katydid
May 13th, 2004, 08:59 AM
A bill is currently in the Senate to be voted on that will limit rights and funding for special needs children under the guise of "reducing paperwork" for special needs teachers and reducing litigation costs paid by the school when a parent wins a lawsuit against them (although it does not limit taxpayer expenses used to defend the school). I am asking that if you do not support this bill that you cut and paste the following letter and send it to your senator as soon as possible. Your senators are as follows:
May ___, 2004
Dear Senator ________________:
Under the emblem of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Congress made a
commitment to create educational opportunity for all students. At its core are
the principles of accurate data-based accountability, requirements for
highly qualified teachers, requirements to use research-based methods of
instruction and remediation, and a commitment to meeting high
educational standards. We ask that Congress apply these same principles to
children with disabilities.
Recently, the hope of increased educational opportunity for our
children has been threatened on two fronts. School administrators and attorneys
have vigorously lobbied to reduce standards for subpopulations included in NCLB.
For example, some would like to eliminate adequate yearly progress requirements
for children with disabilities. Their argument is that it is punitive to cast "good
schools in a bad light" (Phila. Inq. 11/23/03) by holding them responsible
for significant achievement levels for students with disabilities. These
lobbyists make it sound as if most children in special education have
significant cognitive impairments, rather than the mixture of
emotional,social, learning and physical impairments that make up 90% of those
served under IDEA. Children with disabilities are not impossible to educate,
but in many cases schools impose upon them such low expectations that they are
in fact not being educated.
Currently, parents are the primary means of enforcing compliance and accountability
under IDEA. IDEA 1997 encourages parental involvement in a child's educational
program. The IEP system, including short-term objectives, allows parents to follow
their child's progress and to ask for revisions in programs that are not working.
Due process allows parents to contest educational programs that do not provide a Free Appropriate Public Education to their children.
The same lobbyists that are asking for a weakening of NCLB are asking Congress to
increase IDEA funding, and to simultaneously lower existing IDEA accountability
measures. Some of their faulty arguments and responses to these arguments are listed
below.
Myth 1:
Eliminating those aspects of the IEP that facilitate parents' participation
and that constitute means to measure accountability will improve educational outcomes for children.
Much of the paperwork that special education teachers currently complete is not mandated
by IDEA - it results from either state requirements or local school district requirements.
Yet no one is lobbying their states to reduce this non-required paperwork. When
lobbies ask for "paperwork reduction" under IDEA, this is almost always a euphemism for eliminating progress indicators, such as short-term objectives, that demonstrate how
children with disabilities are faring. In the only recent large-scale scientific
examination of the IDEA paperwork issue, short-term objectives were rated as
one of the two most useful portions of the IEP (SPeNSE paperwork report 3/24/03).
If the purpose of paperwork reduction were really to improve the work environment of special education teachers, then school administrators would be pushing for increased
technical support in order to expedite the IEP process.
Allowing states license to "waive" paperwork requirements without regard to
the rights of children with disabilities will result in reduced accountability and the elimination of parental participation in the process.
Parents cannot argue against failing programs if they have no data to demonstrate
this failure. In many cases NCLB does not provide published data for children
with disabilities (e.g. Alpert letter to OSEP, 2004). Schools would like to
accept IDEA funds without having to document where the funds are going.
SOLUTION:
Promote paperwork reduction measures that emphasize the use of technology
to reduce the need for redundant tasks (e.g. retyping entire IEPs for each
revision.) Stipulate that paperwork reduction measures cannot violate the rights
of families or interfere with their participation in the child's educational
program. Options should not include eliminating IEPs, present levels of
performance, evaluations or short-term objectives.
Myth 2:
Parents, with the encouragement of private attorneys, are instituting
frivolous due process suits for personal gain.
Families cannot collect damages under the due process system, leaving no motivation
for frivolous litigation. All they have to gain is an improved educational
program for their children. Parents take a gamble with each due process suit,
as school districts typically win (Newcomer & Zirkel, 1999). There are relatively
few special education attorneys who take cases on behalf of parents, as it is one
of the least lucrative forms of law practice. Parents find it difficult to obtain
low cost or pro bono attorneys, and those families who are not represented by attorneys
prevail in only 10-16% of cases (Archer, 2002). Furthermore, some states are
limiting the use of lay advocates in due process cases. (Ahearn,2001).
