BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
New federal regulations governing special education systems were supposed to help states cut paperwork, reduce costs, strengthen academic achievement and solve discipline problems.
In preparation, Kentucky called together a task force to see how the state could make its rules meet -- and not exceed -- what the federal government recommended in the June 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Despite all the meetings and discussions, no changes were made. That's because the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education has yet to release a guide to implementing IDEA '97. The release date has repeatedly been postponed. Originally set for May, the release was postponed to Dec. 1 and then to this week. That didn't happen.
"We're being held back because there are no regulations," said Rita Byrd, Fort Thomas schools' assistant superintendent and president of the Northern Kentucky Directors of Special Education. "Kentucky can't move forward until we know what Washington will do. And districts can't do anything until they hear from the state."
Kentucky teachers say rules now are too specific and too time-consuming. For example, when federal rules say schools must create short-term goals for students, Kentucky spells out exactly what those goals are and how they should be achieved.
"You have a lot of teachers that will express their concern that they are spending more time on paperwork than on children," Ms. Byrd said.
A state task force of teachers and school personnel agreed, making several recommendations to Johnnie Grissom, associate commissioner for special instructional services.
"They said we presently exceed the federal law and they made suggestions for how we can make sure this doesn't happen with the new regulations," Ms. Grissom said. "We cannot and we won't do anything until we have new IDEA rules."
That's a bad thing for a component of the nation's education program that is the most heavily regulated, most expensive and most contentious.
In the past 30 years, there was an enormous spending increase for special education programs, according to research by Richard Rothstein, an associate at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., which studied spending in nine school districts representative of schools in the United States.
In 1967, average special education spending was 3.7 percent. In 1996, that same figure was 18.2 percent. At the same time, spending on regular education dropped from 79.6 percent to 57.3 percent. And for all new money pumped into education from 1967 to 1996, special education received 40 percent while regular education took 23.3 percent.
More and more children are being identified as students with special needs. In Kentucky, between 1992 and '97, the number of students labeled with an "emotional behavior disability" rose from 3,283 to 5,310.
Nationally, there are 5.4 million children with disabilities, making special education something every school deals with, said Rhoda Schneider, general counsel and senior associate commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education.
"There are huge implications for budgetary and policy conditions," Ms. Schneider said. "And there is a built-in adversarial system with parents having the right to challenge a school's decision." First passed in 1975, IDEA is a civil rights law created to guarantee every student access to education. The 1997 changes are intended to make the law less cumbersome.
While waiting for the rules, school districts in Northern Kentucky are pushing for changes to the state regulations. They want someone from the region on the state task force. And they want the Education Department to create a consistent calendar of deadlines and commit to better communication with the schools.
Confusion about why schools had to submit copies of their local special education procedures is now holding up the release of federal money. Schools submitted this data in 1994. In August, the state said it wanted the information again before it would send the money to the schools.
This new requirement was a surprise to school officials. And it slowed the release of money. Some districts received money last week. Some are still waiting.
Staying stagnant while federal rules are written isn't helping those in the classroom, either.
The area of discipline is a perfect example. Under IDEA '97, rules on disciplining special education students are vague. And that becomes a problem when special education students are learning in regular classrooms.
Under the law, kids who misbehave can't be punished like other youngsters if they're getting special education services. These children get individual education plans,
known as IEPs, which specify how they are to be taught.
By federal law, children with disabilities cannot be expelled if their misbehavior is linked to their handicap.
However, if one of these students brings a weapon to school, he or she can be removed for only 45 days while school officials decide whether a change in the child's placement is warranted. During that time off, the school must still provide education to the child, and he or she can't be permanently expelled from the system.
These guidelines hampered Silver Grove schools last Februarywhen a boy with a history of bad behavior threw scissors at a second-grade teacher, who told the other children to get under their desks for protection.
Parents wanted to know why the child wasn't disciplined. The school board said it couldn't answer questions about the incident because it did not want to violate the privacy of the child. The child's parents eventually placed their son in a different school.
Jim Bradshaw, spokesman for the federal Office of Special Education, said the regulations are now in a hearing committee. He said department officials will not discuss the new rules or their objectives until they are released, sometime in February.
