Welcome to the IDEA Data Center

New guidance from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) helps public elementary and secondary schools fulfill their responsibilities to meet the needs of students with disabilities and avoid the discriminatory use of student discipline. These newly released resources are the most comprehensive guidance on the civil rights of students with disabilities concerning student discipline and build on the Department’s continued efforts to support students and schools through pandemic recovery. Learn more here.

EDFacts Update! The EDFacts Information Collection package for SY 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 has been approved and is now available. The package includes pre-kindergarten through grade-12 performance data about students, schools, staff, services, and educational outcomes at the state, district, and school levels. Approximately 170 data groups are included and respondents include all 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, outlying areas and freely associated states, the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), and the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). Access the EDFacts Information Collection here. 

On August 8-11, OSEP will host Smart Beginnings, a virtual three-day technical assistance event designed to highlight important OSEP Leadership Conference presentations from 2021 and 2022. Smart Beginnings expands OSEP’s reach into communities with information and strategies to launch new academic engagement for the upcoming learning year. Watch this space for upcoming registration information and to learn more.

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) will post states’ Significant Disproportionality Forms on its website during the fourth quarter of the 2022 calendar year. The purpose of publicly posting these data is to provide increased transparency to allow states, local education agencies, and stakeholders to monitor significant disproportionality and to emphasize the importance of public input in the review and revision of risk ratio thresholds, cell sizes, and n-sizes.

States can update their Significant Disproportionality Forms until May 27, 2022. To update the form, click here and follow these steps: (a) download and save the document as a PDF onto your desktop; (b) open and populate the file using Adobe; (c) select your state name from the drop-down menu in the top right corner of page 1; (d) enter the name and title of the official completing the document and the date on the last page; and (e) select “submit” at the end of the document to send the form electronically to the OSEP mailbox.

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) released three policy letters and a Q&A document from the first quarter of 2022. The first letter, issued January 10, 2022, to the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE), upholds the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services’ (OSERS’) position regarding the appropriate use of compensatory services (click here). The second document, revised in February 2022, is Q&A covering frequently asked questions about serving children with disabilities placed by their parents in private schools (click here). The third letter, sent March 2, 2022, to the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Inc. (COPAA), addresses topics surrounding significant disproportionality, including OSEP’s decision to publicly report state-level Significant Disproportionality Forms (click here). The fourth letter, dated March 24, 2022, contains guidance for educators and parents regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) new recommendations for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of these recommendations on children with disabilities (click here).

The EDFacts Information Collection Package for SYs 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 is open for the 30-day public comment period until April 28, 2022. This package includes responses to public comments on the IDEA Section 618 data collections as well as updates to the changes proposed during the 60-day public comment period.

The package can be accessed at the following link: View Information Collection Request (ICR) Package  

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) recently released a new OSEP Fast Facts: Students with Disabilities who are English Language Learners (ELs) Served under IDEA Part B, which explores Section 618 data with the specific lens on one of the fastest-growing populations of students with disabilities served under IDEA.

Visit OSEP Fast Facts for existing and future Fast Facts.

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) released nine new Part B and Part C data files for school years 2019 through 2021. The data files, supporting data documentation files and related data notes, and associated static tables include Parts B and C Child Count, Discipline, Dispute Resolution, and Exiting data and more. The data are downloadable as comma separated values (CSV) files. The static tables provide commonly used percentages associated with the IDEA Section 618 data.

Beyond the IDEA Section 618 Data Products website, OSEP displays and publishes these data in other user-friendly sources including the Annual Report to Congress on IDEA Implementation and on the OSEP Fast Facts web page of the IDEA website.

The IDEA 618 data products have a new home on the U.S. Department of Education's Open Data Platform. The older data files, static tables, and collection documentation have been migrated and are available on the Open Data platform. As of February 15, 2022, the IDEA Section 618 data will no longer be available on the current site. 

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) released the 43rd Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2021. The report focuses on progress in providing a free appropriate public education to children with disabilities served under IDEA, Part B, and early intervention services to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families served under IDEA, Part C.

Click here for more information and to download the report.