While children with disabilities are entitled to special education services tailored to meet their individual needs, many schools don’t have the resources or staff to meet those needs, which creates inequitable access to services, according to a July 29 report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The U.S. Department of Education (Education) can’t address inequities across local educational agencies because it’s only authorized to collect specific data at that level — data that doesn’t include, for example, school or district staffing numbers and service hours, according to the GAO.
“Education has recognized the need to identify the extent of resource inequities and the underlying causes to help ensure that all students — including those with disabilities — have access to a high-quality education,” the report states. “However, there are significant limitations in Education’s available data, and in some cases a lack of data, regarding the availability and use of special education resources and services across schools and school districts. This raises concerns about whether Education and policymakers have the information needed to identify and help address inequities in students’ access to special education resources.”
During the 2021–22 school year, about 7.3 million children and adults ages 3-21 received special education and related services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) — many through individualized education programs (IEPs). The GAO visited four states — California, Georgia, Kansas and New Hampshire — based on special education experts’ suggestions of states that have developed notable strategies to mitigate obstacles to educating students with disabilities, and for geographic variation.
Challenges
In visiting 16 school districts, four state educational agencies and 12 special education organizations across these four states, the GAO found several overlapping challenges to educating students with disabilities, including:
- Personnel shortages
- Inadequate time for professional development
- Challenges communicating with parents
- Insufficient collaboration between general and special education staff.
Officials said that due to these compounding challenges, some students do not receive high-quality education, some receive delayed services and some do not receive services at all.
California LEAs were among the 15 districts that noted challenges communicating with parents as an obstacle to educating students with disabilities. In addition to difficulties reaching parents who work nights or building positive relationships with parents who have negative preconceptions of special education, communicating with parents who are not fluent in English was cited as a major hurdle.
“School districts may have difficulty finding providers to interpret conversations or translate documents into all the many languages spoken by students’ families,” the GAO found. “Stakeholders in California also told us that a particular challenge to providing special education in a timely fashion is related to the requirement under state law to obtain informed parental consent prior to implementing a child’s initial IEP. Specifically, it may take a district months to find a translator to translate a child’s IEP, during which time the student must wait to receive services.”
Improvement strategies
State and school district officials detailed various strategies they’ve implemented to help mitigate these obstacles, including mentorship programs and ways to grow the teacher pipeline by encouraging more people to enter the special education field.
California’s Golden State Teacher Grant program, for example, provides up to $20,000 for students obtaining credentials as California teachers, school psychologists or school counselors, with some funds reserved for students pursuing teaching credentials in special education.
From July 2020 to September 2022, the program funded 383 students to become special education teachers, according to state education officials.
California was also one of three states with networks of special education agencies that coordinate professional development, use of funds and information sharing across school districts within regions of their states. The state was one of just two in which these regional agencies play a more direct role in providing special education.
“In California, these agencies might purchase an expensive piece of equipment to be shared among member districts or hire one teacher for the deaf to serve the whole region,” according to the GAO. “Officials from one California school district praised how these regional special education agencies reduce financial pressure on individual school districts.”
Recommendations
The GAO called on Congress to consider granting the Education Department authority under IDEA to collect school- and district-level data on special education and related resources, where feasible, that would help the department fulfill its oversight responsibilities under the law.
This data could include:
- The number of students who receive specific types of special education related services, such as speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy and other services that may be specified in an IEP.
- The number of staff providing services, such as special education teachers, paraeducators and other staff involved in delivering services to students that may be specified in an IEP.
- Expenditures for special education services, including staff salaries, transportation, technology, professional development and other related activities.
