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Home > Law Library > Articles & Reports > Back To School On Civil Rights: Enforcing IDEA |
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to School on Civil Rights: Introduction: Background of This Report Since the 1980s, NCD has commissioned a number of reports on the implementation of IDEA and its impact on children with disabilities. These studies presented statistical and qualitative findings on state and local implementation of IDEA from formal research projects, scholarly publications, testimony from grassroots hearings, and input from national and state advocacy organizations. The statutory framework of IDEA envisioned states as the primary implementers of IDEA to ensure the protections of the law for children with disabilities. Yet the findings in some of these reports suggested states were falling far short of meeting these responsibilities. In 1996 NCD convened a diverse group of
more than 350 disability community leaders from across the country at
a National Summit on Disability Policy. At the summit, members of the
education policy working group had summarized the state of enforcement
of IDEA and other civil rights laws related to education as follows:
The mandate of the 1996 summit and the
above findings led to this study, which focuses on the Department of
Education's roles, policies, and procedures related to enforcement and
their impact on states' implementation and compliance with IDEA.
This report focuses primarily on the enforcement
mechanism, policies, and activities of the Department of Education in
relation to IDEA. Because of its integral relationship to enforcement,
our researchers carefully evaluated the Department of Education (DoED)
compliance-monitoring system in use at the time our research was conducted.
In the fall of 1998, however, after the major research for the report
had been completed, the Department began implementing a new continuous-improvement
monitoring system. Unless stated otherwise, the findings in this report
on DoED's compliance monitoring pertain to the system in effect from
1975 to the fall of 1998. Although the new system introduces new elements
that deserve to be evaluated on their own merit in a later study, it
retains many strategies used in the old system.
The report also examines the relationship
between the DoED and the Department of Justice (DOJ) with respect to
shared enforcement responsibility for IDEA. It also assesses the selected
technical-assistance and public-information materials developed or funded
by the DoED that are intended for students with disabilities, their
families, and advocates. NCD assessed the following specific areas:
* The effectiveness of the state
monitoring and corrective-action processes in ensuring compliance with
IDEA. * The utilization of sanctions for noncompliant
states and the effect of such sanctions in bringing about compliance. * The utilization of high risk status,
compliance agreements, and special conditions as enforcement mechanisms. * The utilization and effectiveness of
the state complaint procedures. * The utilization of litigation to enforce
the law. * The collaboration with the Department
of Justice in enforcing IDEA. * The utilization of the Section 504 (Rehabilitation Act of 1973) complaint process for addressing IDEA/504 complaints. * The perspectives of students with disabilities, parents, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, state special
education directors, and other stakeholders in relation to IDEA enforcement. * The leadership effectiveness of DoED
in ensuring compliance with the law and addressing obstacles encountered
in ensuring nondiscrimination against students with disabilities in
elementary and secondary education. * The quality and availability of public
information to students with disabilities, their families, and advocates
on the provisions of IDEA. This report is presented in eight parts.
Part I, "The
Law, the Compliance/Enforcement Scheme, and the Context" considers
the development of the original law, the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act, and its evolution over the past 25 years. It describes the
past and current need for the law and its regulations, the basic requirements
of the law, and the issues raised by the 1997 reauthorization. It presents
a summary of the statutory framework for IDEA enforcement, describing
the compliance/enforcement scheme for IDEA and how the federal enforcement
mechanism is organized, including the Department of Education's relationship
with the Department of Justice. It discusses the role of parent advocacy
in driving enforcement throughout the last two decades. And finally, it
gives a brief overview of the DoED's enforcement activity and offers findings
and recommendations.
While this report addresses federal enforcement
of IDEA carried out by DoED, it does not cover several significant aspects
of implementation or enforcement. Specifically, it does not analyze
due process procedures and private litigation, which are important IDEA
enforcement mechanisms available to students, parents, and families,
except as they relate to the federal enforcement mechanism. The report
does not assess the performance of local education agencies (LEA) in
implementing the requirements of IDEA, but does discuss findings on
LEA compliance published in the Department of Education's monitoring
reports evaluating state monitoring and enforcement efforts. The report
does not attempt to assess the individual state complaint systems that
are required to be available to parents in each state. Nor does it address
the activities of the federally funded protection and advocacy systems
(P&As) in representing thousands of parents in IDEA administrative
procedures and litigation every year and in every state,[5] although
it briefly discusses P&As' technical assistance activities.
Enforcement Research
Perspectives IDEA enforcement activities are considered
from two perspectives. The whole agency approach examines the effectiveness
of the DoED and all its components in achieving the enforcement objectives
for which it is responsible. The whole law approach considers the overall
effectiveness of DoED's external coordination and collaboration (i.e.,
interagency, with private organizations and with other levels of government)
in achieving the enforcement objectives of the law.
Several research approaches were used to conduct this study, namely (1) archival analysis, involving 62 OSEP Monitoring Reports, 19 Annual Reports by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to Congress, and Office for Civil Rights (OCR) complaint data reviews; (2) qualitative analysis involving more than 25 interviews with DoED representatives, 14 interviews with state parent advocates representatives, and at least six interviews with representatives from various other national and state advocate constituencies; (3) a national town hall meeting with about 100 participants representing students with disabilities and parents from around the country; and (4) legislative analysis of IDEA and related legislation. The research activities for this study included the following: Identifying the functions and organizational components of federal enforcement activities in the U.S. Department of Education. Identifying, collecting, and analyzing
material related to IDEA compliance monitoring and enforcement including
the most recent monitoring reports for all states; all monitoring
reports and corrective action plans in the possession of the Department
of Education for six states (Oregon, Texas, California, Vermont, New
York, and Illinois); enforcement and compliance correspondence between
the DoED and states.
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Back to School on Civil Rights - Enforcing IDEA was originally published on Wrightslaw in 2000. Table of Contents
Copyright © 1998-2024, Peter W. D. Wright and Pamela Darr
Wright. All rights reserved.
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