Measures in S. 1248 that are supposed to "reduce litigation" are not created
for the benefit of children with disabilities. Instead, they intend to
make it so expensive for parents to invoke their due process rights that
only the richest of the rich (indeed, those who could afford to privately
tutor their children throughout the school years) will be able to afford to
litigate at all. Without parents litigating, the only extant and heretofore
successful avenue for accountability is eliminated. So schools are then free
to accept IDEA funds with no one looking over their shoulder
to make sure that the funds serve their intended purpose.
SOLUTION:
Decrease litigation by improving federal monitoring of state
compliance. Continue to encourage consensus building measures (e.g.,
voluntary mediation, facilitated IEP meetings, joint parent teacher
training workshops).
Myth 3:
IDEA is being used by greedy parents to cheat the system into a 'Cadillac'
education for their children.
IDEA as currently interpreted by the federal courts does not provide children
with disabilities the opportunity to become functional and self-supporting
adults. Under the Rowley standard, children with disabilities merely have the
right to an educational program designed to show "some progress".
In most states, this ruling has been interpreted quite literally as a minimal
standard, a so-called "floor of opportunity." For example, a PA Commonwealth
Court recently ruled that 2 months progress over 10 months of instruction for
a child with a specific learning impairment, resulting in a 7th grader with
2nd grade reading skills, was adequate progress under IDEA
(Daniel G. v. Del Val. Sch. Dist. PA Cmwlth 2002). This ruling ignored the child's
ability to make more significant progress in a private school program. Since
the time of the Daniel G. ruling, children with autism and learning disabilities
have been held to a very minimal standard of progress in Pennsylvania. It doesn't
matter if a child with autism has the potential to learn to speak, to work
and to become self-sufficient - as long as he shows some minimal progress in
his educational program, courts deem him to be appropriately served under
IDEA. This is abusive and perpetuates the notion that people with disabilities
will always be a drain on society.
SOLUTION:
Do not allow schools to waive NCLB standards for children with disabilities.
Do not allow schools to obscure data on the outcome measures of special
education students (such a graduation rates). A lot of tax dollars go into
special education programs - the taxpayers should be able to hold the system
accountable for an acceptable outcome.
ALL children have the potential to make a positive contribution to society.
I do not accept that "minimal" progress is good enough. I do not accept that
progress reports (short-term objectives) for children with disabilities, service plans
(IEPs) and evaluations constitute meaningless "paperwork". I do not accept that
children with disabilities deserve to be taught with minimal expectations and with no accountability.
I hope you will consider increasing rather than decreasing accountability. Before cutting paperwork, please consider what information is being recorded on these papers.
Please do not undercut the parents' ability to monitor the system. Instead, let's raise expectations for all children, including those with disabilities.
Sincerely,
____________________
May ___, 2004
Dear Senator ________________:
Under the emblem of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Congress made a
commitment to create educational opportunity for all students. At its core are
the principles of accurate data-based accountability, requirements for
highly qualified teachers, requirements to use research-based methods of
instruction and remediation, and a commitment to meeting high
educational standards. We ask that Congress apply these same principles to
children with disabilities.
Recently, the hope of increased educational opportunity for our
children has been threatened on two fronts. School administrators and attorneys
have vigorously lobbied to reduce standards for subpopulations included in NCLB.
For example, some would like to eliminate adequate yearly progress requirements
for children with disabilities. Their argument is that it is punitive to cast "good
schools in a bad light" (Phila. Inq. 11/23/03) by holding them responsible
for significant achievement levels for students with disabilities. These
lobbyists make it sound as if most children in special education have
significant cognitive impairments, rather than the mixture of
emotional,social, learning and physical impairments that make up 90% of those
served under IDEA. Children with disabilities are not impossible to educate,
but in many cases schools impose upon them such low expectations that they are
in fact not being educated.
Currently, parents are the primary means of enforcing compliance and accountability
under IDEA. IDEA 1997 encourages parental involvement in a child's educational
program. The IEP system, including short-term objectives, allows parents to follow
their child's progress and to ask for revisions in programs that are not working.
Due process allows parents to contest educational programs that do not provide a Free Appropriate Public Education to their children.
The same lobbyists that are asking for a weakening of NCLB are asking Congress to
increase IDEA funding, and to simultaneously lower existing IDEA accountability
measures. Some of their faulty arguments and responses to these arguments are listed
below.
Myth 1:
Eliminating those aspects of the IEP that facilitate parents' participation
and that constitute means to measure accountability will improve educational outcomes for children.
Much of the paperwork that special education teachers currently complete is not mandated
by IDEA - it results from either state requirements or local school district requirements.
