Special Ed and School Choice

In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.

About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.

The Trump administration is halving the staff of the Department of Education, which is proposing to close.

Kara Arundel at K-12 Dive:

The U.S. Department of Education is working with school districts and states to expand school choice models for students with disabilities that will spur innovative and effective learning opportunities, a top federal special education official said during opening remarks Tuesday at the Office of Special Education Programs’ annual conference.

“Our goal is to expand choices for students with special needs so that every family has options to find the best-fit school for their child and not have it be the other way around, where they have to force their child to be a fit in a school that may not be for them,” Diana Diaz-Harrison, deputy assistant secretary of the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, told the 1,200 conference attendees.

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Public school advocates have pushed back on federal and state efforts to increase private school choice options, saying public schools would lose money and resources if taxpayer-supported funding is shared with private schools. They also worry about equitable access to high-quality education programs and accountability for private schools.

Additionally, school choice opponents point out that private schools can choose which students to enroll while public schools must educate all students, including those with disabilities. Private schools do not have to comply with IDEA.

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Diaz-Harrison said her own struggles to find a right-fit school for her son with autism inspired her to found the Arizona Autism Charter Schools. Opened in 2014, the network now has five schools with more planned, she said.

Couirt Case on Tax-Credit Plan

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Vouchers and charter schools are part of the ongoing debate.

From the Autism Society:

The Autism Society signed onto a friend of the court brief developed by the National Disability Rights Network, The Arc of the United States, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA), and other advocacy organizations in the case of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue asking the Court to uphold the decision made by the Montana Supreme Court invalidating Montana’s private school tax-credit scholarship program as it is harmful to students with disabilities. While families petitioning the court suggest that the program would help students with disabilities, school vouchers and tax-credit programs like Montana’s actually hurt students with disabilities by redirecting public funds to private schools that are largely unbound by the federal laws in place for over four decades that protect the rights of students with disabilities.

When students with disabilities use vouchers or tax credits to attend a private school, typically they forfeit their rights mandated by federal law —including the right to an appropriate, individualized education—because the statute’s key provisions do not apply to private schools. At least seven states have voucher programs that require parents to explicitly waive all or most of their disability rights protections under federal law to participate. In other states, parents often do not realize the rights they are forfeiting: 83% of parents of students with disabilities in such programs report that they receive inaccurate or no information on the loss of those rights, according to a federal watchdog report. The Court has scheduled to hear oral arguments on January 22, 2020.

Questions About Choice Programs

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Vouchers and charter schools are part of the ongoing debate.

COPAA Executive Director Denise Marshall at The Hill:

Last November, the National Council on Disability (NCD) published the School Choice Series (Vouchers and Charter Schools); both were officially submitted to the White House. To date, Secretary DeVos has failed to mention any of the documented findings, especially those critical to explaining the extreme variance and lack of availability of the same type; or in some cases, any choice for students with disabilities as compared to other school-age students.

For example, the NCD voucher report found that the same concerns presented in 2003 (by NCD in a prior report) continue to be critical problems in 2018. Specifically, the report highlights:

NCD found that while some families experience that private schools are able to meet the needs of children with disabilities better than public schools, parents and families using vouchers can lose access to IDEA rights; accountability can suffer; and vouchers might only cover a portion of private school cost, leaving a majority of families unable to access any choice at all.

These NCD findings are consistent with other reports for example in 2016: Private School Choice Programs Are Growing and Can Complicate Providing Certain Federally Funded Services to Eligible Students, and School Vouchers and Students with Disabilities: Examining Impact in the Name of Choice; in 2017, Private School Choice: Federal Actions Needed to Ensure Parents Are Notified About Changes in Rights for Students with Disabilities; and 2018 5 Policy Ideas to Improve Private School Voucher Programs.

School Choice and Information for Parents

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

From the Government Acountability Office:

States include different academic, administrative, and financial accountability mechanisms in their voucher and education savings account (ESA) programs—programs that use public funds for private school educational expenses (see figure). Of the 27 programs operating in January 2017, most had academic and administrative accountability mechanisms for participating schools, such as academic testing requirements (18 of 27) or health and safety requirements (25 of 27). In addition, 15 of 27 programs required schools to demonstrate financial soundness and 8 of 27 programs required annual financial audits.

Key Academic, Administrative, and Financial Accountability Mechanisms in Private School Choice Programs

Almost all of the 27 private school choice program websites provide a directory of participating schools and some provide guidance on selecting schools. However, GAO estimates that no more than half of all schools participating in any type of voucher program mention students with disabilities anywhere on their websites, according to GAO's review of a nationally generalizable sample of websites of private schools in voucher programs. Further, GAO estimates that no more than 53 percent of private schools in voucher programs designed for students with disabilities provide disability-related information on their websites.

