AASA Call to Action: Comment on Proposed IDEA Regs
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of
Education proposed new regulations on how states and districts will calculate
significant disproportionality under IDEA. Their proposal will result in a
significant increase in the number of districts that must set-aside 15% of IDEA
Part B funds to address significant racial and ethnic disproportionality of special
education students. Based on the Department’s projections 23 states will
require between 50-80% of all districts to set-aside 15% of their federal share
for early intervening services to remedy significant racial and ethnic
disproportionality in at least one disability, educational environment or
discipline category. Nationally, a minimum of $550 million dollars will be
redirected to early intervening services.
While we acknowledge that racial
and ethnic is disproportionality is an important and complex problem for
districts to address, AASA has very substantive concerns with the Department’s
proposal and how districts may be inappropriately identified as having
significant disproportionality. As school leaders responsible for
compliance with IDEA we urge you to take action on these regulations right
away. The deadline to submit comments is May 16th. Submitting the comments directly is super easy—simply
complete the form here.
Below is a summary of the parts of the proposed regulations we support and
oppose, so you have a better understanding of the issues.
Our concerns with the proposed regulations
are as follows:
- If States must adopt a more rigorous
methodology for measuring significant disproportionality, then States must also
have greater flexibility in exempting districts from setting aside Part B funds
to address this issue. Specifically, very small districts, districts with
specialized schools, districts with highly regarded programs for students with
disabilities in states with popular open-enrollment policies, districts with
high numbers of students in foster care, districts recovering from an
environmental or health disaster and districts with very low rates of special
education identification, restrictive placements or exclusionary discipline for
all students should not be automatically required to set-aside funding.
- The Department should not expand the data
collection around significant disproportionality to track the placement rates
of students who spend between 40-80% of their time in the general education
classroom. Reporting on whether a child spends 65 percent versus 80 percent of
his time in a general education classroom says nothing about the severity of
his disability, the classroom supports he receives, or the quality of services
he may obtain in that setting.
- A mandatory “n” size of ten may result in many
small districts being identified for significant disproportionality. There is
no data suggesting ten is the right number or an appropriate one. There is no
federal “n” size in ESSA or any other federal education law. States are best
positioned to set the “n” size.
- A requirement that significant
disproportionality be examined and addressed for students with autism or other
health impairments is highly inappropriate given that it is rare that a
district diagnoses a student as having one of these disabilities.
There are aspects of the proposed
regulations we do support:
- We support allowing early intervening
services like RTI/MTSS to be used on students with disabilities as well as
students not yet identified as disabled.
- We support requiring states to relying on 3
years of data before deciding a district must address significant
disproportionality.
- We support allowing States to exempt districts
that show reasonable progress in addressing significant disproportionality from
setting aside more funds.
Please take a few minutes to comment on
these critical changes to IDEA’s significant disproportionality calculations.
To comment directly, go to: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2016/03/02/2016-03938/assistance-to-states-for-the-education-of-children-with-disabilities-preschool-grants-for-children#open-comment
and complete the form.