Post by healthy11 on Oct 25, 2014 14:41:47 GMT -5
From: Beverley Holden Johns
Why is it so difficult to change the way Illinois funds special education?
Largely because special ed is different than all of the rest of elementary and secondary education. By law, the needs of an INDIVIDUAL student come first – a local school district must provide assistance in the general ed classroom, in a separate class, in a separate school, in a private school, or in a hospital or residential school depending ONLY on the individual needs of a student.
As Fred Weintraub, one of the architects of the original Federal special education law (now IDEA), stated in 2012, "This principle of building a program around a child, as opposed to fitting a child into a program, was a revolutionary departure from the traditions of general and special education in that it assumes there are no common outcomes or approaches. It requires that a school district have available an array of placement, service, curricular, and instructional options and that the IEP team has the freedom to select options that meet the needs of the child."
Depending on how completely a local school district complies with the law, this means there is tremendous variance in how many special ed students a school district identifies. In addition, poverty is tied to disability. Also, parental knowledge of the law and the advocacy of parents varies dramatically across school districts.
So for these reasons, special ed costs vary far beyond regional variance in cost of living, and the identification rates for special ed vary.
In addition there is a relatively new problem. There is always a tension between the costs of special ed and administrators’ desire to focus on the majority of students.
This leads to efforts to NOT identify students under the Federal and State laws as that gives parents and students legal rights that other students do not have.
There is an effort to set up an alternative system, and then there is the need to fund that system. We are increasingly moving in Illinois to 3 types of classes: general ed, special ed and Response to Intervention (RTI) ed.
Part of the push to block grant special ed is to provide flexibility so local school districts can fund RTI ed.
A form letter being used by some school districts shows how far this RTI ed has progressed in Illinois.
The MacArthur Middle School (Prospect Heights, IL) letter says four (4) times, "RTI class"
(including for "all five days during the week"), and at the bottom, "Parent Signature Refusing Placement." All of this is outside Federal and Illinois law.
The Federal special ed law, IDEA, was reauthorized in 2004 to say that RTI "may" be used (it was permissive, not mandatory) by a local school district ONLY as part of the process to identify Learning Disabilities (LD).
After a heated dispute, Illinois adopted rules mandating RTI, but again ONLY as part of the process for identifying a child as having Learning Disabilities, and therefore being qualified for special education.
The MacArthur Middle School letter does not even pretend that their five-day-a-week RTI class is part of any process to identify LD.
But some local schools are using RTI for almost anything and for almost anyone as there are NO Federal regulations on RTI, and no details in Illinois regs on what RTI is and is not.
Students have NO legal rights under RTI, so some school districts actively support RTI and do all they can to convince parents not to ask for an evaluation for special ed.
But schools have to get the money to fund RTI, and they can use only 15% of their Federal special ed money for it, which in most cases is only about $100 per student, and according to Illinois law, State special ed funds can only be used for identified special ed students.
For all of these reasons, changing special ed funding in Illinois is far more complex than just coming up with one block grant.
Why is it so difficult to change the way Illinois funds special education?
Largely because special ed is different than all of the rest of elementary and secondary education. By law, the needs of an INDIVIDUAL student come first – a local school district must provide assistance in the general ed classroom, in a separate class, in a separate school, in a private school, or in a hospital or residential school depending ONLY on the individual needs of a student.
As Fred Weintraub, one of the architects of the original Federal special education law (now IDEA), stated in 2012, "This principle of building a program around a child, as opposed to fitting a child into a program, was a revolutionary departure from the traditions of general and special education in that it assumes there are no common outcomes or approaches. It requires that a school district have available an array of placement, service, curricular, and instructional options and that the IEP team has the freedom to select options that meet the needs of the child."
Depending on how completely a local school district complies with the law, this means there is tremendous variance in how many special ed students a school district identifies. In addition, poverty is tied to disability. Also, parental knowledge of the law and the advocacy of parents varies dramatically across school districts.
So for these reasons, special ed costs vary far beyond regional variance in cost of living, and the identification rates for special ed vary.
In addition there is a relatively new problem. There is always a tension between the costs of special ed and administrators’ desire to focus on the majority of students.
This leads to efforts to NOT identify students under the Federal and State laws as that gives parents and students legal rights that other students do not have.
There is an effort to set up an alternative system, and then there is the need to fund that system. We are increasingly moving in Illinois to 3 types of classes: general ed, special ed and Response to Intervention (RTI) ed.
Part of the push to block grant special ed is to provide flexibility so local school districts can fund RTI ed.
A form letter being used by some school districts shows how far this RTI ed has progressed in Illinois.
The MacArthur Middle School (Prospect Heights, IL) letter says four (4) times, "RTI class"
(including for "all five days during the week"), and at the bottom, "Parent Signature Refusing Placement." All of this is outside Federal and Illinois law.
The Federal special ed law, IDEA, was reauthorized in 2004 to say that RTI "may" be used (it was permissive, not mandatory) by a local school district ONLY as part of the process to identify Learning Disabilities (LD).
After a heated dispute, Illinois adopted rules mandating RTI, but again ONLY as part of the process for identifying a child as having Learning Disabilities, and therefore being qualified for special education.
The MacArthur Middle School letter does not even pretend that their five-day-a-week RTI class is part of any process to identify LD.
But some local schools are using RTI for almost anything and for almost anyone as there are NO Federal regulations on RTI, and no details in Illinois regs on what RTI is and is not.
Students have NO legal rights under RTI, so some school districts actively support RTI and do all they can to convince parents not to ask for an evaluation for special ed.
But schools have to get the money to fund RTI, and they can use only 15% of their Federal special ed money for it, which in most cases is only about $100 per student, and according to Illinois law, State special ed funds can only be used for identified special ed students.
For all of these reasons, changing special ed funding in Illinois is far more complex than just coming up with one block grant.