WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- America's special education system is in disarray, frustrating students, parents, and teachers, according to conservative and liberal scholars at several of the nation' leading think tanks. The scholars diverge, however, when proposing remedies for the current system.
A recent report by the libertarian Cato Institute addresses the special education quandary and proposes several solutions. According to Cato, the current mess stems from the regulations created by the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of 1975, known as IDEA.
Before the passage of IDEA, special needs children were not guaranteed an appropriate education and were often discriminated against. The good intentions of the act, back by federal dollars, however, have unintentionally hindered the educational development of these children, according to a new study from Cato, "Escaping IDEA: Freeing Parents, Teachers, and Students through Deregulation and Choice."
IDEA's regulations created a method in which students are individually assessed to determine the education program that their disability requires. If parents are dissatisfied with the individual education plan, or IEP created by the school, they have the right to appeal their case before a mediator. The parent can sue the school district in court if they are still unhappy after mediation.
The entire system, beginning with the creation of the IEP, pits teachers and parents against each other, according to the Cato authors, Marie Gryphon and David Salisbury.
Since it is difficult for a judge to determine the appropriateness of an educational program, cases are often won if parents can demonstrate that schools did not completely follow procedure. Although the goal of IDEA is a child's education, Gryphon and Salisbury say the real focus is usually on paperwork and process because of concern by schools about not wanting to lose in court.
The authors argue that most disgruntled parents do not have the persistence or legal know-how to pursue the case through the court system, which creates separate and unequal educational conditions for handicapped children -- something IDEA was supposed to abolish.
"To listen to IDEA's critics is to be confronted by seemingly inconsistent condemnations," Gryphon and Salisbury write. "Some critics insist that IDEA still too often provides insufficient services to disabled children, 'warehousing' them in separate classrooms where little is taught.
"Other critics will indignantly recount stories of disabled children receiving obscenely generous benefits at public expense, draining resources from public school districts that could be better spent on the general education curriculum. In fact, both groups are correct. Provision of special education under IDEA is schizophrenically too generous and too stingy."
Thad Hall, program officer at the liberal Century Foundation, agrees that IDEA has problems, but he says that is because school districts must compete for and disburse a limited amount of funds. School districts currently use their own resources in addition to state and federal funds when educating a special needs child.
The goal of IDEA is to fund 40 percent of a child' educational costs, but the current figure is closer to 15 percent. Hall says the most appropriate solution is to fund IDEA entirely with federal dollars.
"[Partial funding] puts school districts in a position to be adversarial because they do not have the resources that they need," Hall says. "If they had the resources the federal government said they would provide, it would put the school districts into a position of being more proactive and there would be less conflict between the two."
School districts now have little incentive to provide an adequate education for special needs students because a good reputation may prompt increased enrollment of similar students, thereby draining crucial resources, according to Hall.
"It puts localities into a position of not wanting to provide services necessarily to disabled children, because ... if the school district provides effective services they could become a magnet for disabled students," Hall says. "People with children with disabilities tend to move to those counties. If there was greater funding provided it would allow all school systems to provide better services. It would be less taxing on those districts that do a good job."
While statute requires that IDEA be reauthorized, Gryphon and Salisbury suggest states would eliminate the wasted time and money spent on administration and litigation by turning down federal funding and completely financing their own programs.
Hall contends that forsaking federal funds would be unwise, because law requires states to adhere to specific standards whether or not they accept IDEA funds.
Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, an educational research institute affiliated with the conservative Manhattan Institute, says it is highly unlikely states would turn down federal money.
"I don't think it is likely that the states will voluntarily forgo federal funds," Finn says. "At the end of the day there have been very few examples in history of states forgoing federal dollars in programs. Nobody that I can think of is going to forgo the money in order to get freedom. They are going to ask for more money."
Whether or not states forsake federal funds, the authors propose that states give parents vouchers for private schools if public schools fail to provide a sufficient education. In addition to giving parents more choice, they also argue the process should be streamlined so that the amount of funding for a special needs student is automatically determined through a matrix that matches their specific disability with the average amount of money that disability receives.
Under the Cato proposal, parents would know their child's program up front and would have the option to find a private school or teacher if they were unhappy.
The odious process of receiving an IEP would be a thing of the past under the Cato plan, but it would not abolish parent-teacher conferences.
"We are proposing not to eliminate parent-teacher interaction but to eliminate the power struggles which interfere with the current IEP process," Gryphon says. "No longer will they have to fight over money because that will be determined before they walk in the door. No longer will they need to fight over pedagogy because although the teacher may offer advice and counsel like a banker or a lawyer, the parent will ultimately have the final choice."
Andrew Rotherham, director of education policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, which is affiliated with the Democratic leadership Council, says the current process of using an IEP to evaluate a child is complicated, but simplification is the answer, not discarding the entire system.
He proposes more mediation between dissatisfied parents and teachers, but also giving parents a wider variety of choices within the public school system.
"Cato supports parents as the ultimate agent of accountability. We think parents and the public interest need to work in tandem and that is why we are skeptical of a plan like this, because it essentially says there is a problem with (IDEA because of) not enough accountability, so let's go ahead and have no accountability as the solution," Rotherham says.
With so many other priorities before Congress, Finn says he is unsure whether lawmakers will be inspired to enact meaningful change to IDEA.
"(I wonder) whether the will is there to change it, knowing that it needs to be changed," Finn says. "It is most clear that anybody in Washington is thinking they can deal with infinitely more politically rewarding projects --like jacking up the stock market or securing homeland security. It is not clear to me that anybody is going to set this as the program they want to work on. I hope I am wrong."
