Parents of special needs students increasingly battle schools over how to educate their children

As school districts’ financial resources are stretched further, parents of students with special needs are increasingly locked in battle over how best to educate their children. Since the federal government enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in the 1970s, students with disabilities have been guaranteed a free education tailored to meet their individual needs. During the past three decades, the number of students identified as eligible for special education has doubled to an estimated 6.9 million, about 11% of all students nationwide. The cost of special education is nearly double, on average, what is spent on regular education. While parents seek the best possible education for their special needs child, even if it means expensive private school placement, school administrators try to balance the needs of all students. Special education costs threaten to eat into budgets for school endeavors that are not federally mandated, like athletics or gifted-and-talented programs. In 1990 the EAHCA was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). School district officials stress that IDEA does not require the best possible education for disabled students, but only a free "appropriate" education. According to Francisco Negrón, general counsel for the National School Boards Association, "[IDEA] doesn't say ‘free minimal public education,’ and it doesn't say ‘free optimal public education’. It's somewhere in the middle."

IDEA requires schools to develop individualized education programs for its special education students. While the process was designed to be a collaboration between schools and parents, the reality is that process is often a cross between a nasty divorce and a medical-malpractice suit, according Peter Wright, a special education attorney in Deltaville, Virginia. "The cases that are on the table tend to be really difficult, thorny questions," adds Andrew Rotherham, co-director of the Education Sector. "How much is enough?" States have attempted to help local school districts with the cost of educating especially expensive special needs students by creating funds for such students. However, the cost crunch has been complicated by mixed messages from the federal government. Parts of the No Child Left Behind Act require schools to raise the academic performance of children with disabilities, but the federal government picks up less than 18% of the additional cost of educating those students. At the same time recent congressional revisions to IDEA and U.S. Supreme Court rulings make it more difficult for parents to challenge school districts' decisions on how much support their kids should receive. The latest version of IDEA added a requirement for a last-ditch resolution meeting before the start of court hearings, which often cost each side $10,000, and there is also a new provision that makes parents pay a district's legal fees if a court finds that they have filed a "frivolous" or "unreasonable" lawsuit. This past June the Supreme Court ruled that school districts are not required to reimburse parents who prevail in court for the fees many pay consultants to help wring additional services from school systems.