Yet no one is lobbying their states to reduce this non-required paperwork. When
lobbies ask for "paperwork reduction" under IDEA, this is almost always a euphemism for eliminating progress indicators, such as short-term objectives, that demonstrate how
children with disabilities are faring. In the only recent large-scale scientific
examination of the IDEA paperwork issue, short-term objectives were rated as
one of the two most useful portions of the IEP (SPeNSE paperwork report 3/24/03).
If the purpose of paperwork reduction were really to improve the work environment of special education teachers, then school administrators would be pushing for increased
technical support in order to expedite the IEP process.
Allowing states license to "waive" paperwork requirements without regard to
the rights of children with disabilities will result in reduced accountability and the elimination of parental participation in the process.
Parents cannot argue against failing programs if they have no data to demonstrate
this failure. In many cases NCLB does not provide published data for children
with disabilities (e.g. Alpert letter to OSEP, 2004). Schools would like to
accept IDEA funds without having to document where the funds are going.
SOLUTION:
Promote paperwork reduction measures that emphasize the use of technology
to reduce the need for redundant tasks (e.g. retyping entire IEPs for each
revision.) Stipulate that paperwork reduction measures cannot violate the rights
of families or interfere with their participation in the child's educational
program. Options should not include eliminating IEPs, present levels of
performance, evaluations or short-term objectives.
Myth 2:
Parents, with the encouragement of private attorneys, are instituting
frivolous due process suits for personal gain.
Families cannot collect damages under the due process system, leaving no motivation
for frivolous litigation. All they have to gain is an improved educational
program for their children. Parents take a gamble with each due process suit,
as school districts typically win (Newcomer & Zirkel, 1999). There are relatively
few special education attorneys who take cases on behalf of parents, as it is one
of the least lucrative forms of law practice. Parents find it difficult to obtain
low cost or pro bono attorneys, and those families who are not represented by attorneys
prevail in only 10-16% of cases (Archer, 2002). Furthermore, some states are
limiting the use of lay advocates in due process cases. (Ahearn,2001).
Measures in S. 1248 that are supposed to "reduce litigation" are not created
for the benefit of children with disabilities. Instead, they intend to
make it so expensive for parents to invoke their due process rights that
only the richest of the rich (indeed, those who could afford to privately
tutor their children throughout the school years) will be able to afford to
litigate at all. Without parents litigating, the only extant and heretofore
successful avenue for accountability is eliminated. So schools are then free
to accept IDEA funds with no one looking over their shoulder
to make sure that the funds serve their intended purpose.
SOLUTION:
Decrease litigation by improving federal monitoring of state
compliance. Continue to encourage consensus building measures (e.g.,
voluntary mediation, facilitated IEP meetings, joint parent teacher
training workshops).
Myth 3:
IDEA is being used by greedy parents to cheat the system into a 'Cadillac'
education for their children.
IDEA as currently interpreted by the federal courts does not provide children
with disabilities the opportunity to become functional and self-supporting
adults. Under the Rowley standard, children with disabilities merely have the
right to an educational program designed to show "some progress".
In most states, this ruling has been interpreted quite literally as a minimal
standard, a so-called "floor of opportunity." For example, a PA Commonwealth
Court recently ruled that 2 months progress over 10 months of instruction for
a child with a specific learning impairment, resulting in a 7th grader with
2nd grade reading skills, was adequate progress under IDEA
(Daniel G. v. Del Val. Sch. Dist. PA Cmwlth 2002). This ruling ignored the child's
ability to make more significant progress in a private school program. Since
the time of the Daniel G. ruling, children with autism and learning disabilities
have been held to a very minimal standard of progress in Pennsylvania. It doesn't
matter if a child with autism has the potential to learn to speak, to work
and to become self-sufficient - as long as he shows some minimal progress in
his educational program, courts deem him to be appropriately served under
IDEA. This is abusive and perpetuates the notion that people with disabilities
will always be a drain on society.
SOLUTION:
Do not allow schools to waive NCLB standards for children with disabilities.
Do not allow schools to obscure data on the outcome measures of special
education students (such a graduation rates). A lot of tax dollars go into
special education programs - the taxpayers should be able to hold the system
accountable for an acceptable outcome.
ALL children have the potential to make a positive contribution to society.
I do not accept that "minimal" progress is good enough. I do not accept that
progress reports (short-term objectives) for children with disabilities, service plans
(IEPs) and evaluations constitute meaningless "paperwork". I do not accept that
children with disabilities deserve to be taught with minimal expectations and with no accountability.
I hope you will consider increasing rather than decreasing accountability. Before cutting paperwork, please consider what information is being recorded on these papers.
Please do not undercut the parents' ability to monitor the system. Instead, let's raise expectations for all children, including those with disabilities.
Sincerely,
____________________