Implementation Experience in Efforts to Improve the Education of Handicapped Children in Schools - Essay Example

Academia-Research lists this report as Order No. 168901, with a deadline of May 8, 2007, at 11:24 EST EAHCA ESEA and IDEA: implementation experience and outcomes in certain efforts to improve the education of handicapped children in American public schools INTRODUCTION The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act1 (or IDEA)—both a grants and civil rights statute—provides “federal funding2 for the education of children with disabilities and requires, as a condition for the receipt of such funds, the provision of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) [Jones, May 5, 2005, p. 1].” While the IDEA has undergone substantial amendment and interpretation since its first enactment3, it still retains three core purposes: (1) ensure a FAPE to all children with disabilities with emphasis on “special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living;” (2) ensure the rights of such children and their parents are protected; and (3) assist states and localities in providing educational services to meet these legal requirements. Meeting these requirements has imposed signal burdens over the years on states, municipalities, and local school districts. Likewise, providing specific definition to those requirements has fallen to Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Courts. This report describes the IDEA in its most recent configuration, discusses certain salient issues relating to state, municipal, and local responsibility, reviews applicable court cases, and suggests problem areas still in need of resolution. BACKGROUND IDEA is the successor to the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (or EAHCA, Public Law 94-142, November 29, 1975). In its ‘statement of findings and purpose,’ the Act established “that all children [shall] have available to them … a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs… [PL 94-142].” The Act was not sui generis. According to Apling, PL 94-142) was enacted in 1975 in response “to increased awareness of the need to educate children with disabilities and to judicial decisions requiring that states provide education for children with disabilities if they provided an education for children without disabilities [pp 1-2].” The most commonly cited antecedent cases were PARC v. State of Pennsylvania, 343 F.Supp. 279 (E.D. Pa. 1972) and Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia, 348 F.Supp. 866 (D.D.C. 1972), both decisions having been rendered in Federal district court. However, In Smith v. Robinson [468 U.S. 992, 1984], the Supreme Court described the statute as “a comprehensive scheme set up by Congress to aid the States in complying with the constitutional obligations to provide public education for handicapped children [Id at 1009].” In so doing, the Court arguably set the stage for a radical expansion of requirements on state and local authorities to provide educational opportunities for disabled children. Over the years, amendments to PL 94-142—leading to its current iteration, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA)—and decisions rendered in Court cases have wrought considerable change. These expansions beyond the originally mandated reach of EAHCA are described below. OVERVIEW OF CURRENT IDEA REQUIREMENTS Generally speaking, under the terms of IDEA (Part B) children and youths (ages 3-21) receive special education and related services. Qualifying infants and toddlers (under age 3) and their families receive early intervention services under IDEA (Part C).4 (Part A [definitions] and Part D [authorization of certain national research activities] fall outside the purview of this report.) Specific requirements under IDEA are designed to support three major principles: (1) States must provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to all children with disabilities (ages 3-21).5 In addition, states and school districts must “identify, locate and evaluate all children with disabilities, regardless of severity, to determine which children are eligible for special education and related services6 [Jones, January 11, 2002, p. 2].” (2) State or local authorities must assure the each child receiving services “has an individual education program (IEP) spelling out the specific special education and related services to be provided to meet his or her needs [Jones, January 11, 2002, p. 2].7 As a corollary, parents and guardians are automatically appointed to the child’s IEP team. And (3) to the maximum feasible extent, “children with disabilities must be educated with children who are not disabled [Jones, January 11, 2002, p. 2].” States and school districts must provide procedural safeguards, “including a right to a due process hearing, the right to appeal to federal district court and, in some cases to receive attorney fees [Jones, January 11, 2002, p. 2].” SALIENT ISSUES AND REQUIREMENTS Legislated responsibilities and requirements inhering in states receiving IDEA funding State eligibility: As described supra, basic state eligibility hinges on provision of FAPE “to all children with disabilities in the state, including those who have been suspended or expelled, basing that education on an individualized education program (IEP) [Apling, January 5, 2005, 11],” and providing it in the least restrictive environment. Reliance on private schools: School districts (called ‘local education agencies,’ or LEA) may place a child with a disability in a private school in order to fulfill FAPE requirements. Under such circumstances, the cost of education is underwritten by the LEA (which, in turn, is the indirect recipient of federal funds for this purpose). Parents may unilaterally enroll children with disabilities in private schools. “In the latter situation, the cost of the private school placement is not paid by the LEA unless a hearing officer or a court8 makes certain findings. However, IDEA does require some services for children in private schools, even when they are unilaterally enrolled by their parents. Exactly what these services are or should be has been a contentious subject for many years [Apling, January 5, 2005, p. 11].” In Florence County School District 4 v. Carter (510 U.S. 7, 1993), the Supreme Court held that Shannon Carter, who for years had been misdiagnosed by school district authorities as ‘lazy and willful’—when in fact she suffered from a learning disability—was entitled to state reimbursement for educational services provided by a private institution (Trident Academy). Her parents had unilaterally removed her from the public school system, “claiming that the school