Miriam Kurtzig Freedman

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman

"Flexibility" is education'south new buzzword. Check out all those No Child Left Behind Human action waivers, providing flexibility to states, while we look Congress'southward NCLB reauthorization. 20-six states already have those waivers. More are expected.

In approval a batch of them, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, "We all sympathize that the all-time ideas don't come from Washington, and moving forwards, these states will have increased flexibility with federal funds and relief from NCLB mandates, assuasive them to develop locally tailored solutions to see unique educational challenges." (emphasis added)

Hmm. What well-nigh some flexibility for special education, the almost regulated and rigid public education mandated program, while nosotros await the next reauthorization of the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), the nation'south special education law?

How ironic. By definition, special educational activity is supposed to meet the unique, individual education needs of students with disabilities. One would expect that, specially for these students, the law would let "locally tailored solutions" for unique situations. It does not. Instead, more than 6 one thousand thousand students with disabilities, their parents, 13,809 school districts, 98,706 public schools, and 5,453 charter schools all have to meet the same rigid legal and regulatory requirements, regardless of the local state of affairs or unique needs of the child or community. In 2002, studies plant some 814 federal monitoring requirements for compliance by state and local agencies for programs for students with disabilities. You do the math.

Flexibility is sorely lacking.  Consider these recent examples:

  • While Congress made some welcome tweaks in the last reauthorization in 2004, the system still feels like a regulatory straitjacket where paperwork, timelines, meetings, and compliance dominion.
  • While some attempts to provide flexibility were made, several came with new compliance and paperwork requirements.
  • In June 2011, the Department of Didactics's Office of Special Educational activity Programs immune school districts some flexibility in how they spend special education funds (the "maintenance of attempt" requirement). After pushback from advancement groups, the Office rescinded that flexibility in April 2012, less than a year afterwards.

In 1975, Congress passed the special education police. It is adversarial, built on distrust between parents of students with disabilities and schools – with the unproven assumption that somehow more than process protects them and improves educational outcomes. Through the law, schools provide students with disabilities with an Individualized Education Programme (IEP) of services. The IEP is designed to provide each eligible child with a free appropriate public teaching. Parents tin dispute their child's IEP, and request due procedure – mediations or hearings. As a result, educators spend time on meetings, paperwork, testing, writing reports, litigation, and preparing for litigation, and parents spend time learning the law in order to advocate for their children – against their schools. Both take precious time away from teaching and learning.

Merely what if the vast majority of schools and parents don't need or want all those requirements, peculiarly when students are doing well? What if the regulatory demands are really designed for the very, very few situations when disputes nearly an IEP occur?

By style of instance, allow's review California's numbers. California's public schools educate more vi million students. Of these, some 678,000 are students with disabilities who have IEPs. That is approximately 11 percent of its school population.

Of the approximately 678,000 students with disabilities, 2,495 parents/students (parents) filed for hearings with the land during the 2010-xi fiscal year. Note that some requests were for mediations and that some hearings (an boosted 15 percent) were requested by schools, not parents.

The 2,495 parents who requested due process represent a mere 0.36 percent of all California parents of students with disabilities. We can assume that the other 99.6 percent were satisfied – or satisfied enough – with their children's teaching. Fifty-fifty if some of them were not (or didn't empathize that they could pass up an IEP and request a hearing), the overwhelming number of parents of students with disabilities  didn't dispute their children's IEPs. Let'due south call them the 97-, 98-, or 99-plus percent.

There is scant research on parent satisfaction from across the nation. While nosotros may non have enough research, two reports – from 1989 and 2008 – found high satisfaction rates. In the showtime, the rate was effectually 70 pct. In the 2008 study of parents of preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders and other disabilities, the satisfaction rates were 86.viii percent and 90.1 percentage respectively. Between 91 percent and 96 per centum of parents of children with autism spectrum disorders reported existence satisfied or very satisfied with their child's plan, teachers, and services. Conspicuously, most parents of students with disabilities are satisfied with their children's programs.

Back to those 2010-11 California numbers. Of the ii,495 due process filings by parents, the country issued just 105 decisions following hearings – a trickle of a trickle of a trickle…

Then why practice all schools and parents have to comply with all those land and federal regulations and bureaucratic requirements? Could it be that the focus, attention, fears, money, procedures, litigation, fear of litigation, etc. are most the fewer than one one-half of ane percent of parents and schools involved in due procedure disputes in California?

Where are the rights for the vast majority of parents and schools to create trust-based and positive relations? What about parents and schools who don't want or need all those cumbersome rules? How about allowing flexible, innovative approaches for parents and schools in advisable situations? Unfortunately, federal regulators continue to push in the other direction, toward rigid compliance.

One suggestion: While maintaining the school's responsibleness to assure that the child receives a gratis appropriate public education, let schools and parents voluntarily concur to append some procedural requirements, knowing that either of them can opt back in to the standard regulatory requirements at any fourth dimension? A simple agreement can be adult (without new federal paperwork mandates!), allowing parents and schools to concur to:

  • Develop a short, focused learning plan instead of the procedurally-leap IEP; or
  • Update the child'southward program without annual team meetings when the plan is working well; or
  • Build positive, constructive communication between schoolhouse and abode exterior the team process; or …

This post is non most any specific innovation. Information technology'southward most the fact that in spite of "flexibility" in the wider education community, special education is all the same bound by a 35+-year-one-time, burdensome, adversarial, and regulatory system – even when schools and parents don't want that and children are doing well.

Misguided uniform approach

We need to serve the vast majority of schools. The law should allow them flexibility without creating new paperwork burdens. In spite of the fact that no evidence supports the current compliance-driven use of scarce public resources as a style to improve teaching and learning for students, special instruction simply does non allow such flexibility. Its one-size-fits-all arroyo is sorely misguided.

Parents and schools should have flexibility to piece of work together for the benefit of students, and be able to opt out of requirements that they don't demand or want, particularly when children are doing well. Real flexibility can be provided in two ways:

  • Secretary Arne Duncan's Department of Teaching should publicly encourage flexibility in special teaching. The Section should let states, schools, and parents to concord to interact for the benefit of students – not for bureaucratic compliance – with flexibility in regulations, funding, and bureaucratic compliance when a gratuitous appropriate public educational activity is already provided.
  • Second, in its next IDEA reauthorization, Congress should explicitly provide for flexibility (without adding new regulatory requirements) in appropriate situations.

The electric current rigidity does not serve students, parents, or schools well. It is not the way to run an education system, especially when nosotros consider the far larger community of California's regular education students – some 89% of its students – whose interests and needs also have to exist met. We need to focus squarely on education and positive, trust-based relationships, not compliance. The time for flexibility is long overdue.

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, writer of Fixing Special Education, is an chaser, author, consultant, and authority on special education. She is of counsel to Stoneman, Chandler & Miller LLP in Boston. She divides her year between Boston and Palo Alto. For more information and her weblog, visit www.schoollawpro.com.

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