Survey of Attendance Practices
Category: Student Well-Being
Title I and IDEA are complementary federal responses to different sources of low achievement: each addresses needs that the other does not fully address. Title I targets opportunity-mediated underachievement, or low achievement linked to limited educational opportunity, while IDEA addresses persistent learning needs for which educational opportunity is not the primary explanation. This commentary clarifies how current federal policy preserves these distinct roles and uses a simple framework and stylized simulation to show how assigning IDEA support on the basis of low achievement alone increasingly directs it toward the same opportunity-related needs already served by Title I.
Keywords
Title I; IDEA; special education; persistent underachievement; educational opportunity
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/b6c9-2b88
