A Report to the President and the Congress of the United States, September 1989

National Council on Disability
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Washington, DC 20004-1107
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An audio tape recorded version of this report is available in limited quantities
from The National Council on Disability.

The views contained in this report do not necessarily represent those
of the Administration, as this document has not been subject
to the A-l9 Executive Branch review process.

Chairperson, Sandra S. Parrino
Vice Chairperson, A. Kent Waldrep, Jr.
John A. Gannon
Theresa L. Gardner
Margaret C. Hager
Marian N. Koonce
Leslie Lenkowsky
Nanette Fabray MacDougall
Robert Muller
George H. Oberle
Brenda Premo
Joni E. Tada
Phyllis Zlotnick

The Education of Students With Disabilities:
Where Do We Stand?

Study Director, Jane West, Ph.D., Jane West and Associates
Research Associates, Elizabeth Defay, M.PA.; Richard J. Sawyer, M.A. Ed.
Consultants, Lani D. Florian, Ph.D., University of Maryland; Michael L. Hardman, Ph.D., University of Utah
Administrative Assistant, Sandra Cawley

National Council on Disability

Acting Executive Director, Ethel D. Briggs
Program Specialist, Kathy Roy Johnson
Executive Secretary, Brenda Bratton
Administrative Officer, B.E. Villanueva
Staff Assistant, Stacey Brown
Student Assistant, Lorraine Graham

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

September 15, 1989

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President

On behalf of all members of The National Council on Disability, I submit to you a special report. The Education of Students with Disabilities: Where Do We Stand?

This report is in accordance with the statutory mandate of the National Council which authorizes special reports to the President and the Congress regarding the progress of implementing recommendations contained in the Council's 1986 report, Toward Independence.

The Council views the education of students with disabilities as a critical priority. Success in education is a predictor of success in adult life. For students with disabilities, a good education can be the difference between a life of dependence and nonproductivity and a life of independence and productivity.

It is our belief that while significant gains have been made in recent years in educating students with disabilities, much remains to be done. For this reason, the key recommendation of this report is that a two year National Commission on Excellence in the Education of Students with Disabilities be established. The Commission would further assess the education of students with disabilities and make recommendations for improvement.

The National Council has been impressed with the eagerness of Americans from a wide range of perspectives to participate in this study. Parents, students, educators, advocates, local, State, and Federal leaders and employers were all willing to work with us to begin exploring how our nation might improve the education of students with disabilities. The National Council on Disability looks forward to your continued leadership on behalf of Americans with disabilities. We are eager to work with you as we seek high-quality appropriate educational services for all students with disabilities.

Sincerely,

Sandra Swift Parrino
Chairperson

(The same letter of transmittal was sent to the Senate President pro tempore and the Speaker of the House of Representatives).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Members of the National Council on Disability

Staff

Mission of the National Council on Disability

Statement of the Chairperson

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142): A Profile

Chapter Three: Findings

A Student and Parent Perspective
Safeguarding the Right to Education: Due Process at Work
School Reform and Students with Disabilities
Special Education Practices
The Federal-State Partnership
Transition from School to Adult Life
An International Perspective

Chapter Four: Recommendation for a National Commission on Excellence in the Education of Students With Disabilities

Minority View

Appendix A: Lists of Witnesses who Provided Testimony

Appendix B: Biographical Information

References

The National Council on Disability is an independent Federal agency comprised of 15 members appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

The Council is charged with reviewing all laws, programs, and policies of the Federal Government affecting individuals with disabilities, and making such recommendations as it deems necessary to the President, the Congress, the Secretary of the Department of Education, the Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the Director of the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Whereas many government agencies deal with issues and programs affecting people with disabilities, the National Council on Disability is the only Federal agency with the mandated responsibility to address, analyze, and make recommendations on issues of public policy which affect people with disabilities regardless of age, disability type, perceived employment potential, perceived economic need, specific functional ability, status as a veteran, or other individual circumstances. The Council recognizes its unique opportunity to facilitate independent living, community integration, and employment opportunities for people with disabilities by assuring a coordinated approach to addressing the concerns of persons with disabilities and eliminating barriers to their active participation in community and family life.

The progress our nation has made in the education of students with disabilities in the past 15 years is remarkable and significant. The fact that a major debate in the field of special education is the role of separate schools and the nature and extent to which integration into general education classrooms should take place is a sign of significant growth and development. Just two decades ago the major debate was whether or not students with disabilities should have access to public education programs. The Council is encouraged by the evolution of our nation's efforts to educate students with disabilities and is optimistic about our nation's ability to face the challenges of the future.

Sandra Swift Parrino
Chairperson
National Council on Disability

Introduction

A good education is a ticket to success in our society; it is a predictor of success in later life, in terms of employment, income, and independence. When we examine the educational status of a group of individuals, we are also, in most cases, examining predictors of their future.

There is perhaps no group of students for whom education is more significant than students with mental and physical disabilities. A good education can mean the difference between a life of dependence and unemployment and a life of independence and productivity. In a society too frequently preoccupied with defining people in terms of their disabilities, a good education offers people an opportunity to define themselves in terms of their abilities.

Fourteen years ago the U.S. Congress enacted legislation that has been revolutionary for students with disabilities. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, P.L. 94-142, guarantees a free appropriate public education to all students with disabilities. Students with disabilities are entitled to special education, or specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of the child. The effect of this legislation has been significant. It has opened doors that were once closed and created opportunities where once there were none. It has provided a beacon which has shown the way for over 4.4 million elementary and secondary aged students with disabilities and their families to enter through school house doors.

We are at a point in time where we might say that the foot of students with disabilities is clearly in the door. Wholesale segregation and denial of participation to students with disabilities are for the most part behind us. Where they continue, the mechanisms to oppose those practices are well established and being utilized. America's commitment to the right to education for students with disabilities is known throughout the world.

Today the education of students with disabilities is at a crossroads. The focus over the past 14 years in educating students with disabilities has been on processes and procedures related to special education with access to a public education as the goal. The time has come to shift the focus to quality and student outcomes. Simply assuring that services are present or placing students with disabilities into general classrooms is no longer good enough.

The National Council on Disability undertook this preliminary study of the education of students with disabilities in order to begin an examination of what happens to students with disabilities once they go through the doors into the school house. The time has come to ask the same questions for students with disabilities that we have been asking about students without disabilities:

• Are they achieving?
• Are they staying in school?
• Are they prepared to enter the work force when they finish school?
• Are they going on to participate in postsecondary education and training?
• Are they prepared for adult life?

Six years ago, in April 1983, a report was issued that set the stage for educational reforms which continue to this day. This report, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) was a report card on American schools that no parent would want to receive from their child at the end of a grading period. It was a report card that said in bold letters "NEEDS IMPROVEMENT."

Since the issuance of that report, educational reform initiatives have been developed and implemented across the country. There are magnet schools, increased graduation requirements, and merit pay programs. Students take more achievement tests than ever before. Schools are being held accountable for student learning. These efforts are important and are making a difference. But what about students with disabilities?

For the most part school reform efforts have not been directed toward addressing the special challenges that students with disabilities face. There is a perception that students with disabilities have a separate system, called special education, that will address all their needs. There is a separate funding stream for them, separate classes for them, separate teachers for them, special rights for them, etc. Many believe that they are well provided for in their separate system, and in fact better provided for than many other groups of students.

But when we pause and compare the outcome indicators for students with disabilities and indicators for students without disabilities, a different picture emerges. In all cases, it appears that students with disabilities are significantly lagging behind their peers without disabilities.