GAO found private school choice programs inconsistently provide information on changes in rights and protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when parents move a child with a disability from public to private school. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Education (Education) strongly encouraged states and school districts to notify parents of these changes, but according to Education, IDEA does not provide it with statutory authority to require this notification. According to GAO's review of information provided by private school choice programs, and as confirmed by program officials, in school year 2016-17, 83 percent of students enrolled in a program designed specifically for students with disabilities were in a program that provided either no information about changes in IDEA rights or provided information that Education confirmed contained inaccuracies about these changes. Officials from national stakeholder groups, private choice programs, and Education told GAO that some parents do not understand that certain key IDEA rights and protections—such as discipline procedures and least restrictive environment requirements—change when parents move their child from public to private school. Ensuring that quality information is communicated consistently and accurately to parents can help address potential misunderstanding about changes in federal special education rights.
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What GAO Recommends

Congress should consider requiring states to notify parents/guardians about changes in federal special education rights when a parent moves a child from public to private school. In addition, GAO recommends Education review and correct inaccurate IDEA-related information provided by states. Education generally agreed with our recommendation.

For more information, contact Jacqueline M. Nowicki at (617) 788-0580 or nowickij@gao.gov.

Lawsuit: Problems in NYC Special Education

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

From Disability Rights Advocates

M.G., et al. v. New York City Department of Education, et al.
Click here for case documents Date Filed: 07/27/2017 Status: Active 

On July 27, 2017, DRA filed a class action lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”), the City of New York, and DOE Chancellor Carmen Fariña, in her official capacity, alleging violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and other anti-discrimination laws on behalf of a class of students with disabilities who attend school in the Bronx and are being denied legally-mandated special education services. 

If the New York City Department of Education cannot find providers for related services that a student with a disability needs like occupational therapy or speech therapy, it issues a “voucher” to parents instead called Related Service Authorizations or RSAs 

While typically these services would be provided during the school day, the families of children receiving these vouchers are left to fend for themselves, often facing insurmountable obstacles related to limited transportation options, inflexible work schedules, and language barriers. These vouchers go unused at very high rates. In the Bronx, over 63% of the vouchers are not used. The rates of usage are not much better across the City generally as almost half of the over 9,000 vouchers issued in the 2015-2016 school year went unused

DRA’s goal in this case is to ensure that the DOE develops and implements a remedial plan that includes new practices, policies, and procedures to ensure that all students in the Plaintiff Class receive their related services.

Evidence on Vouchers

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Christina Samuels writes at Education Week about studies of voucher programs in Indiana and Louisiana. Voucher students showed no academic gains in their early years of enrollment, and sine lost ground. MORE DETAIL HERE.

The Indiana study tracked a selection of students in grades 3-8 who switched from public to private schools using Indiana's Choice Scholarship Program, the country's largest voucher program. ...

[S]pecial education students in the study performed worse than students in the study as a group; they saw academic achievement losses in English/language-arts as well as in math.

The Indiana voucher program requires that parents of children with disabilities and the private school agree on a "Choice Scholarship Education Plan" that has some similarities to the individualized education program that is required under the IDEA. However, IEPs are much more comprehensive and are intended to meet the student's legal right to a free, appropriate public education.

In the Louisiana research, researchers found that students who participated in the Louisiana Scholarship Program had no statistically significant gains in math or English/language arts after participating in the program for three years... 

• About 13 percent of the voucher applicant pool was students was disabilities, roughly equal to the population of students with disabilities in Louisiana as a whole;

• In the second year of participation in the voucher program, students with disabilities were nearly 50 percent more likely than students who did not get a voucher to lose their disability identification;

• The chance of a voucher student being newly identified as having a disability was slightly lower than the control group rate.

The Downside of Vouchers

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. At The New York Times, Dana Goldstein reports on special education vouchers:

McKay [program in Florida] is the largest of 10 such disability scholarship programs across the country. It serves over 30,000 children who have special needs. At the Senate confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s education secretary, she cited research from the conservative Manhattan Institute, saying that “93 percent of the parents utilizing that voucher are very, very pleased with it.”

Legal experts say parents who use the vouchers are largely unaware that by participating in programs like McKay, they are waiving most of their children’s rights under IDEA, the landmark 1975 federal civil rights law. Depending on the voucher program, the rights being waived can include the right to a free education; the right to the same level of special-education services that a child would be eligible for in a public school; the right to a state-certified or college-educated teacher; and the right to a hearing to dispute disciplinary action against a child.

It’s not just Florida. Private school choice programs in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wisconsin also require parents to waive all or most IDEA rights. In several other states, the law is silent on the disability rights of voucher students.

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The state affidavit that parents sign in order to receive a McKay scholarship, for example, says nothing about forfeiting IDEA rights and services. It also does not explain that parents are responsible for any additional fees a private school may charge on top of a voucher, which can range from $5,000 to $23,000. The Florida Department of Education website provides other materials with more detail on the legal implications of participating in McKay, but the documents are difficult to find and decipher. District-level documents are often similarly opaque.