The data reported here were obtained as part of a large 3-year study to assay the curricular offerings and related instructional matters available for high school youth with disabilities. Data were gathered from general and special education teachers, special education administrators, principals, counselors, paraeducators, pupils with and without disabilities, and their parents. The youth attended five representative public schools and one private school in Washington State. This study focuses only on data obtained from the youth. We interviewed 54 and surveyed 231 youth with disabilities and studied the class schedules of 345 others. We also interviewed 3 and surveyed 10 students without disabilities who served as peer tutors in one school. Data from all those sources were summarized in the form of 10 research questions. Two major themes that emerged from this study are discussed. Moreover, we include a list of recommendations for teachers and parents who serve youth with disabilities. RECENTLY, WE UNDERTOOK AN EXTENSIVE'ECENTLY, WE UNDERTOOK AN EXTENSIVE study of youth with disabilities in six high schools in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. These high schools differed in several respects, including size, location, and public/private structure. At each school a team of researchers spent several days observing classes and collecting documents. We also interviewed dozens of individuals at each site: teachers, administrators, parents of pupils with disabilities, and the pupils themselves (Lovitt, 1995). This article presents data gathered from the pupils who participated in our study.In order to acquire data from a representative sample of students with disabilities at each site, we did an in-depth study of about 10% of the special education students at each school. This resulted in our interviewing 54 special education students from a total population of 502 special students at the six schools. When selecting pupils, we took several factors into account to get a sample that was representative of the overall population of special education students: grade level, gender, type of program in which they were placed, and type of disability. Of the 54 students interviewed, 31 had learning disabilities, 7 had behavior disorders, 5 had mental retardation, 4 had developmental delays, 4 had health impairments, and 3 had hearing impairments. In addition to information from interviews, we studied the Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) of 47 of the 54 interviewers. Moreover, we gathered survey data from 231 students with disabilities who were not interviewed. Finally, we interviewed 3 and surveyed 10 peer tutors who were not classified as disabled at the private school.Data from these sources were sorted, analyzed, and summarized according to the following 10 research questions:

Data reported here were obtained as part of a larger 3-year study designed to assay the curricular offerings and related instructional matters available for high school youth with disabilities. Data were gathered from general and special education teachers, special education administrators, principals, counselors, paraeducators, pupils with disabilities, and their parents. The youth attended five public schools and one private school. This study focused exclusively on data obtained from parents: Interviews were conducted with 43 parents of youth with disabilities in public school and with 3 parents of youth with disabilities who had graduated from a private school; 11 parents from the latter group completed surveys. Four themes emerged from the parent interviews and surveys; we discuss these themes and then offer seven recommendations for parents that are intended to enable them to better communicate and collaborate with schools so as to provide more effective services for their youth with disabilities.

Student perceptions of IEPs compared to actual document content