The Mercury News

When the Nation’s Report Card was released last month, it reiterated a hard truth about our education system today: We are failing our students with disabilities. Students with disabilities, who make up 15% of all public school students, continue to lag significantly behind their non-disabled peers. On the reading assessment administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), fourth graders with disabilities scored 39 points lower, and eighth graders scored 38 points lower. In math, fourth graders with disabilities scored 31 points lower, and eighth graders scored 40 points lower. And in both math and reading, eighth-grade students with disabilities saw a decrease in their NAEP scores since previous results from 2022.