district had breached its duty under IDEA to provide Shannon with a ‘free appropriate public education [510 U.S. 7]” and sought reimbursement for tuition and other costs incurred at Trident. In effect, the decision in Carter established that local courts, rather than state legislatures or school districts, could act as the final arbiters of the efficacy and required level of public effort in meeting federally mandated requirements established under IDEA. Furthermore, that same decision established in principle that the Courts could act ‘after the fact,’ in requiring school districts to reimburse students (or their families) who had been determined by the Courts to have been underserved by existing public programs. Acquisition of specially trained personnel: PL 108-446 mandates the establishment of state policies requiring LEAs to “take measurable steps to recruit, hire, train, and retain highly qualified personnel,”9 although the Act does not create an individual right of action—i.e., the right to sue a state in the event of nonfeasance or misfeasance—based on a failure of compliance with that provision.10 Misidentification of children with disabilities: States must establish policies and procedures to prevent over-identification or misidentification of children with disabilities.11 (See the discussion of Florence County School District 4 v. Shannon Carter, a minor, by and through her father and next friend, Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 1993, supra, in this regard.) Legislated responsibilities and requirements inhering in LEAs Maintenance of effort (MOE): Generally speaking, LEAs in receipt of IDEA funds—directly or indirectly—may not reduce special education spending (based on locally derived funds or taxation), calculated on a year-to-year basis. A single exception was established under PL105-1712, permitting LEAs to treat as local funds up to 20 percent of any annual increase in IDEA grant money. Under Department of Education regulations, this provision is interpreted “to be non-cumulative, that is, the provision would be applied on a year-to-year basis (Apling, January 5, 2005, p.17].” This exceptional limit was increased to 50 percent under provisions of PL 108-446. Equally important, LEAs were permitted to reduce MOE in special education, providing the diverted federal funds were allocated to “activities authorized under the [ESEA] of 196513 and for early intervention” (Apling, January 5, 2005, p. 17). (In effect, this provision encouraged states and LEAs to increase local efforts at early intervention in the education—and, conceivably, even health applications14—among the ‘under age 5’ population meeting other, established definitional requirements.) Early intervention: LEAs may apply up to 15 percent of IDEA Part B funding for early intervention services for children not actually identified as children with disabilities, “but who need additional academic and behavioral support to succeed in a general education environment.”15 Evaluation and reevaluation: Either LEAs or parents may request an initial evaluation, although a LEA-initiated evaluation can only proceed after obtaining parental consent. LEAs are required to reevaluate the condition of each special education child at least once every three years. However, more frequent evaluations must be conducted (within 60 days) if parents or teachers so request. Individualized education program (IEP): According to Apling (January 5, 2005), “The IEP is the blueprint for the education and related services that the IEA provides for a child with a disability, together with the goals, academic assessment procedures, and placement of the child (p. 20).”16 Under the current rubrics, while each IEP articulates current academic and functional performance levels (including reasonable expectations for the near future), specific benchmarks and short-term objectives are no long required, except for the most severely cognitively disabled. REFRACTORY UNDERLYING PROBLEMS For many years, American policy planners have turned to the public schools to be instrumental in efforts to achieve desired social outcomes. Thus, ending residual marginalization of the African American population effectively began with the ending of lawful segregation in public school systems, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). The larger, albeit often only tacitly understood, cultural expectation was that individuals of different ethnicities who were educated together would be more likely to internalize favorable—or, at least, less unfavorable—attitudes towards each other.17 Much the same may be argued of efforts to reduce comparable marginalization of children with disabilities. If the sole public objective in regard to such children were their education—understood in the strict sense of learning to perform certain mental operations, perhaps while functioning in a group environment—it would appear on the face of it that an educational regime optimized to meet their specific needs would be a more apt solution.18 However, the history of such efforts over the past three decades has shown an ever-increasing tendency toward ‘mainstreaming,’ the education and training of children with disabilities in non-specialized environments. This, in turn, has raised two distinct, albeit related, issues, which may be understood as questions: What do we wish to accomplish? And how shall we accomplish it? The immediate answer to the first involves a definition of goals. A comparable answer to the second implicates the vagaries of discipline. Defining goals Decisions in a number of Federal court cases have established mainstreaming of disabled children, for practical purposes, as itself a goal. In Rouker v. Walter, 700 F2d. 1058 (6th Cir. 1993), the Court established a principle of ‘portability,’ that is, “if a desirable service currently provided in a segregated setting can feasibly be delivered in an integrated setting, it would be inappropriate under PL 94-142 to provide the service in a segregated environment.” In Oberti v. Board of Education of the Borough of Clemonton School District, 995 F.2d 1204 (3rd Cir. 1993), the Court held that Rafael Oberti, a child with Down’s syndrome, had a right to be educated in a classroom with non-disabled children. “Inclusion is a right, not a special privilege for a select few … In short, the fact that a child with disabilities will learn differently from his or her education within a regular classroom does not justify exclusion from that environment.” However, it is the decision in Sacramento City Unified School District v. Holland, 14 F.3d 1398 (9th Cir. 1994), that points to the broader social (as opposed to legal) concerns of