Rethinking Special Education for a New Century
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Rethinking Special Education for a New Century • Individualized Education Program • Accountability • Accommodation • Due Process Hearing • Section 504 • Litigation • Discipline • Inclusion Learning Disabilities • Individuals with Education Act • Least Restrictive Environment • Free Appropriate Public Education • Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham, and Charles R. Hokanson, Jr., Editors With a Preface by Madeleine Will Published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the Progressive Policy Institute May 2001 Table of Contents Table of Contents Foreword Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham, and Charles R. Hokanson, Jr. v Preface Madeleine Will . ix Chapter Highlights . xi Special Education History and Issues 1. The Evolution of the Federal Role Tyce Palmaffy . 1 2. Time to Make Special Education Special Again Wade F. Horn and Douglas Tynan . 23 3. Effectiveness and Accountability (Part 1): The Compliance Model Patrick J. Wolf and Bryan C. Hassel . 53 4. The Moral Foundations of Special Education Law Mark Kelman . 77 5. Special but Unequal: Race and Special Education Matthew Ladner and Christopher Hammons . 85 Special Education in Practice 6. Special Education at Coles Elementary School Robert Cullen . 111 7. How Special Education Policy Affects Districts Anna B. Duff . 135 8. How Federal Special Education Policy Affects Schooling in Virginia Frederick M. Hess and Frederick J. Brigham . 161 9. The Rising Costs of Special Education in Massachusetts: Causes and Effects Sheldon Berman, Perry Davis, Ann Koufman-Frederick, and David Urion . 183 Progressive Policy Institute v Thomas B. Fordham Foundation iii Table of Contents 10. Nasty, Brutish and Often Not Very Short: The Attorney Perspective on Due Process Kevin J. Lanigan, Rose Marie L. Audette, Alexander E. Dreier, and Maya R. Kobersy . 213 11. Navigating the Special Education Maze: Experiences of Four Families Siobhan Gorman . 233 Moving Forward 12. Rethinking Learning Disabilities G. Reid Lyon, Jack M. Fletcher, Sally E. Shaywitz, Bennett A. Shaywitz, Joseph K. Torgesen, Frank B. Wood, Anne Schulte, and Richard Olson . 259 13. The Little-Known Case of Americas Largest School Choice Program Daniel McGroarty . 289 14. Effectiveness and Accountability (Part 2): Alternatives to the Compliance Model Bryan C. Hassel and Patrick J. Wolf . 309 Conclusions and Principles for Reform Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham, and Charles R. Hokanson, Jr. 335 Contributors . 349 Conference Participants and Attendees . .359 iv RETHINKING SPECIAL EDUCATION FOR A NEW CENTURY Foreword Foreword Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham, and Charles R. Hokanson, Jr.* A quarter century ago, President Ford signed historic legislation seeking to ensure educational equity for children with disabilities and special needs. This legislation, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was a major milestone in the quest to end the chronic exclusion and mis-education of students with exceptional needs. It helped open the door to fairness and access for millions of such youngsters and paved the way to greater educational success for many of them during the past 25 years. But the law of unintended consequences was also at work during this period, as were Washingtons well-known tendencies to over-regulate, over-manage, and make more complex. Even as important reforms began to sweep through regular K-12 education, the IDEA program was becoming set in its ways. Not every change it brought about turned out to be positive, and, although it has surely helped address many education challenges, it has created some, too. For too long, most politicians, policymakers, and others involved with the IDEA and the special education system that law has helped to construct considered it taboo to discuss these problems and challenges. It seemed at times as if anything less than unadulterated praise for the IDEA was indicative of hostility towards its goals orworsetowards children with special needs. Thus, the IDEA has come to be viewed as the third rail issue of education policy: Its fine to support more spending, maybe even suggest some incremental changes along the programs margin (generally by way of expanding it and closing loopholes), but it has not been okay to probe its basic assumptions and practices, much less criticize them. Well-intentioned people who have attempted to highlight deficiencies, inequities, and problems with special education have been criticized as interlopers with bad motives or political agendas and told to leave such matters to the stakeholder community. Hence, the federal special education program has been subjected to astonishingly little objective policy analysiscertainly nothing resembling its fair share of scrutiny considering that it now touches about 12 percent of American children and spends $7.4 billion annually at the federal level. Indeed, once state and local funds are added to the federal dollars, experts estimate that $35-$60 billion is spent annually on special education in this country. By