continuously evolved over time, with each revision containing a similar goal of promoting the inclusion of disabled students within the public education system. However, despite numerous revisions and evolutions, the finish line of inclusivity has yet to effectively be reached.
This Article discusses legislation aimed at protecting the educational rights of disabled students, and how standardized testing provisions within said legislation may be counterintuitively hindering progress towards inclusivity. More specifically, this Article dives into Every Student Succeeds Act and its consequentially exclusory standardized testing provisions, focusing on the Act’s ninety-five percent participation quota and one percent cap on cognitively disabled students who are eligible for alternate assessments. Florida-specific data is used to display less than adequate test scores on Florida’s Alternate Assessment and provide feedback from teachers and administrators who have voiced their grievances with both the assessment itself and its administration procedures. Through caselaw research, alternative solutions to Every Student Succeeds Act’s inappropriate testing provisions are provided in a way that both promotes inclusivity for disabled students while still adhering to the education legislation currently in effect.
Recommended Citation
Olivia R. Leon,
Paving the Way for Inclusion by Way of Exclusion from Standardized Testing,
36 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
365
(2026).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/jlpp/vol36/iss2/3