• Where only 15% of all adults aged 18 and over have less than a high school education, 40% of all persons with disabilities aged 16 and over did not finish high school (Harris and Associates, 1986).
  
  
• Where the dropout rate is 25% for all students, it is 36% for students with disabilities (Wagner, 1989).
  
  
• Where 56% of all students participate in postsecondary education programs, only 15% of students with disabilities do (Wagner, 1989).
  
  
• While the unemployment rate is about 5% nationally, a full 66% of all Americans with disabilities between the age of 16 and 64 are not working (Harris and Associates, 1986). According to a recent Census Bureau report (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1989) the unemployment rate of people with disabilities is 14.2%.

By any standards, these statistics are not acceptable. They indicate that access to education is simply not enough and that we have a lot of work to do.

Background of the Study

This report is the culmination of a year-long study by The National Council on Disability. The study was funded by the U.S. Congress, which directed the Council to begin studying priority issues related to the education of students with disabilities.

The status of education for students with disabilities has long been a priority for the National Council. For years, the Council has repeatedly heard from parents, students and service providers across the country regarding concerns related to the education of students with disabilities. Moreover, education is a strong personal priority for many Council members, as many are either parents of children with disabilities or persons with disabilities themselves who have vivid memories of their own educational challenges.

In 1986, with the issuance of Toward Independence, and again in 1988 with the issuance of On the Threshold of Independence, the National Council on Disability called for the establishment of a national commission to examine the quality of the education of students with disabilities in America. The Council was concerned that no independent national assessment of the education of students with disabilities had taken place since the 1975 enactment of P.L. 94-142, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act. In addition, the Council was concerned that school reform efforts sweeping the nation were not address ing the special challenges faced by students with disabilities. While a full-fledged commission was not established, funds were made available for this preliminary study.

This report is the outcome of several activities of the year-long study The Education of Students with Disabilities: Where Do We Stand? including a review and analysis of recent studies and articles related to the education of students with disabilities, consultations and interviews with parents, students, professionals and leaders in the public and private sectors, the development of issue papers, and four days of formal hearings with over 50 witnesses providing testimony. (See Appendix A for a list of all witnesses).

Testimony from witnesses provided a base of information from which the findings in Chapter Three are drawn. Hearings were organized around key topic areas of national significance related to the education of students with disabilities. The topic areas included parental and student satisfaction with educational services; the unique needs of minority, rural, native American and military families; effective parent-school partnerships; resolving differences through due process procedures; the education reform movement and students with disabilities; Federal leadership, the Federal-State partnership, the relationship between general education and special education; the role of separate schools, transition from school to adult life, employment; and international issues.

Witnesses for the hearings came from across the nation and were representative of a range of disabilities and a range of perspectives. The Council heard testimony from parents and students, general educators and special educators, researchers and teacher trainers, Federal leaders and State leaders, school principals and local school board members, State and local directors of special education, providers of related services and adult services, administrators of private schools, college teachers, employers and international researchers and leaders.

Testimony provided by witnesses, as well as other activities of this study, reinforced the Council's view that a continued effort to independently assess the nation's efforts to educate students with disabilities and make recommendations for improvements is needed. The Council envisions this study as a foundation for a National Commission on Excellence in the Education of Students with Disabilities.

National Commission on Excellence in the Education of Students with Disabilities

The National Council on Disability recommends that a two-year National Commission on Excellence in the Education of Students with Disabilities be funded by the U.S. Congress. This recommendation is a reaffirmation of a similar recommendation made by the Council in its reports to the President and the Congress in 1986 in Toward Independence and in 1988 in On the Threshold of Independence.

The National Council believes that the challenge of improving the education of students with disabilities is one that can only be successfully met when a range of public organizations, professionals, government entities, parents and students, and representatives of the private sector join in partnership to respond. The National Commission on Excellence in Education of Students with Disabilities would consider the areas of inquiry outlined in Chapter Four of this report. The Commission would continue assessing the nation's efforts to educate students with disabilities and would provide stakeholders from a wide range of perspectives an opportunity to participate in developing a vision and strategies for the future (See Chapter Four of this report for a further discussion of the Commission). The Council believes that a National Commission on Excellence in Education of Students with Disabilities will make a significant contribution in ensuring that our nation is providing the best education possible for these exceptional students, and thus ensuring them opportunities to be adults who are contributing members of society.

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act
(Public Law 94-1421):
A Profile

Introduction

In 1975 the U.S. Congress passed one of the most comprehensive education laws in the history of this country: the Education for All Handicapped Children Act P.L. 94-142. The Act brought together various offices of State and Federal legislation into one national public law, which makes available to every eligible student with a disability a free and appropriate public education.

The law provides for

• Nondiscriminatory and multidisciplinary assessment of educational needs.
  
  
• Parent involvement in the development of each child's educational program.
  
  
• Education in the least restrictive environment.
  
  
• An individualized educational program (commonly referred to as an IEP).

Nondiscriminatory and multidisciplinary assessment. Public P.L. 94-142 incorporates several provisions related to the use of nondiscriminatory testing procedures in the labeling and placement of students with disabilities. These provisions include testing children in heir native or primary language whenever possible, using evaluation procedures selected and administered by a multidisciplinary team to prevent cultural or racial discrimination. and using assessment tools validated for the purpose for which they are being used.

Parent involvement. According to the procedural safeguards man dated in P.L. 94-142, parents of students with disabilities have the right o consent in writing before the student is initially evaluated and receives specialized services. Parents may request an independent education evaluation if they feel the school's evaluation is inappropriate. This independent evaluation is at public expense if a due process hearing decision concludes that the school's evaluation was inappropriate.

The law mandates parent participation on the multidisciplinary team that develops the IEP and eventually places the student. Parents may inspect and review educational records and challenge information believed to be inaccurate, misleading, or in violation of the student's privacy. A copy of the information contained in their child's educational record must be provided to parents on request. Finally, parents can request a due process hearing when there is disagreement between the school's proposed education program and the views of the family.

The least restrictive environment. P.L. 94-142 mandates that students with disabilities receive their education with nonhandicapped peers to the maximum extent possible. The law also requires schools to offer a range of placements consistent with the individual needs of each student. In order to meet this requirement, schools have developed services ranging from placement in a general education classroom with support services to homebound and residential programs. A student may remain in the regular classroom with consultive services. These services may range from assisting a regular classroom teacher in the use of tests or modification of curriculum to direct instruction with students in the classroom setting.

Another option is for the student to be served in the regular classroom for a majority of the school day, but attend a "resource room" for specialized instruction. A resource-room program is under the direction of a qualified special educator, and the amount of time a student spends in the resource room varies according to student need.

Placement for a student with a disability may also involve full- or part-time participation in a special education classroom. Some interaction with nonhandicapped peers may take place for at least part of the school day, either in a formal instructional setting or during recess periods, lunch, assemblies, field trips, or during tutoring experiences. It is also possible for a student to be removed from the regular education facility to a classroom in a separate facility specifically for students with disabilities. These facilities include special day schools where the educational program is one aspect of a comprehensive treatment program. Some students, because of the severity of their disabilities, do not attend any school program and receive service through a homebound or hospital program. If a public school program is not available to meet the unique needs of a youngster with a disability, the public school system may pay for the youngster to go to an appropriate private school.

