Students with disabilities are getting derailed from a diploma — in kindergarten

Kristi Maeng felt crushed when Montgomery County Public Schools staff said they wanted to put her son JoJo on an academic trajectory that rarely leads to a diploma — especially because he was just starting elementary school.

JoJo, who has Down syndrome, faced challenges in his general education kindergarten classroom. The pacing was too fast and the class too large, making it difficult for him to get the attention he needed.

But Maeng worried about the proposed solution: placing him in a program unlikely to prepare him for future education and job opportunities that require high school diplomas.

“Why in the world am I making this decision for my 5-year-old?” she said. It felt ludicrous, but she ultimately went with the school’s recommendation.

JoJo is among a rising number of young Maryland students whom educators have steered toward lower academic standards, despite federal rules reserving that decision for students with only the most significant cognitive disabilities.

Many kids are identified years before they take their first standardized test, a practice advocates say could limit children’s potential and curtail their time with nondisabled peers. This happens enough that the state has drawn scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Education.

“I don’t think that we should be determining the rest of a student’s educational career — I don’t care what they are diagnosed with — at that time of their lives,” said Brooke Levey, a Germantown mother and advocate. “We should have the highest possible expectations.”

Now Maryland State Department of Education officials are proposing new guardrails to curb the trend, which is particularly pronounced in Montgomery County.

“We’re actively working towards the right combination of solutions for our state,” said Tenette Smith, the state’s chief academic officer.

The rise of alternate assessment

At issue is a complex corner of education law known as alternate assessment.

Public schools must regularly test students in math and reading to ensure they’re progressing toward graduation. Acknowledging it may not be appropriate for some children with disabilities to take the same standardized tests as their peers, the federal government created a parallel system.

Those students take a different exam, based on reduced achievement standards. And in Maryland they typically earn a certificate of school completion, rather than a high school diploma.

Federal law dictates that schools should identify only students with the “most significant cognitive disabilities” for the alternate assessment. To emphasize how rare it ought to be, it established a rule that no more than 1% of students should take it.

Last year, 1.13% of Maryland test-takers in math and reading used the alternate assessment. That’s roughly 5,200 students out of more than 455,000.

U.S. Department of Education officials warned in a March 2026 letter that Maryland wasn’t making sufficient progress to reduce its numbers and noted the percentage of students taking the alternate assessment keeps rising.

Maryland officials are also focused on a related issue: Schools are identifying kids for alternate assessment while they’re very young.

Roughly 1,660 Maryland students in pre-K through second grade were deemed eligible this year, according to data obtained by The Banner through a Public Information Act request. That’s well before students begin formal standardized testing in third grade.

Most Maryland third graders are expected to know how to write and tell time to the nearest minute. They should be able to solve math word problems that involve adding and subtracting time intervals.

A third grader taking the alternate assessment, in contrast, is expected to know how to tell time to the hour on a digital clock.

State Superintendent Carey Wright wants to prevent school districts from deciding a child’s eligibility until they’re preparing for third grade.

“Determining students eligible for the Alternate Framework at a young age is inappropriate and risks predetermining educational outcomes,” she wrote in a March proposal to state board members.

Maryland officials have previously acknowledged that young kids could be at “extreme risk” of misidentification for alternate assessment because of communication struggles, limited formal education and low English proficiency, among other reasons.

It’s not simple to define which students qualify, and state officials devised a lengthy document to guide school staff through the choice. The label has been applied to children with Down syndrome, students with autism and kids with other intellectual disabilities that impact their language and social skills.

Ricki Sabia, a Montgomery County mom, remembers how school officials tried to direct her son Steve away from the rigorous lessons that his nondisabled peers received.

Told that Steve wouldn’t need to take a typical English class, she felt the insinuation was: Why would Steve, who has Down syndrome, need to know Shakespeare?

Sabia retorted: Why does any kid need Shakespeare?

“Obviously, someone thought it was important, and there’s no reason to assume it might not be important to him,” said Sabia, who is a senior education policy adviser for the National Down Syndrome Congress.

She fought for her son to be included for as long as it benefited him.

And now, at 34, he acts in an inclusive theater company.

“He probably got more out of Shakespeare than 99% of the other students in that classroom,” she said.

The case for inclusion

Federal education law dictates that students with disabilities must, to the extent appropriate, learn alongside children who are not disabled. They can’t be removed from a general education classroom only because they need extra support, such as an aide or adaptive technology.

Before a landmark 1975 law, today known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, many public schools excluded children with disabilities. Under the law, children with disabilities are guaranteed an “appropriate” education in the “least restrictive environment” available to them.

School officials are supposed to consider a child’s classroom placement separately from their participation in alternate assessment.

“My understanding is that several school districts actually have classrooms called ‘alt assessment classrooms’ for their students with disabilities,” state education board member Kim Lewis said. “That really flies in the face of IDEA.”

Lewis and others point to research that shows children can benefit when students with disabilities learn alongside nondisabled classmates.

“Data shows us that when students are included, they have more access to the general curriculum and effective instruction, they achieve at higher rates of academic performance, and they acquire better social and behavioral outcomes,” a 2018 National Council on Disability report reads.

Children who don’t have disabilities, meanwhile, can grow more empathetic for people who are different from them.

Family choice?

To be sure, many students with disabilities need highly individualized attention. Their parents often fight hard to secure spots in specialized programs they believe are best suited to their child. Some expect their children to take the alternate assessment.

Many children with disabilities struggle with Maryland’s standardized tests.

Roughly 17% of all third graders with disabilities were deemed proficient in English on the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program, compared to about 55% of students without disabilities.

Montgomery County school leaders say identifying kids early allows educators to give students highly specialized instruction and support as soon as possible. Still, they acknowledge it’s important to provide kids “every opportunity to succeed in the general education curriculum first.”

“The district is actively refining this process to ensure students are not placed on an alternate track prematurely,” said Margaret Cage, who oversees the district’s special education work.

Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest district in Maryland, disproportionately identifies young kids for alternate assessment. Leaders say that’s partly because it offers so many specialized programs that attract families of students with disabilities.

Parents must provide annual consent for their child to take alternate assessments and learn the Alternate Academic Achievement Standards.

Levey, the mom from Germantown, said school staffers tried to convince her to allow her daughter to take alternate assessments once she entered middle school.

She pushed back but worries how that same conversation would go with parents who have language barriers or don’t understand the complex world of disability education law.

Students from families that don’t primarily speak English at home are somewhat overrepresented in alternate assessment in Montgomery County, according to state data.

Asked about this, Cage said district leaders are instituting measures to make sure “language acquisition differences are not misidentified as significant cognitive disabilities.”

“The district continues to examine its practices to ensure that cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic factors are not inappropriately influencing decisions,” she said.

Three years ago, state officials published a 12-page guide for parents to help them understand the process of how children are selected for alternate assessment. The document lays out the stakes: The longer a child is part of the Alternate Education Framework, the more difficult it will be for them to have a shot at earning a diploma.

Sabia’s son Steve, the student with Down syndrome who went on to perform plays as an adult, ultimately did not earn a high school diploma. But Sabia kept him off the alternate assessment through his elementary and middle school years. Today, he has a job and lives independently.

“He has so much more knowledge, just about everything, because he was included,” she said. “Because he had the opportunities to learn.”