Copyright 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
July 1, 2000, Saturday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL, Pg. 3
LENGTH: 628 words
HEADLINE:
SPECIAL CHALLENGES
BODY:
EDUCATION
BEFORE the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
debuted 25 years ago, about 1 million children with disabilities were excluded
from schools. Thousands more were denied services and 90 percent of those with
developmental disabilities lived in institutions.
Today, the U.S.
Department of Education estimates that three times as many disabled people
attend colleges or universities and twice as many of today's 20-year-olds with
disabilities are working. They owe much of their success to the mainstreaming
push that followed passage of the IDEA, which mandated special education in
public schools. But their progress came at a price, one that some school
administrators say has grown too high. Service to students with disabilities
does not come cheap. Nor is it easy. The nation's teacher shortage is especially
acute in the area of special education, and the expenses for special education
classrooms often consume large portions of a district's budget. Despite federal
pledges to pay 40 percent of the cost to educate these students, public schools
have largely been picking up the tab for the IDEA: The federal government
currently pays only about 14 percent of the cost.
The IDEA also has
spawned other problems. School officials, including many represented by the
Missouri School Boards Association, tell horror stories about a dual discipline
system and paperwork morass created by the IDEA. The law stipulates that
districts cannot apply their usual discipline standards to students with
disabilities. Instead, they must follow an intricate process that school
officials said sometimes seems to give students with disabilities leeway to be
as bad as they want to be -- by assaulting a teacher, for instance, or carrying
a gun. Some students take advantage of the fact that schools must discipline
them less harshly than their peers and must either keep them in school or pay
for their education elsewhere. Special education teachers complain that they
suffer an inordinate amount of abuse with no recourse to normal discipline
procedures, and that federal regulations bog them down in documentation, leaving
them unable to tend to the immediate needs of their students.
Missouri
Sen. John Ashcroft and Rep. Jim Talent, both Republicans, have attempted to
solve those problems by offering amendments that would give schools more
latitude to discipline or expel students with disabilities who imperil others.
Both attempts are stalled. Mr. Ashcroft's was attached to a juvenile justice
bill now stuck in conference committee. Mr. Talent's amendment hinges on the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which looks
uncertain. Meanwhile, the prospect of greatly increased funding for special
education through the IDEA also seems shaky. The House passed a generous bill
this spring, but then appropriated much less money than promised. The Senate is
now wrangling over the same funding question.
Congress should keep its
pledge and give public schools the money they need to make the IDEA work.
Lawmakers also should look closely at the IDEA's unintended consequences. They
must not give in to the hype of zero tolerance discipline policies, nor give
school districts too much latitude to oust students who have fought too hard for
their rightful place in public education. But all students -- including those
with disabilities -- suffer when a handful are allowed to endanger and disrupt
classrooms with impunity. Lawmakers and educators must work together to find a
middle path that makes sense, not only for the minority of students with
disabilities, but also for the majority of students whose well-being and future
success largely depends on the classroom environment created by their peers.
LOAD-DATE: July 1, 2000 