The Individualized Educational Program. The Individualized Educational Program (IEP) is developed from assessments conducted by the multidisciplinary team, and is designed to meet the individual needs of each student with a disability. The IEP is intended to provide more continuity in the delivery of educational services on a daily as well as an annual basis. All IEPs contain some common elements: (1) a child's present level of performance, (2) statement of annual goals, (3) short-term instructional objectives, (4) related services, (5) percent of time in regular education, (6) beginning and ending dates for special education services, and (7) annual evaluation.

The 1986 Amendments to the Education of the Handicapped Act (P.L. 99-457)

It is important to note that the Education of the Handicapped Act was extended under The 1986 Amendments to the Education of the Handicapped Act (P.L. 99-457). This legislation, signed into law on October 8, 1986, establishes: (1) a new mandate to provide a free and appropriate education for all handicapped children ages three through five; and (2) a new early intervention program for infants and toddlers ages birth through two.

Under P.L. 99-457 the rights and protection extended to school-age children (ages 5 through 21) are extended to three- and four-year-olds as well. All States receiving funds under P.L. 94-142 must assure that these preschool-age children are receiving a free appropriate public education by the 1990-1991 school year. P.L. 99-457 also established a State grant program for handicapped infants and toddlers ages birth through two years. Infants and toddlers who are developmentally delayed as defined by each State are eligible for services that include a multidisciplinary assessment, an individual family service plan (IFSP), and case management services

Evaluating the Effectiveness of P.L. 94-142

One of the most unique features of P.L. 94-142 is that, unlike other Federal education programs, it is permanently authorized by the U.S. Congress. It never expires and there is no requirement for periodic congressional review. In the 14 years since its passage, there has never been a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of P.L. 94-142, either by Congress or an independent agency of the Federal government. The only ongoing review of the law is the U.S. Department of Education's Annual Report to Congress, as mandated in Section 618(f)(12), Part B of the statute. This section requires the Secretary of Education to transmit to Congress "an annual report that describes the progress being made in implementing the act."

This annual report is primarily a demographic Profile containing information submitted by the States, results of Federal monitoring practices, and descriptions and findings from research conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education's discretionary grant programs. National statistics on the number of students with disabilities who receive special education and related services are presented with respect to type of handicapping condition and various age groups. The Eleventh Annual Report (U.S. Department of Education, 1989) also contains information on placement settings and their relationship to the least restrictive environment provision of the law.

The remaining sections in this chapter highlight selected demographic information from both the Tenth and Eleventh Annual Reports to Congress (U.S. Department of Education, 1988, 1989), as well as testimony provided to the National Council on Disability and other published sources. The purpose is to provide a basic profile on selected issues relative to the implementation of P.L. 94-142, including the Federal-State partnership, funding number and type of students served under P.L. 94-142, student graduation rates, post-school outcomes, variations in educational placement, and due process procedural safeguards.

The Federal-State partnership in the education of students with disabilities. The foundation of this partnership is the conviction that local autonomy is essential and that an informed citizenry is central to democracy. Although education is primarily a State responsibili ty, the process of education and its outcomes have always been a part of the national interest. The role of the Federal government in contemporary education has been characterized as encompassing three areas of concern: equal opportunity, advancement of knowledge, and capacity building (Evans, 1989). P.L. 94-142 represents the national policy regarding access to equal educational opportunity for students with disabilities.

The quality of education has emerged as an additional area of Federal concern since the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk (Schenet & Irwin, 1988). National reform efforts designed to improve the quality of education have rekindled the Federal-State relationship debate because of the conflict inherent in any national effort to improve an enterprise whose quality is in large measure considered to be derived from local autonomy. The challenge for the Federal government is to develop policies that encourage educational excellence without sacrificing the commitment to equal opportunity, the advancement of knowledge, or capacity building.

Access to educational services for students with disabilities. As reported in the Eleventh Annual Report to Congress approximately 4.5 million students with disabilities received specialized educational services in the 1987-88 school year, or 11% of the total school population. This number represents a 21.2% increase over the figure reported in 1976-77. The largest single population of eligible handicapped students is labeled learning disabled (47%), followed by speech impaired (23.2%), mentally retarded (14.6%), and emotionally disturbed (9.1 % ) (U.S. Department of Education, 1989).

Funding. An estimated total of $16 billion in public funds was expended on special education during the 1985-86 academic year, approximately a 10% increase in expenditures (when adjusted for inflation) for special education since 1977-78 (Eleventh Annual Report, 1989, pp. 118- 119). The $ 16 billion figure represents about 12 % of all expenditures on elementary and secondary education in the United States.

Federal support from the State grant program of P.L. 94-142 reached approximately $1.5 billion in 1989. Although Federal funding has now reached approximately 9% of the total outlay of public funds for special education services (Irwin, 1989), the figure is well under the government's 40% commitment of the annual per pupil expenditure for students with disabilities.

Student graduation rates. Students with disabilities have significantly lower graduation rates than their nondisabled counter parts. The recently released National Longitudinal Transition Study reported that among students with disabilities who take graduation competency tests, almost one in four failed to pass any part of the exam, a third passed some of the test, and four students in ten passed the entire test (Wagner & Shaver, 1989, Table 9, p. 18).

The Eleventh Annual Report to Congress indicates that 41 % of all students with disabilities fail to graduate from high school with either a diploma or certificate of completion. This figure is comparable to data reported in The National Longitudinal Study (Wagner & Shaver, 1989). This study indicated that over a two-year period 44% of students with disabilities failed to graduate from high school. Approximately 3% of all students with disabilities "age out" of the public schools by reaching the maximum age for eligibility (21 years old).

Post-school outcomes. Substantial numbers of students with disabilities are unemployed, live at home, and have few friends following their school experience. According to tine' National Longitudinal Transition Study, fewer than half of students with disabilities who had been out of school for more than one year had found paid employment. Among those employed, less than 30% had full-time jobs, as compared to about 40% of all noncollege high school graduates. Fewer than 15% of youth with disabilities enroll in postsecondary courses in their first year out of high school, as compared to 56% of nondisabled youth (Wagner, 1989).

Approximately 31 % of youth with disabilities who had been out of school for more than 12 months had not engaged in any productive activity such as postsecondary education, employment, job training, volunteer work, or child care during the previous year (Wagner, 1989). Despite these data, students with disabilities are capable of learning and of becoming active, productive members of our society. Susan Hasazi, a Professor at the University of Vermont, told the Council that in a study of postschool outcomes of students with disabilities, those who have employment experience while in high school are more likely to be employed during the adult years. Students who participated in integrated vocational education experiences were more likely to be employed with better wages following high school.

Variations in the placement of students with disabilities. According to the Eleventh Annual Report to Congress (1989) approximately 27% of students with disabilities received special education in regular classes, while 43% were served primarily in resource rooms and 24% were served in separate classes in regular education buildings. About 6% of special education students received their education in segregated day or residential schools.

In a study on State variation in placement, Danielson and Bellamy (1989) reported the overall rate of placement of students with disabilities in segregated schools has changed little since 1975. However, States vary greatly in their placement of students in segregated schools, from a rate of nearly 15,000 per million in the District of Columbia to 600 per million in Oregon. Placement patterns also vary by disability category. Students served in regular classrooms or resource rooms were primarily those with learning disabilities (77%) or speech impairments (92%). Nationally, 56% of mentally retarded students were placed in separate classes.

The due process procedural safeguards. Due process procedures were included in P.L. 94-142 as a way of ensuring that the educational rights of students with disabilities and their parents would be protected. The due process procedural safeguards contained in the law are based on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which state that no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law" and that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of Citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." The specific due process procedures available to parents and children in any matter concerning a child's identification, evaluation, or placement must include:

1. Written prior notice to parents of any change in their child's program (such notice must be in the parent's native language).
   