some estimates, 40 percent of all new spending on K-12 education over the past 30 years has flowed into special education. Because its been so difficult, risky, and unrewarding to probe and ponder the special education program, many aspects have been insulated from the scrutiny that has led to important reforms in other areas of education over the past decade. Its time, we believe, to cut through that insulation and subject this important program to examinationnot, let us be clear, because we have any ax to grind or points to score but because millions of needy children depend on this program for their education. The least we can do is attempt to determine whether its doing a _______________________________________ * Dr. Finn is President of and Mr. Hokanson is Finance Director and Research Fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Mr. Rotherham is Director of the 21st Century Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. Progressive Policy Institute v Thomas B. Fordham Foundation v Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham, and Charles R. Hokanson, Jr. good job for them. In this matter, every American is a stakeholder. We all share the responsibility to help ensure that special-needs students receive the high-quality education to which they are entitled. This volume is a beginning, not an end. It does not hold the solution to every problem that confronts the special education system and neither do the authors or editors. We do believe, however, that the ideas, research, and reporting set forth in these pages provide an excellent starting point for policymakers seeking to rethink special education. What does rethinking mean? It starts by posing some crucial questions. For example, is the current regulatory/civil rights model the best way to ensure quality education for youngsters with disabilities? Are students being needlessly referred to special education because of other deficiencies in our educational systemfor example, because they receive poor reading instructionrather than because they have extraordinary needs? Is race a factor in special education assignment? Does the programs focus on compliance come at the expense of achievement? Many more questions follow, and further analysis should follow as well. This set of papers, findings, ideas, and recommendations ought not to end the analytic process. It should merely help to launch itto stimulate fresh thinking in the policy community, spark further dialogue about how to ensure that youngsters with disabilities succeed in school, and inform the debate when the next IDEA reauthorization cycle begins. Our goal in assembling this volume is to view special education in general and the IDEA in particular with some distance and objectivity. Several of the following chapters examine general aspects of the program; others are up-close case studies. Practically all of the authors are astute observers and practiced analysts for whom this was a new topic. Special education is relatively new to us, too. This means we may have overlooked some key points and misunderstood others. We invite readers to point out our omissions and misjudgments, all in the interest of continuing a needed conversation about this important program. Fourteen of this volumes chapters were first presented and discussed at a two-day conference in November 2000, co-sponsored by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the Progressive Policy Institute. Following that discussion, the authors undertook revisions, and the editors did what editors dohassled the authors, tweaked the words, poked at the ideas, and mulled our own conclusions. The editors thinking on this subject is contained in the final chapter, which sets forth our conclusions in summary fashion and offers several principles to guide efforts to reform special education. Our goal is to stimulate further analysis, debate, and discussion prior to the next IDEA reauthorization cycle, which should begin in 2002. We have not looked into every aspect of the program. Important issues await the attention of others; we urge that attention be paid. And we intend to be back with more detailed recommendations after more discussion, analysis, and (hopefully) consensus-building. In the meantime, we earnestly hope that this volume will contribute to a serious debate that goes well beyond how much money is being appropriated and instead asks how well the program is working and what might work better. That discussion needs to go beyond the false choice that has so often been posed about the vi RETHINKING SPECIAL EDUCATION FOR A NEW CENTURY Foreword education of disabled children. It often seems as if policymakers have only two options: to maintain todays status quo, or return to the dreadful treatment accorded many disabled children before 1975. On National Public Radio recently, a university professor who studies the IDEA gave voice to this view, saying, when people start complaining [about the IDEA], I say, Stop, do you want to go back to the 1960s? If we accomplish nothing else with this volume, perhaps we will at least open the eyes of policymakers to the fact that there are many other options worthy of consideration.