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Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID)
Special Education and Vocational Rehabilitation Services

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This report is the first of two reports. It summarizes the findings about former students' post school employment, postsecondary education and community living status and identifies the program components, including transition planning, that contributed to their success. This information is unique nationally and was gathered because of a lack of current information. The second report will follow next month and will discuss additional data on transition and the policy implications of the data.

Beginning in 1990, transition planning and services became required components of the Individualized Education Program for all secondary special education students. A five-year systems change grant (1991 through 1996) enabled the Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) to provide direct technical assistance and training to 123,000 individuals representing students, families, educators, postsecondary programs, employers, and community and State agency personnel. VESID reported on transition implementation several times during this period. The most recent report was on the findings of the 1996 Post School Indicators Survey that was conducted with 720 former special education students statewide.

The subject of this report is a Post School Indicators Survey that was conducted in 1997 through personal interviews with former special education students from the Big Five Cities of Buffalo, New York, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers. In 1997, the year after they left school, 1,037 former special education students and a reference group of 217 nondisabled students from general education were contacted. It is important to note that the intent was not to do a full comparison of special and general education. A small number of general education students are included to serve only as a reference point in interpreting the data obtained from the special education students.

The following are highlights of the information learned about these former students in the Big Five Cities the year after they left school:

• Sixty-two percent of former special education students either were working or attending postsecondary education. An additional nine percent were attending day training or day treatment.

• Slightly more than one third of the former special education students (38 percent) were working in paid competitive jobs in the community. Competitively employed former students most often were working part-time (53 percent), and earning more than just the minimum wage (57 percent). Having a paid or unpaid work experience while in high school contributed to obtaining a post school job more often, working more continuously, and earning more per hour.

• Former special education students participated in postsecondary education half as often as did the reference group from general education (27 percent and 56 percent, respectively) even when they received the same type of high school diploma (Regents or local) as did the reference group.

• Most former special education students (83 percent) live with their parents or immediate family, which is similar to the reference group (76 percent).

• Former special education students who reported that planning for transition helped them showed better outcomes on four factors: (1) completion of high school diplomas; (2) transition to postsecondary education, employment or day program alternatives; (3) connection to adult services; and (4) preparedness for community living, working and postsecondary education.

 

Ongoing research into the status of individuals with disabilities after school exit indicates that unless students with disabilities obtain the academic, career and interpersonal skills necessary to strive for the same goals as their nondisabled peers, they continue to be destined for limited opportunities for living, learning, and earning beyond their high school years. [Cited in Seventeenth Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Education Department, 1995); in Valdes, K., Williamson, C. and Wagner, M. The National Longitudinal Transition Study of Special Education Students, Statistical Almanac, Volume 1:Overview, (Menlo Park, CA: SRI International, July 1990); and in, 1998 National Organization on Disability/Harris Survey of Americans with Disabilities, (New York: Louis Harris and Associates, 1998).] For this reason, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1990) includes preparing all children with disabilities for employment and independent living and requires transition planning and services as integral components of the Individualized Education Program (IEP).

In New York State, transition policy requires that schools collaborate with students, families and community agencies to consider the long-term, post school implications of the education provided to students with disabilities. Opportunities must then be incorporated in secondary programs to enable each student with a disability to develop the skills needed for success in post school life. Specific interagency agreements emphasize collaborative planning with other major agencies, postsecondary education programs and the State vocational rehabilitation program. The agreements are intended to provide for a seamless transition to post school employment, postsecondary education and community living.

The student population from the Big Five City school districts is a major portion of New York State students served in grades K-12. The Big Five City school districts are all high need/low resource districts, negatively impacting on the ability of all students to reach high learning standards, complete high school with a diploma and successfully enter postsecondary opportunities. The needs assessment conducted in developing the State Improvement Grant led to the conclusion that, "Fewer students with disabilities from the high need districts earn high school diplomas or have positive aspirations for postsecondary outcomes." [Cited on page 32 of Section B, "Needs" in the New York State Improvement Plan, State Improvement Grant,(New York: New York State Education Department Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities, October 1, 1998.), pp.8-32.]

The 1997 Post School Indicators (PSI) survey was conducted with 1,037 former special education students from the Big Five City schools of New York State (i.e., Buffalo, New York, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers) who have been out of school for a year. The purposes of the post school interviews were to (1) obtain information about the real life results for students educated in the most urban settings of New York State, and (2) determine the critical programmatic indicators, including transition planning, that may have contributed to student success. This information will guide the State in making improvements in the educational planning process and provide information to the participating school districts in considering how to improve program results.

Several charts in this report compare findings for former special education students from the Big Five with data for "Reference Group." To assist in interpreting the results for students with disabilities, a small reference sample of 217 former general education students was surveyed from the Big Four cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers. In New York City, general education students were not sampled due to logistical difficulties in locating these students a year after school exit. The reference group is not intended to represent a definitive analysis of general education, but to provide a context to understand the importance of findings for special education students.

The sample of 1,037 former special education students interviewed represents 13 percent of all 8,118 former special education students who exited in school year 1995-96 from the Big Five City school districts. Structured interviews were completed by telephone or in person with participating former students, or their designee when a student could not directly participate. The participants in the Big Five City survey conducted in 1997 were representative of all disabilities, reasons for exit and educational settings. A significant proportion (69 percent) of students surveyed were Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American youth with disabilities.

The focus of transition services, as specified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act, is to prepare young people with disabilities for adult life, specifically for employment, continued learning in postsecondary education and community living. Among the 1,037 former Big Five Cities special education students who were interviewed in 1997:

• 35 percent were working but not attending postsecondary education;

• 27 percent were attending postsecondary education programs (vocational, technical, college, or university program); one third of these postsecondary students were also working; and

• 83 percent were living with their parents or immediate family.

The following sections report the statewide findings in greater detail for employment, postsecondary education and community living.

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