   
2. Access to school records.
   
   
3. An opportunity to obtain an independent evaluation.
   
   
4. The designation of a surrogate parent to advocate on behalf of children who are wards of the State or whose parents or guardians are unknown or unavailable.
   
   
5. The opportunity to present complaints (request a due process hearing) before an impartial hearing officer in any matter relating to the identification, evaluation, or placement of a child, or the provision of a free appropriate public education.
   
   
6. The right of the child to remain in his or her current placement until the due process proceedings are completed.
   
   
7. The right to bring a civil action (appeal to court) if any party is aggrieved by the outcome of the due process hearing.
   
   
8. The opportunity for parents who prevail in an administrative proceeding (hearing) or civil action (court) to recover their attorney's fees and related expenses. (This is a 1986 amendment to P.L. 94-142).
   
   
9. Notification (in the parent's native language) of all due process procedures.

When parents and the education agency disagree about a child's disability, placement, program, needs, or related services, a due process hearing may be initiated to resolve the disagreement. Either side may be accompanied and advised by an attorney, and by individuals with special knowledge or training with respect to the child's disability. At the hearing both sides present evidence by calling witnesses and an independent hearing officer decides which side is correct and what relief is necessary. The entire process from the time a written complaint is filed to the time a decision is issued should not exceed 45 days unless a continuance for good cause is granted. The hearing process varies by State. For example, some States have a two-tiered hearing process resulting in hearings at the local and State level. Other conduct hearings only at the State level. In either case both sides have the right to appeal the decision of the hearing officer in court. Appeals may be made all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Since the enactment of P.L. 94-142 almost 15 years ago, less than 1% of parents of children with disabilities have requested due process hearings, according to the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE, 1985). Witnesses who appeared before the Council suggested that this may result in part from a lack of affordable and/or trained attorneys available to represent parents. They testified also that parents are not uniformly aware of the safeguards under the law, nor do they always understand their rights.

Findings

The findings that follow are the result of the National Council's analysis of testimony presented by over 50 witnesses in four days of formal hearings, a review of recent studies and articles related to the education of students with disabilities, consultations with parents and professionals throughout the country, and the development of issue papers on selected topics.

Providing a platform for the perspective of parents has always been a strong priority of the National Council on Disability. Some Council members have disabilities; others are parents of children with disabilities. All Council members are acutely aware of the important role played by parents in the education of their children. Furthermore, the Council understands that P L. 94-142 established parents as im portant agents of accountability and that parents provide much of the energy and enthusiasm behind the scores of parent support and disability awareness groups around the country that have helped to increase awareness and support for appropriate educational services in our nation's schools.

Finding 1:

Parent-professional relationships too often are strained and difficult, and parents and professionals frequently view one another as adversaries rather than as partners.

In testimony before the Council, parents indicated that in far too many communities the interactions with school personnel on behalf of their children with disabilities is adversarial. Mrs. Kathy Mitten, a parent from Georgia, testified before the Council that when she asked to be part of the decision-making process at her daughter's Individualized Educational Program (IEP) meeting, the response was:

"It is nice you are here. We would like you to be here, but we are the professionals. We make the decisions." . . . When I pointed out that I am the professional, since I had spent 11 years with this child in the severe/profound field, and the teacher had only spent one year, they kind of backed away and said, "All right, Mrs. Mitten, we will listen to what you would like to say."

Research findings indicate that strong parent involvement in their children's education results in students who perform better. In describing for the Council a review of over 50 studies of student achievement, Anne Henderson, Executive Director of the National Committee for Citizens in Education, reported a remarkable consensus that parent involvement of any kind results in children who achieve more in school than do the children of parents who are not involved. These findings hold true for children and parents in every social and economic class. In fact, research documents that parent involvement is most effective when it continues in a variety of ways throughout the schooling years. Furthermore, children whose background places them "at risk" of fail ing or falling far behind will outperform their peers for years if their parents are given training in home teaching techniques (Henderson, 1988).

Many observers argue that the adversarial nature of the special education process, including the due process procedures, unnecessarily pits the parent and the professional against one another. Parents report that they must remain vigilant to ensure that the protections afforded by P.L. 94-142 are honored and retained. According to Mrs. Jamie Ruppmann, a parent who testified before the Council:

We began to realize that the special education process that is the regulatory, the procedural requirements built up around the education of handicapped students, was beginning to take on a formidable construct of its own. In the words of one respected professional educator. . . "Special education is becoming big business with a vested interest in perpetuating itself." It was not unusual for us and other parents to find 10 or 12 educators and administrators around the table as we met, presumably to discuss the needs of our child. We often felt outnumbered and overwhelmed by the process. There was then, and remains to this day, a huge edifice built around the public school education of students with disabilities. It is a system that is hard to access and it is a system that often fails to provide an effective mechanism for assuring that children like Daniel and Stefan receive competent teaching.

Finding 2:

Some parents have difficulty finding appropriate services for their children.

Information provided to the Council from parents and parent ad vocates from around the country indicates that it sometimes is difficult or impossible to obtain the services parents believe are needed by their children. In a letter to the Council, Lynda Marshall of Pasco, Washington, who works as a community liaison with a parent training and information center (PAVE), summarized her experiences:

Parents frequently call me very frustrated with the education system in this country for one reason or another. Most of the time they feel their children are not receiving the services or the educa tion they are supposed to be receiving under P.L 94-142. They have to "fall behind" before getting help. . . Part of the problem for our children is motivation, lack of goals, and lack of training for jobs at the high school level. If 50 percent or more of the kids who graduate do not go to college, who is preparing them for jobs? The answer is nobody. There are a fortunate few who enter some job training, but most of our kids receive very little in that respect.

When parents must work hard to secure the services they believe their children need, they often do so at the cost of becoming "professional parents." In testimony and written accounts of the period before the Congress enacted P.L. 94-142, and in recent reauthorization hearings before the Congress and the Council's own hearings, a recurring pattern appeared. Parents of children with disabilities, who already have extensive parenting responsibilities, all too often devote many hours, day in and day out, to assure that their children receive a free and appropriate education. In fact, a recent Harris poll indicated that more than half of the parents surveyed (56%) reported that they had to work hard to obtain services for their children (Harris and Associates, 1989).

According to this poll, the majority of students with disabilities need and obtain related services, however, sizable numbers do not receive the services they need. Of classroom teachers surveyed, 38% reported that there are students with disabilities who either have not been identified or are not receiving services (Harris and Associates, 1989). Mrs. Kathy Mitten, who works in the Georgia office of Specialized Training of Military Parents, told the Council:

. . . the states are "evaluating" children to deny them service. "I don't have this service, and I don't have this service. We don't have the money for this service. We will need to re-evaluate." And when they finish their evaluation, the child is no longer in need of the service. And this is going on again and again, and again. And it is not just in the South...I deal with parents all over the United States.

Few school systems can make available all of the options desired by different parents. Service availability may be such a major problem for low-incidence disabilities such as hearing and vision impairments that students are sometimes placed in general classrooms with inade quate services, with the "least restrictive environment provision" of P.L. 94-142 cited as a rationale. Some parents believe they have two service options: full service in a segregated setting, or few if any services in a general classroom setting.

