An IDEA schools can use: lessons from special education legislation.

• Author: Seligmann, Terry Jean
• Position: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

1. INTRODUCTION

   The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (the "IDEA") (1) has been a part of our public education system since 1975. The IDEA was enacted in response to the exclusion and inadequate education of children with disabilities. (2) The IDEA is widely viewed as having opened the doors to education to previously excluded children. (3) The Act also assisted schools in identifying children who have disabilities and providing them with special educational services. (4) Today over six million children receive some kind of special education services; about thirteen percent of a total school population of forty-eight million children in school. (5)

   Reform of public education is not a new topic for public discussion. Shifts in educational philosophy and calls for change have characterized education since the beginning of the common school. (6) Likewise, special education has been a subject of scrutiny since its inception. (7) During the summer of 2001, as Congress labored to pass new standards for public education, the Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush's administration resisted efforts to increase funding for special education, asserting that the IDEA needed reforms that money could not address. (8)

   This article argues that the resources already available through the IDEA can, if used inclusively, help provide a better education to every school child. They can bring personnel, training, and support into the classroom that will give each child more individual attention and more chances to learn. The increasing number of children identified as needing special education should be viewed not as a failure of special education, but as a warning about the inability of traditional classrooms to meet the needs of many children.

   There are lessons from the IDEA that can inform educational policy for all children. The commitment to an appropriate education is costly, but special education resources and expertise about how to meet the individual educational needs of children can be shared and put to work school-wide. One size does not fit all; children learn in different ways and we must be willing to teach children with an array of strategies and techniques that build their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. We should not square off and fight over funds or services, playing tug of war between "regular" and "special" education or "regular education kids" and "special education kids." Instead, we should use available funds in inclusive ways, and recognize that most children with disabilities are already members of our classrooms today. We need to fund all education adequately to avoid disadvantaging one child in order to serve another.

   Moreover, the principles that shape the IDEA should be preserved and expanded. A focus on the individual child's needs, parental involvement, enforceable rights, and a range of services should be part of every school child's life, not only those designated as "special." Until this occurs, though, it will ill-serve education to withdraw resources from those served under the IDEA in the name of either equity or excellence. (9)

2. THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE IDEA

   The IDEA embodies several policy choices about the best way to provide students with disabilities access to an appropriate, publicly funded education. (10) These can be summarized as follows:

   1. Tailoring educational services to the individual needs of the child. (11)

   2. Requiring that parents have a role in planning the child's educational program. (12)

   3. Offering a range of different placements and ways to deliver educational services. (13)

   4. Educating the child in the most integrated environment appropriate for that child's learning. (14)

   5. Treating the delivery of an appropriate education as an enforceable right. (15)

   6. Offering clear and known routes for parents to resolve disputes with school districts. (16)

   Each of these principles plays out in the statutory scheme of the IDEA.

   The IDEA is a funding statute that provides federal funds to states that comply with its conditions. (17) The central commitment is to provide each disabled school-aged child with a free, appropriate public education. (18) The IDEA process begins with the referral of a child for evaluation to determine whether the child has a disability as defined under the Act (19), whether the child needs special educational or related services in order to progress in the general curriculum (20), and what services are needed. A teacher or parent can request an evaluation, but the parent must consent for it to proceed. (21)

   Once the child is evaluated, a team meets to review the evaluation and other relevant information. They determine whether the child has a disability and they develop an individualized educational plan (IEP) for that child. (22) The IEP team must include the child's parent. (23) If the child is to be educated in the regular classroom, then the classroom teacher is also a member of the team. (24) The product of the team meeting is an IEP which describes the child's disability, the short term and long term goals of that child's educational plan, the particular services and strategies that will be used to teach the child, and the place and amount of services to be provided. (25) An IEP for an autistic child, for example, could call for placement in a separate classroom staffed by specially trained teachers and supplemented with home-based therapies for several hours a week. (26) An IEP for a visually disabled student might stipulate that Braille reading materials be supplied in the child's classroom, and that voice recognition software be available for use with school computers. (27)

   The IDEA's commitment to a free appropriate public education is not limitless. The school system retains the discretion to choose between methodologies: for example, to select one reading program over another if both address the child's learning needs. (28) The standard for services is what the child needs to progress adequately, not what would be ideal, or what would maximize the child's achievement. (29) The cost of a service, however, is not a basis for refusing to provide special education and related services if their provision is necessary for the child to obtain an appropriate public education. (30) In Cedar Rapids Community School District v. Garret, (31) the Supreme Court rejected the school district's cost-based objections to providing an aide who could suction the breathing tube of a ventilator-dependent child, because the child could not attend school without the services. (32) The IDEA also requires choice of the least restrictive environment in which an appropriate education can be provided. (33) If the needs of the child cannot be addressed within the school district, the IDEA provides that the child can be placed into an appropriate program outside the district or into a private school. (34) But, if there is an adequate and appropriate placement within the district, the public does not have to fund a parent's preference for private school. (35) The IEP is reviewed and updated each year, (36) and the child's disability and need for special education and related services is reevaluated at least every three years. (37)

   Parents are guaranteed involvement in the planning of their child's educational placement and services. (38) Parents consent to evaluation and are members of the IEP team. (39) Furthermore, parents must approve any change in the child's educational placement. (40) The IDEA provides that at most significant stages in the IEP process, parents are to be given notice of their rights to present complaints or challenge any aspect of their child's education. (41) The goal is for parents and schools to work together in the interest of the child's appropriate education.

   The IDEA also provides a route for parents to enforce their child's IDEA rights. If parents and school districts disagree over the child's eligibility for special educational services, the nature of those services, or the child's placement, the parent can seek an impartial hearing before a state administrative officer, with appeal available to a federal district court. (42) The state must also offer mediation when a parent initiates due process procedures by filing a complaint. (43) A parent who prevails in an administrative or court proceeding may be awarded attorney's fees. (44)

3. THE IDEA TODAY AND THE CALLS FOR REFORM

   Since the enactment of the IDEA, the number of children identified as having disabilities and served under the IDEA has increased, from 3.7 million in 1976-1977 to 6.1 million in 1999-2000. (45) Today, approximately one in ten children in the public school system receives some kind of special educational services. (46)

   Special education finds itself caught in the crossfire of debates between both regular and special education reformers. Critics seek to dismantle or cut back on the nation's commitment to special education, while supporters are concerned with the program's implementation. (47) This essay examines some of the major issues under debate. (48) Increased numbers of children are identified as having the need for special education, particularly in the category of learning disabilities. These increases have been questioned by critics on both practical and legal grounds. (49) Other reformers point out that our present special educational practices, like those which preceded the IDEA, may be continuing to segregate and track minority students disproportionally. (50) Assessing the program against the background of a concern over the state of public education generally, some supporters of meeting the special educational needs of children argue that a program of special education establishes a separate and unequal system of education. Such educators, who see much wrong with the group-oriented approaches traditional in public school classrooms, call for a transformation of all classrooms into places where individualized...