The Department of Education is committed to ensuring that all children—including children with disabilities—receive a high-quality education. Before the passage of No Child Left Behind, the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) required that students with disabilities be included in state and district-wide assessment programs. No Child Left Behind builds on this requirement by ensuring that these assessments measure how well students with disabilities have learned required material in reading and mathematics. Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities can have results from specially designed alternate assessments used in accountability decisions instead.

Support: Special Education Grants to States Program would receive a record $11.1 billion under the 2005 budget request. This represents the president's fourth consecutive request for a $1 billion increase to support children with disabilities—a 75 percent increase over the funding level when the president took office and the highest level of federal support ever requested for children with disabilities.