Students who are emotionally disturbed may receive inadequate, fragmented services. Testimony mailed to the Council by Joyce Robin Borden, the mother of a student with emotional disabilities, illustrates a common problem across the country: "No one program has ever met my son's needs because no program from any one system was able to look at the whole child. Both my child and I were identified by labels and received services according to the designated label."

Recent testimony before Congress (Forness, 1989) suggests that students with emotional disabilities are one of the most underserved and inappropriately served disability groups. Comprehensive and coordinated services frequently are not available in the community, so students often are placed in residential settings.

In some cases State funding formulas contribute to the problem of unavailable services. Mrs. Joyce Altizer, a parent from a rural area of West Virginia, told the Council that many people in West Virginia believe that "special ed. is draining resources from regular education." She went on to explain:

We have a very complicated state formula mechanism [in West Virginia] where special needs students are triple-weighted. And that means that for every dollar appropriated for a regular education student, special needs students are given three dollars. Sounds good, doesn't it? There is a catch. The catch is that those funds are not earmarked and that the county superintendent and his board may spend it on whatever they please. It can be spent on salary increases for the administrators; it can be spent on football helmets; it can be spent on regular ed teachers who never see a disabled child during the course of a day. The truth is, as I see it, special education is propping up general ed at the same time we are accused of robbing it.

Parents are drowning in despair. We are fighting case-by-case. We are moving that mountain a teaspoon at a time. We need the CAP, that Corrective Action Plan, to be able to start making these needed, positive changes.

Cutting off Federal funds hardly solves the problem in a State or community that needs improvement in providing services. Ms. Altizer believes that accountability is such a great problem in West Virginia that Federal funding for special education should be increased only after improved monitoring procedures ensure greater compliance with the law.

Finding 3:

Parents and students report that some schools have low expectations for students with disabilities and establish inappropriate learning objectives and goals.

Testifying before the Council, Mrs. Ruppmann, a parent of two students with disabilities, addressed the problem of inappropriate educational objectives and goals:

What is lacking is a respect for the kinds of things that it is necessary for students with disabilities to learn. Our youngsters get very few governor seals on their high school diplomas, and that appears to be what we value in this country right now in the midst of educational reform. And I suggest we have hundreds and thousands of students who somehow have been left along the way, despite the edifice, despite the cost, despite the busing, despite the research, despite the rhetoric, teaching and learning.

The absence of high expectations for students with disabilities is both insidious and damaging. Mr. Fred Schroeder, who is Executive Director of the New Mexico Commission for the Blind, and who is himself blind, described being excluded from spelling, reading, and algebra assignments, yet receiving a graduation diploma in good standing:

. . . I never was obliged to take spelling, because it was presumed that I would spend my life listening to tapes, so why bother having me do spelling? I was exempt from all homework assignments, virtually all of them as I went through school, virtually all reading assignments in class. . . I graduated with a high school education without ever taking algebra, although it's on my transcript. The teacher said to me, "if you show up every day, I'll give you a C.". . . [I also went through] without ever taking biology, without ever taking physical education. So, I was successfully main streamed and have a high school diploma with a 3.0 grade point average on it. What in the world did that mean? What it means is, I had a very, very inadequate education, and the worst thing that it meant for me is as a young child going through the program, I felt inferior to sighted kids, and I felt inferior, I thought, because of blindness. It never dawned on me that if I had some other kinds of training that I'd be able to compete.

Mrs. Ruppmann told the Council that the grades of one of her sons went up after he left special education. Ms. Premo, a Council member with a vision impairment, commented that she had the same experience: "I wanted to achieve to the level of the students around me. And in special ed. there was no requirement to achieve."

Mr. Michael Snyder of Massachusetts Bay Community College, a former special education student with a learning disability, gave the Council this suggestion for resource room teachers:

I still feel that there needs to be extra assistance from, say, the resource room, but the emphasis needs to be different. Instead of concentrating on teaching remedial skills, they should take time aside and teach learning strategies,. . . work on teaching independence,. . . and raising students' self-esteem. I think so many students have such a low self-esteem. . .

During his testimony, Mr. Snyder described peer tutoring as a means both of learning and of bolstering self-confidence and self-esteem.

The Council also heard about the success of many students with disabilities. In addition to the strong involvement of parents, students respond to the involvement of caring and skilled teachers who make an enormous difference in their lives. For example, David Shawhan, a student from Columbia, Maryland who has visual and gait impairments, told the Council that a speech teacher persisted in enrolling him in speech class. The training obviously had a major impact on the self-confident young man, who convinced school administrators to install stair railings in his high school auditorium so that he could claim his high school diploma by walking up the steps and across the platform with his peers.

Finding 4:

Services often are not available to meet the needs of disadvantaged, minority, and rural families who have children with disabilities.

The absence of accessible and culturally relevant information about parents' rights and service systems is often an obstacle to full parental involvement. Many parents who are disadvantaged, are members of minority groups, or reside in rural areas face the dual challenge of providing for a child with a disability and meeting the challenge presented by their unique circumstances. Communication between school person nell and families may be flawed by language difficulties and cultural differences that affect the manner in which information is received and understood. As a result, the school may not be perceived by families as offering a meaningful service.

Some rural communities are difficult to serve because of their diversity as well as their relatively small populations and the often large distances between communities. Rural communities exist in all climates, encompass a wide range of ethnic and cultural groups, and are characterized by a spirit of independence and ingenuity. Some are close to major population centers; others are many miles from the nearest city and isolated by impassable roads or waterways during winter months.

Several trends have emerged in recent years that indicate the need for a focus on minority students with disabilities. These trends include (1) an increase in the number of minority children attending school, (2) the persistence of poverty in minority communities, (3) the vulnerability of minority children to developing disabilities early in life and (4) the overrepresentation of minority students in special education classes (National Information Center for Children and Youth with Handicaps, 1987). Projected increases of the number of minority children and the number of children in poverty combined with the vulnerably of minori ty populations to factors that increase the risk of developing disabilities (such as poor maternal nutrition and low birth weight) indicate that the need for special education services among minority children will likely increase (National Information Center for Children and Youth with Handicaps, 1987). Recent testimony before Congress (Simon, 1989) cited the need for consistent Federal, State, and local attention to the diverse issues confronting minority and culturally diverse children and youth with disabilities and their families.

Although culturally relevant materials and outreach strategies have become code words among information providers, few people know what the words mean in practice. Different outreach strategies work in different communities. Latin-American communities are varied, as are the cultures of Native American and other ethnic groups. Different approaches are needed in the American South than in New York City, and different ones in the Midwest than in the Far West or Appalachia. The challenges experienced by disadvantaged, minority, and rural families are many and varied. According to witnesses who spoke before the Council, they can be summarized as follows:

• Funding inadequacies top the list, especially with the high cost of transportation in rural areas. It is costly to move specialized personnel across large distances to serve individual students. Much of specialists' time is devoted to traveling. American Indians often lack funds to pay the transportation costs of sending their children to a school off the reservation. For the same reason--the cost and difficulty of arranging transportation--it is difficult to organize or train parents or to involve them in their children's education. Low budgets, transportation costs, and time requirements may also make it difficult to provide enough services (staff must spend considerable time traveling) or to arrange staff development and training sessions.
  
  
• According to witnesses who testified before the Council, conditions among many low-income families in the inner city and elsewhere (such as substance abuse, poor nutrition and substandard sanitary living conditions, children bearing children, and inadequate health care) are associated with high rates of disability.
  