the Court. The school district had argued that Rachel Holland, 11 years old and tested with an IQ of 44, was too severely disabled to be educated in a regular classroom. Holland’s parents brought suit, seeking mainstreaming of their daughter. The appellate court, having first established a multi-part test to determine if the school district’s decision was legitimate in light of requirements laid down by IDEA, found for the parents. Among the desiderata were the non-academic benefits of such a placement—the Court noted social and communications skills as well as her self-confidence from placement in a regular class—and the effect the child would have on the teacher and other students in the regular classroom (which the Court determined would be minimal). Establishing mainstreaming as a value independent of education was also at the core of the Court’s decision in Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Education, 874 F.2d 1036 (5th Cir. 1989). The Court stated, “Academic achievement is not the only purpose of mainstreaming. Integrating a handicapped child into a non-handicapped environment may be beneficial in and of itself ... even if the child cannot flourish academically.” These decisions raise fundamental questions regarding the publicly stated goals of integrating children with disabilities into non-specialized classrooms. Maintaining classroom discipline From time to time, children misbehave. And they do so irrespective the environment in which they find themselves. Over a period of decades, school districts—no doubt increasingly constrained by court oversight—have established criteria for removing obstreperous students from classrooms (either briefly or permanently) as a corrective measure. However, classroom experience with disruptive activities of certain children with disabilities—most often those manifesting mental deficits or emotional instability—have placed strains on established administrative correctives. Indeed, school districts have often undertaken measures that likely would not be applied to non-disabled troublesome children. IDEA includes a provision that, in the event of “a dispute between the school and the parents of the child with a disability, the child must ‘stay put’ in his or her current educational placement until the dispute is resolved” (Apling, January 11, 2002, p. 4). In Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305 (1988), the Supreme Court did not find any implied exception for matters of classroom discipline, although it did find a 10-day suspension reasonable. Under current practice, school administrators may effect a permanent classroom expulsion in those cases in which the child’s disruptive activity can be demonstrated to a manifestation of the child’s disability19 (although, of course, provision of educational services would have to continue). In light of the court decisions described supra, it appears likely that the judicial ‘default’ position will remain one in favor of continued mainstreaming, perhaps even in the face of particularly trying classroom circumstances. FINAL THOUGHTS It appears safe to say that IDEA, even after considerable legislative amendment and court determination, remains a ‘work in progress.’ In years to come, school districts are likely to find that established administrative algorithms have been undone by court decisions. Indeed, it may even prove to be the case, under certain circumstances, that the same administrative behavior has been disallowed in one venue yet remains valid in another. What then of the underlying interests of the objects of this exercise, students with disabilities? It appears safe to say that as long as solutions remain bureaucratic in nature—government’s default administrative approach—there will always be some fraction of the disabled population that remains underserved. By the same token, efforts at achieving the goals established by IDEA have practical implications for the education of all of America’s public school children, ones that likewise may demand amelioration. Works consulted in the preparation of this report Apling, R. et al. (January 25, 2002), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: statutory provisions and selected issues, Report RL31259, Library of congress/Congressional research service, 26 pp (January 5, 2005), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): analysis of changes made by PL 108-446, Report RL32716, Library of congress/Congressional research service, 47 pp , (July 18, 2005), The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): proposed regulations for PL 108-446, Report RL32998, Library of congress/Congressional research service, 19 pp Jones, N. L. et al. (January 11, 2002), The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): overview of major provisions, Report RS20366, Library of congress/Congressional research service, 6 pp (May 5, 2005), The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): overview of PL 108-446, Report RS22138, Library of congress/Congressional research service, 6 pp (December 21, 2005), The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Schaffer v. Weast determines party seeking relief bears the burden of proof, Report RS22353, Library of congress/Congressional research service, 5 pp U.S., Congress, Senate [107th Cong., 2nd Sess.], Committee on HELP (March 21, 2002), Examining the implementation of the [IDEA], as it applies to children and schools, Hearing, 81 pp U.S., Court of Appeals (3rd Cir.), Oberti v. Board of Education of the Borough of Clemonton School District, 995 F.2d 1204, 1993 (5th Cir.), Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Education, 874 F.2d 1036, 1989 (6th Cir.), Rouker v. Walter, 700 F2d. 1058, 1993 (9th Cir.), Sacramento City Unified School District v. Holland, 14 F.3d 1398, 1994 U.S., Department of Education/Office of Special Education Programs, Individualized Education Program, November 4, 2006 U.S., Supreme Court, Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley. 485 U.S. 177, 1982 , Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 1954 , Cedar Rapids Community School District v. Garret F., 526 U.S. 66, 1999 , Florence County School District 4 v. Shannon Carter, a minor, by and through her father and next friend, Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 1993 , Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 1988 , Independent School District v. Tatro, 468 U.S. 883, 1984 , Schaffer [a minor, by his parents and next friends], Schaffer et ux et al. v. Weast [Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools] et al., No. 04-698, November 14, 2005, 26 pp , Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 1984 Read More