Educational Outcomes and Standards for Students with Behavioral Disorders: It's Not Just Academics

The current emphasis on educational outcomes reflects the public's desire to improve the results of education for all America's students. The National Education Goals and student outcomes requirements adopted by most states include performance domains that are both academic and social/behavioral in nature. The skills and competencies covered by national and state outcomes are addressed as instructional considerations under the current push to provide students with an adequate opportunity-to-learn. Reform efforts also include extensive assessment and data collection activities to monitor progress toward higher standards. For this paper, data from three survey activities conducted by the National Center on Educational Outcomes were examined for specific relevance to social/behavioral outcomes development and assessment. The findings suggest that although outcomes of this type are considered to be important, very little effort is being directed to the measurement of the extent to which students are meeting them. The implications of these national and state efforts for local instruction, assessment and policy decisions are discussed.