  
• Parents who focus their energies on basic survival may find it very difficult to provide the extra attention needed by a child with a disability. They may lack the skills and energy needed to push the school to provide needed services. Few parents in these low-income communities have the time and energy to devote to volunteering in the schools or advocating for better services, activities that have resulted in better services in middle-income communities.
  
  
• Recruiting and retaining qualified staff is difficult. Salaries tend to be low in rural and disadvantaged areas, and professionals may feel isolated and miss the stimulation of working with professional colleagues and adequate resources.

Finding 5:

Families in the military are not universally entitled to the services or the protections guaranteed under P.L. 94-142.

Military families face an unusual set of circumstances. First, service members are frequently reassigned both within the continental United States and overseas, meaning that family members must move frequently. For a number of reasons the difficulty of frequent moves is increased if a child in the family has a disability.

The 18 schools on military bases in the United States funded by the Department of Defense, "Section 6 Schools," do not come under the jurisdiction of P.L. 94-142. Rather, a military directive states that the services provided by military schools must be consistent with those provided by schools in neighboring communities. Military parents do not have due process rights established under P.L. 94-142; instead they use Directive 1020.1, an Equal Employment Opportunity process.

Problems in using the Equal Employment Opportunity process have been reported. For example, the school system at West Point has refused to evaluate a child with cerebral palsy and does not provide special services to the child. The family went through the Equal Employment Opportunity process, which, according to Mrs. Mitten's testimony, found "West Point Elementary in noncompliance with Public Law 94-142 and New York State Law. The staff judge advocate, in agreement with the Garrison Commander, then reversed the determination of the investigators."

Apparently military families in the United States are not obtaining recourse under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, either. According to Mrs. Mitten:

The Office of Civil Rights refuses to set foot on the installation, and to find noncompliance under 504. The regional hearing officers have absolutely said they will not come onto the installation and find discrimination. So, you've got a whole group of military people, citizens of the United States of America, that will go die, they will die for these rights, and yet they are told they don't have these rights because the military has decided to write up their own directives, decided how to read this law.

Mrs. Mitten added that military personnel are in a difficult position when it comes to questioning authorities about their children's education: "You will not find too many military folks who are going to take on a school system, such as the Department of Defense system, because they are suing their boss, or they are causing a problem for their boss and they are very concerned about their careers."

Parents report that a school in one State is not required to accept an IEP prepared by a school district in another State. This situation can mean that children of military parents go through repeated evaluation processes. When children move in the middle of the school year, this delay may mean that no services are received for several months.

In recent years the military organized an Exceptional Family Member Program, which requires employees to identify all family members with a disability. Although the program was designed to reduce costs by assuring that services would be available only as needed, many military family members report that the service member may be ordered overseas alone if appropriate services are not available for the child with a disability. Some families have reported that Exceptional Family Membership is interpreted as problematic by military superiors, and membership could reduce a service person's career potential.

Finding 6:

There is a perception that the outcomes of due process hearings are biased in favor of the schools.

Parents who testified before the Council reported feelings of intimidation with respect to actually utilizing due process procedures. They described feeling vulnerable and a perception that they do not have an equal chance when up against a school system with an array of professionals and a seemingly endless supply of resources. There is some research that supports the parents' position. For example, less than 1% of parents of students with disabilities have actually been involved in litigation at the State level according to the National Associa tion of State Directors of Special Education (1985). This may be due to the perception that they would not have an equal chance against the school system, or it may be because many parents do not know their rights or are satisfied with the outcome of the process. Moreover, the most frequently cited figure for parent success regarding hearing outcomes is 33% (Sacker, 1988).

Finding 7:

Many parents are uninformed about their rights under the law.

Although school districts are required to inform parents of their rights under the law, witnesses testified that parents frequently report that they are not informed. Studies of the implementation of P.L. 94-142 show that, although procedural compliance with the law has been achieved (for example, notice of parental rights is routinely sent to parents), obstacles to full implementation remain (David & Greene, 1983). Very few school personnel take the time to assure that parents of students with disabilities understand their rights. Deborah Mattison, an attorney with the Michigan Protection and Advocacy System, testified before the Council that:

The right to an independent evaluation at public expense is something that we are finding school districts often do not notify parents about. We think that there need to be some recommendations either in a policy or an interpretation, or something from the Department of Education that notification to the parents has got to be meaningful. Oftentimes parents are told that they have the right to an independent evaluation, but they are not told that it can be at public expense. Sometimes they are and that is critical. . . parents know that they can bring in evaluators, but many times they don't have the money to do so, and it would be very different if they know that they could do that at public expense.

Finding 8:

Due process hearings are costly.

Finding 9:

There is a paucity of attorneys with expertise in special education law available to represent parents.

Witnesses who appeared before the Council decried what they described as the absence of a sufficient number of attorneys with expertise in special education law available to assist them. Deborah Mattison of the Michigan Protection and Advocacy System reported that 40% of the annual requests for assistance to the Michigan Protection and Advocacy System are from those seeking assistance in the special education arena. Mary Tatro reported that in Texas the Protection and Advocacy System only takes cases that will affect a large number of children. "Right now," Mrs. Tatro said, "when parents call me and say 'Who was your attorney? We need an attorney.' I say, "there aren't any."

Finding 10:

There are no standard qualification or training requirements for hearing officers.

The law specifies that hearing officers must be impartial. This requirement means that the hearing officer may not be an employee of the agency or unit involved in the education or care of the child. There is substantial variation in hearing officers' backgrounds; over half are lawyers or university personnel (Sacker, 1988). Testimony received by the Council underscores the need for some kind of standardized training or minimum competencies for hearing officers. Attorney Mattison noted:

Standards regarding hearing officers and hearing officer training are very much lacking. There is really no standardized curriculum for hearing officers. There is no standardized way to collect the data. The hearing officer decisions are all over the map, and I don't believe you have to be an attorney to be a hearing officer, but many of them don't even have the slightest awareness of procedure. Many times, hearing officers have no sense of the difference between a Supreme Court decision and an SEA [State education agency] decision.

Finding 11:

There is no national database that includes the routine collection of data regarding due process hearings.

Although descriptive data have been collected on the outcome of special education hearings, these data are reported in small, inconsis tent segments. For example, Sacken (1988) reviewed studies on paren tal success rates and found a range of 30% to 60%, depending on the criteria used to determine parental success. It is also unclear whether decisions from hearings are considered by State and local education agencies as they create and refine policies.

The General Accounting Office has completed data collection for a congressionally mandated study of hearings under P.L. 94-142 to examine the total number of written decisions, civil actions, number, and types of complaints and prevailing parties. This important national study has examined data from 1984 to 1988 and is expected to provide information that has not been readily available to date. The Council is not aware of any similar, ongoing efforts.

Finding 12:

There are several commonly agreed upon characteristics to describe what constitutes an effective school.

Through a review of the literature, the Council found common threads contained in the characteristics of an effective school. These include the following:

• High expectations for success are needed that are linked with a clear and focused mission.
  
  
• Strong instructional leadership is essential, with frequent monitoring of student progress.
  
  
• Effective schools reinforce positive home-school relations.
  
  
• Students should be removed from their regular classrooms only under circumstances in which their instructional program is fragmented; student removal from the classroom does not result in lower expectations; and such removal does not interfere with maximal use of instructional time (Purky & Smith, 1983; Rosenshine, 1979; Stevens & Rosenshine, 1981).

The Council learned that schools with the above characteristics produce positive outcomes for all students, including those with disabilities. In her testimony before the Council, Ms. Ingrid Draper, Executive Director of Special Education for the Detroit Public Schools, addressed this issue: "I choose to think of reforms both in regular and special education as information and knowledge gained from the growing body of research on effective schools which will help us raise the performance of our teachers and our students."

