Debunking the myths of special education: as special education continues to be an important issue for state legislatures, it is time to set the record straight.

• Author: Smith, Steve

All American children, regardless of ability, are entitled to a free public education. But some are a lot more expensive to teach than others. Total costs for students with disabilities (ranging from mild to severe) has increased to more than 20 percent of all K-12 spending. That amounts to $77 billion to teach more than 6 million special education students (12 percent of all pupils) during the 19992000 school year. And while the federal government promised to pay for the 'excess' costs of special ed, it has never fulfilled its part.

Increased expenditures are in large part the result of:

* Mission creep: expansions of the definition of "disabilities" and expected services.

* Advances in medical technology: saving more premature babies who require special services later in life.

* The skyrocketing costs of medical services for the severely disabled.

* Unintended consequences of standards-based education reform that make special education a place for underachieving students.

And as special education has grown, so have the misconceptions about it.

"Figuring out special education is like doing an archeological dig because the deeper you go the more you discover," says Utah Representative Kory Holdaway, a special education administrator. "As you dig through the layers, you start to recycle the same issues like efficiency, effectiveness of instruction and measures of student performance. You lose sight of what you're trying to do in the first place."

This complexity allows myths about special education to flourish. But with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) up for reauthorization in the current Congress, it is time to set the record straight.

Myth #1: Special education was originally a federal initiative.

Many people believe that passage of the federal Education for All Handicapped Children's Act (EHA) of 1975 was the beginning of special education. Not so. About half the states started their own special education systems back in the early 1960s. There were, however, an equal number of states that did not allow disabled students to go to school at all. Studies revealed that up to two-thirds of the nation's disabled children were not receiving an "appropriate education." In response, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 to give states money for special education.

Two court cases in the early 1970s significantly influenced special education. In Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Children (PARC) vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a federal district court found in 1971 that every mentally disabled child in the state had the right to a free public education. The following year, in Mills vs. Board of Education of the District of Columbia, a U.S. district court found that a school district cannot exclude any "exceptional" children, even if it does not have the money to provide services.

In response to these cases, Congress amended ESEA in 1974 and required states to provide a "free and appropriate education to all children." This was followed by passage of EHA in 1975, which provided...