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Members of CTA's IDEA Task Force include (from top left) Woody Moynahan for Santa Clara and Ken Johnson from Colton; Judy Jacobs from Ontario, NEA Director Diana Garchow (chair) from Bakersfield and Kendall Ann Vaught from Los Alamitos. |
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has opened the doors of general education to more than 6.5 million students with special needs, giving them access to the general curriculum and bringing about a more diverse student body.
More than 60 percent of California's 670,000 special-needs students spend all or part of their instructional day in general education as a result.
Unfortunately, the federal government has broken its promise to help California and other states pay for part of the costs, says Diana Garchow, chair of CTA's IDEA Task Force. A member of the Standard Teachers Association in Kern County, Garchow represents her region on NEA's Board of Directors and CTA's State Council of Education.
"The federal government needs to live up to its 27-year-old pledge to pay 40 percent of the cost of educating special-needs students. Federal full funding would mean an increase of $1.2 billion for California special education students. As a result of the federal government's underfunding of IDEA, all students suffer, not just those with disabilities."
With that in mind, the IDEA Task Force is recommending that CTA and NEA work toward getting the federal government to fund its 40 percent promise for existing special education programs by 2009 and provide full funding for any new initiatives Congress may add as it overhauls the legislation this year. With the IDEA up for reauthorization, the task force also wants to see Congress resist the pressure to use federal funds for vouchers.
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CTA Board member Dan Vaughn from Downey; Board member Cynthia Peña from Alisal (San Benito County); and Resa Foss from Monterey. |
High on the list of concerns the task force is addressing is student achievement.
While graduation rates are improving for most students, the rate for students with disabilities is 63.4 percent among white students and 43.5 percent among black students. And 88 percent of special education students in the Class of 2004 have failed the California high school exit exam.
The task force believes the IDEA could help improve the situation by:
- Addressing class size and caseload for both general and special educators;
- Allowing for multiple measures to be used in assessing students with special needs;
- Allowing the individualized education plan (IEP) to determine the accommodations and modifications students need when participating in district and state assessments;
- Providing flexibility in accommodations and modifications that can assist students in demonstrating their proficiencies.
Once a student is identified as belonging to a special education subgroup, the task force believes his or her test scores should be calculated for average yearly progress (AYP) purposes based on the original subgroup designation even if the student is no longer receiving special education services.
The task force also believes the IDEA should maintain the rights of students and teachers to a safe, secure school environment.
Another area of focus for the task force has been ensuring that the recently reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) doesn't chase special education teachers out of the profession.
Special educators leave their classrooms, and often the teaching profession, at twice the rate of general educators. The net effect is a chronic shortage of special education teachers in California and nationally. In addition, more than 30 percent of California special educators are teaching on waivers or emergency credentials.
The task force believes the IDEA should address the recruitment and retention of special educators and paraprofessionals. It thinks a special education teacher who has met the state's licensing and credentialing requirements should be considered highly qualified.
States should be allowed the flexibility to develop standards and criteria for supplemental providers of services to special education students in Title I schools.
Special educators typically work 53 hours per week, about half of that time in direct instruction. Their paperwork burden is roughly 2.5 times that of general educators. Special educators and general educators agree that paperwork requirements interfere with instruction. The task force believes the IDEA should streamline paperwork and focus the IEP on the instructional needs of the individual student.
Although they are called upon more and more to teach students with special needs, general educators receive very little training - preservice or inservice - in how to work collaboratively as part of an IEP team, or in how to accommodate and modify curriculum in a standards-based instructional environment. The task force believes the IDEA could help by providing resources for professional development and instructional materials for both general and special education teachers.
The task force will be riding herd on the reauthorization process in the coming months and offering updates at CTA conferences in the late summer and fall. For more information, contact CTA Instruction and Professional Development at (650) 552-5496 or look for advisories on CTA's website [www.cta.org].