Finding 13:

Most school reform initiatives appear to be a response to declining academic achievement rather than efforts to find ways for schools to meet the diverse needs of all students.

In testimony from Dr. Arthur E. Wise of The Rand Corporation, the Council learned of two distinct strands of school reform: State-oriented (top-down) reform, and client-oriented (school-based) reform. State-oriented reform is a response to the declining academic performance of students in our nation's schools, and proposes a standardization of testing, teaching, and curriculum for all students. In contrast, client-oriented, or school-based, reform focuses on (1) local school-based management, (2) empowering teachers in the decision making process, (3) a high degree of parental access, and (4) individualization of instruction.

Much of the discussion on excellence in the schools is centered around State-oriented reform, the need to establish more rigorous academic and curricular requirements, and increased student testing and evaluation. One primary outcome of State-oriented school reform is more attention to academic rigor, including increased requirements for graduation. Some States are even currently considering the idea of testing for promotion from each grade to the next.

Finding 14:

An essential aspect of school reform is the professionalization of teaching.

Many school reform initiatives propose that university teacher education programs prepare prospective teachers to work with students representing a wide range of ability, skills, and talents. In fact, much of the effective schools literature suggests that a number of instructional methodologies and techniques (e.g., direct instruction, peer tutoring, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, cooperative learning) are effective for all students. In her testimony before the Council, Mary Dean Barringer from Michigan State University stressed that school reformers are seeking new methods of preparing teachers to "competently work with the most challenging students in situations where they can be professionally and financially rewarded." New teaching models are being implemented that emphasize the breakup of the conventional age grade/structure, the importance of small groups working together with the assistance of the classroom teacher, students taking responsibility for other students, and collaborative rather than competitive learning. Within these new models, effective teachers are characterized as:

• Taking an active, direct role in the instruction of students.
  
  
• Providing detailed explanations and instructions.
  
  
• Offering ample opportunity for guided practice and review.
  
  
• Monitoring student progress closely.
  
  
• Consistently providing meaningful feedback to students.
  
  
• Creating a positive, expectant, and orderly classroom environment.
  
  
• Engineering a high rate of learning time and student success.

Finding 15:

School reform efforts have not specifically addressed the diverse needs of students with disabilities.

The national reports on school reform such as A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), High School (Boyer, 1983) and A Place Called School (Goodlad, 1984) have not, for the most part, specifically addressed issues of quality educational services for students with disabilities. The Council learned that this omission has occurred primarily for two reasons. First, special education is primarily viewed nationally as a separate educational system that is disconnected from the regular education reform movement. The special education system has evolved as a separate system with its own set of distinct organizational, educational, and teaching practices. Second, attention to the needs of students with disabilities may be perceived as running counter to the emphasis on a more rigorous academic curricula and higher performance standards. This perception may serve to reinforce stereotypes of students with disabilities as low-achieving, resulting in low expectations for students with disabilities.

Finding 16:

Evaluation procedures, disability classifications, and resulting placement decisions vary greatly among school districts and States, and they often are not related to students' learning characteristics.

In her testimony Professor Margaret Wang, Director of the Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education, stated that research indicates most procedures for classifying children in disability categories are unreliable, invalid, time-consuming, and costly. She also pointed out that classifications often result in labeling and stereotyping, and that children labeled as having a disability are often isolated in special classes. Furthermore, once children acquire a label, it is rarely lost: throughout the nation, only a very small percent age of children labeled as disabled are returned to the regular classroom each year. Although this research has been challenged (e.g., Kauffman, Gerber, & Semmel, 1988), an important discussion about the validity of evaluation and placement procedures has been initiated.

Mr. Michael Snyder, a student with learning disabilities at Massa chusetts Bay Community College, clearly explained his perceptions about labeling during his testimony before the Council:

The problem with labeling is, once you label somebody, you then categorize them and separate them from others. . . [At a meeting I attended,] specialists went around in circles discussing what tests should be used for admission purposes, and how to use them, but not once did they mention how they should evaluate the students themselves. . . I know that I do not want to be known just as a label and just as a number. I feel there's a lot more to me than that.

Clearly, fundamental questions are being raised about the accuracy of procedures used for student referral and evaluation. According to a study by Ysseldyke (1987), more than 80% of the student population could be classified as learning disabled by one or more of the definitions presently in use.

Data from 28 large cities indicate that referral rates vary from 6% to 11 % as a percentage of total enrollment. The percentage of students who are referred and then placed in special education varies even more, from 7.8% to 91.8% (Council of Great City Schools, 1986). In addition, Walker (1987, p.110) has pointed out that an examination of "the variation in statistics between general classroom placements at the state level and state funding formulas [indicate that] states that provide financial incentives for separate placements, or which traditionally have had dual systems of services, place students disproportionately in more restrictive placements."

Concerns have also been raised about the nearly two million students identified as learning disabled (47% of all students with disabilities served in FY 1986-87), and the disproportionate identification of minority students as disabled:

Although minority students comprise 30 percent of all public school students, they accounted for 42 percent of all students classified as educable mentally retarded [EMR], 40 percent of those classified as trainable mentally retarded [TMR] and 35 percent of those classified as seriously emotionally disturbed [SED]. The disproportion is greatest among Black students who comprised 16 percent of the student body but 35 percent of the EMR students, 27 percent of the TMR students and 27 percent of the SED students. (Lipsky & Gartner, 1989).

The Council is concerned about the overrepresentation of minority students in special education, insofar as some of these students may be improperly labeled and placed in separate settings.

Over and over again, parents and students expressed frustration with the impact of labels on their lives. A witness before the Council, Mrs. Cory Moore, a parent and Information and Education Coordinator of Montgomery County Association of Retarded Citizens and the Community Organizer for the Maryland Coalition for Integrated Education, expressed her contempt for labels this way:

. . . my middle child. . . carries a number of labels, "mentally retarded," "physically handicapped," "speech impaired," developmentally disabled." In our house we call her Leslie.

Another witness, Mrs. Jamie Ruppmann, a parent of two young adults with disabilities, considers labeling to be a major problem:

We have always believed that Daniel and Stefan were more like other children than they were different. One of our major concerns is that somehow it seems counter-productive to us, and to other families, that the public schools have assimilated the language and attitudes of what used to be called "the medical model" as they have developed special education procedures and programs. We have routinely encountered the following terms and phrases, and so have you: emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, mentally retarded, physically or orthopedically handicapped, hearing or vision impaired, and inexplicably borderline, or even worse, severe and profound. . . Who could, or would accept these labels and characterizations for themselves, or for their children?. . . Why must we trade our dignity and that of our children for the special supports and resources provided by the public schools? It seems to us, and certainly I think a very real concern of teachers and therapists who work directly with children in the schools, that the act of diagnosing and labeling students places both of us, educators and families, in a very difficult and, we believe, distorted relationship, just at a time when we need to begin to develop trust and effective working relationships.

Dr. Margaret Wang testified that specific labels have not been shown to be related to instruction and that the learning characteristics of many students with mild and moderate disabilities can be accommodated without the use of extensive and expensive assessment procedures. This assertion challenges conventional wisdom, which states that learning problems must be diagnosed through assessment procedures in order to assure proper remediation.

Finding 17:

A highly emotional discussion is taking place about the role of separate schools and the unique instructional needs of students with specific disabilities such as deafness.

