In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Inequality is a big part of the story.
To get a settlement with a school district over special education, first a child has to be identified by the district as requiring services — with an individualized education plan spelling out how the school will meet the student’s needs.
If parents disagree with what a district offers, they can take legal action by filing a due process complaint.That can trigger formal hearings, which result in public decisions issued by hearing officers. But the vast majority of complaints are resolved through privately negotiated settlements.
As a result, most disputes around special education are happening out of the public eye, with little known about parents’ allegations or what districts are paying out.
“It’s something almost no one knows anything systematic, objective, and complete about,” said Perry Zirkel, a professor emeritus of education and law at Lehigh University.
In the Philadelphia collar counties, where special education-focused law firms have proliferated, lawyers say affluent parents, who know their rights and have the means to hire attorneys, are more likely to sue than poor ones.The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — the 1975 federal law entitling students to special education services — has never been fully funded by Congress, leaving schools vulnerable to litigation when they’re strapped to deliver the “free appropriate public education” the law requires, [Attorney Andrew] Faust said.
The IDEA is a “very much a rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer statute,” Faust said, because unlike other civil rights laws, it relies on parents, not the government, to enforce it. [As my book notes, IDEA is not a civil rights law at all, but a "conditions of aid"law.]