During the hearings and review of the literature, the Council heard a clarion call from some witnesses for the full integration of all students into general classrooms. Calls for full integration are based on an equal rights principle, a strong distaste for segregation and all it implies, and evidence of poor outcomes for students with disabilities who have been educated in segregated classrooms and facilities.

The Council also heard articulate arguments that separate schools have an important place in educating students with disabilities. The demand for a continuation of special schools is based on the facts that appropriate services for low-incidence populations such as blind and deaf students are unavailable in many regular classrooms, that many students with disabilities fail in regular classrooms, and that, for deaf children, adequate language and psychological development and cultural and socialization opportunities can only be found in special schools.

Mr. Fred Schroeder, Executive Director of the New Mexico Commission for the Blind and former director of the Albuquerque public school program for blind and deaf children, testified that blind children often need highly specialized training in special schools to prepare them to compete on terms of equality with their sighted peers in a mainstreamed environment. Mr. Schroeder maintains that young blind students require specialized and intensive instruction in Braille for literacy, in white cane traveling for mobility, and in typing skills to enable them to prepare assignments and express themselves in writing. He emphasizes that these skills are important to the development of self-esteem:

For a young blind child to really develop a self-concept so that he or she can compete, that child has to have the tools to compete. . . If you put a young blind child in a classroom with sighted kids, and the young blind child does not have the skills to compete, then the child will be at a disadvantage and will come away feeling inferior. . . that "I can't compete because I am blind."

Mr. Schroeder stated that the least restrictive environment for the blind child, the most appropriate placement, often is a residential school for the blind so that child will "acquire the skills he'll need to go and truly be integrated in a meaningful way later in his educational pursuit."

Ms. Roberta Thomas, Executive Director of the American Society for Deaf Children and the parent of a teenager who is deaf, told the Council that the "critical issues for deaf children are communication, language acquisition, and identity":

Deaf children need to acquire language visually through the same natural interaction, exposure and language inundation available to all hearing children every day of their lives. Deaf children also need to feel that it is all right to be deaf.

Most deaf children live in households where no one communicates in sign language. As a consequence, many deaf children have little or no language skill before they reach school. Furthermore, they live isolated lives at home and at school. According to Ms. Thomas:

Everywhere in this country there are deaf children with neither speech nor sign, placed in regular classrooms with almost no support services. No communication, no language, no socialization, no education, no opportunity to acquire even the most basic life skills. These children often become emotionally disturbed. Their desperately depraved condition is consistently blamed on their deafness and not the program.

Ms. Thomas maintains that even a child such as her son, who is completely fluent in both English and American sign language, is inadequately served when placed in a mainstreamed environment:

I know that mainstreaming is intended to normalize deaf children, but the opposite can more easily happen. Mainstreaming does not usually support deaf children's identity, and puts them at such a disadvantage socially and educationally that they often cannot reach their potential. Their poor performance reinforces the stigma of deafness in the world's view that deafness is something wrong with the people that have it.

Jesse Thomas and Anna Scott, deaf students who testified before the Council on different panels, both told the Council that obtaining an education by focusing all day on an interpreter when in a mainstreamed classroom is extremely difficult. Interpreters often are poorly qualified and may not sign English well, and students find that focusing on a single person all day is both tiring and boring.

According to Ms. Thomas, even if special classes are provided in a collaborative program, deaf children end up in pockets of isolation called "self-contained classrooms," because

Proximity is not integration. . . deaf children cannot communicate with their hearing peers, they cannot chat in the halls, hang out in the locker room, tell dirty jokes, talk to another teacher, the dietician, the secretaries, the janitor, anyone. Most critically important, they have no deaf adults to look up to.

Ms. Thomas and many advocates for persons who are deaf maintain that access to deaf culture is absolutely essential to the development of self-esteem in the deaf child:

. . . deaf language and culture provide deaf human beings with a powerful, positive identity, and a self-image as adequate people, rather than as imperfect hearing people, and this self-image makes it possible for them eventually to function better in the hearing world. The unconscious, but terribly destructive message that a deaf person often receives in the mainstream is that his adequacy and success depends upon resembling hearing people.

Quality remains a primary concern in deaf education. The Commission on Education of the Deaf began its report with this statement: "The present status of education of persons who are deaf in the United States is unsatisfactory. Unacceptably so" (Commission on Education of the Deaf, 1988, p. viii). However, despite the deaf community's dissatisfaction with the quality of education received in deaf schools, these schools are strongly supported because they are believed to be essential components of deaf culture. In fact, Ms. Thomas told the Council that 95% of the testimony before the Commission on Education of the Deaf had to do with the interpretation of least restrictive environment and mainstreaming, "with parents, educators and deaf persons testifying that least restrictive environment was used as a terrible basis for an inadequate education for deaf children, causing deprivation everywhere."

Parents and educators of students with learning disabilities have also written and spoken at length about the devastating patterns of failure and loss of self-concept experienced by these students when placed in general education classrooms without special services. Many students with learning disabilities suffer the frustration of low achievement and the teasing and poor self-image that comes with both poor performance in the regular classroom and the social isolation and stigma of being pulled out for special services.

The nature and quality of services was a critical issue raised by witnesses who spoke about the necessity for special schools. In addition, the unavailability of services, the absence of Braille instructors, for example, or teachers who sign or teachers with the ability to help students compensate for a learning disability or change a behavior pattern, combined with a preference for service delivery within public schools, has too often resulted in integration without services.

Finding 18:

Special education is a relatively separate system of service delivery.

P.L. 94-142 requires that each student with a disability receive an appropriate placement in the least restrictive environment. Although the law emphasizes identification and classification, the prescribed evaluation process does not demand separate categorical programs. In considering placement for an individual student, standards of both appropriateness and least restrictive environment should be met. A standard was established by an 1983 Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Roncker v. Walker:

Where a segregated facility is considered superior, the court should determine whether the services which make that placement superior could feasibly be provided in a non-segregated setting. If they can, the placement in the segregated school would be inappropriate under the Act. (Roncker v. Walker, 700 F.2nd, 1058, cert. denied, 104 S.Ct. 196).

In their analysis of the factors that produced the current separate system of special education, Gartner and Lipsky (1989) noted that the law has had a strong impact. For example:

. . partly as a result of a narrow reading of the stricture that federal aid supplement and not supplant local efforts, school practices in remedial education, so-called bilingual education, and special education have favored separate, "pull-out" programs . . . Teacher training programs in general and in special education, the absence of alternative models and paradigms of integration, made unlikely any other outcome. Additionally, given the reduction in support for remedial education programs in their period, school systems had limited resources with which to support options within general education. McGill-Franzen (1987) points out that the increase in the number of students identified as learning disabled neatly matches the decline in Chapter I participants over the past decade.

Past discrimination and exclusion of students with disabilities from educational services led to provisions in the law that support separate systems:

While underscoring that it intended to remove the medical treatment model as the basis on which public policy should be set, P.L. 94-142 established the right of students with handicapping conditions to be treated equally and on an individual basis in determining their school needs. But without adjusting the organization of services within schools, changing attitudes toward disability, altering the substantial state and local funding streams that make it difficult to treat disabled students as part of the mainstream, nor collapsing the categorical definitions that define the population as being different, P.L. 94-142 may have served to reinforce a hybrid structure, one with elaborate protections to assure the rights of disabled students, but carried out by a separate delivery system of special education services, which remains in many instances outside the normal scope of school business (Walker, 1987, pp. 107-108.)

F