NJ Coalition for Special Education Funding Reform

The U.S. Department of Education has granted New Jersey a waiver to reduce spending on special education for the state fiscal year ending on June 30, 2011.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not allow states to reduce funding for special education from one year to the next, but allows for a one-year waiver if there are “exceptional or uncontrollable circumstances.”

Even when waivers are granted, states are still obligated to ensure that children with disabilities are provided a free and appropriate education.

To read more click here

On March 16, the Coalition offered public testimony to members of the Assembly Budget Committee who met in Montclair to accept comments on the state budget proposal. Committee members were interested to learn about how cuts to state support for special education last year had caused harm to students with disabilities and requested additional information. In addition, committee members inquired about how New Jersey could do a better job collecting and using objective data to make decisions about special education funding and services. For a copy of the Coalition’s comments, click here.

For the second year in a row, the US Department of Education will be considering waivers for states who claim they cannot afford to fund special education. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that states, regardless of the status of state budgets, must not reduce state special education spending. States must spend the same amount or more from year to year, a requirement known as the maintenance of effort.

Last June, New Jersey cut funding for special education, and three months later, in September, New Jersey officials requested a waiver for the current (2010-2011) state fiscal year. The waiver has yet to be granted. Only three states have been granted a waiver so far.

To read an article in Education Week about states requesting waivers to IDEA’s maintenance of effort provision, click here .

The New Jersey Department of Education has approved its first-ever charter school solely for students with disabilities. The Forest Hill Charter School in Newark could change the way charters have operated in New Jersey for 15 years, including a $55,000 tuition per child. The 150-page application also seeks an additional $1.2 million a year in extra aid from Newark schools.

To learn more about The Forest Hill Charter School, click here.

There are still huge questions about how special education services are funded in the charter schools, and whether the current funding formula provides adequate, appropriate and predictable levels of funding.

Click here to read John Mooney’s story in New Jersey Spotlight.

At a town meeting in mid January, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that he will be talking to his new commissioner of education about creating a new autism school in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. To read Winnie Hu’s story in the New York Times, click here.

The announcement drew mixed reviews from the special education community, with some calling the proposal ‘visionary’, and others calling it ‘regressive.’ Many advocates saw the proposal as a complete reversal of the Governor’s school choice agenda and the NJDOE’s decades-long efforts to encourage local districts to develop quality services and supports for students with autism and other disabilities. Issues of LRE, school choice and IEP-driven placement decisions aside, the Governor believes his plan would offer a “cost-effective alternative to cash strapped communities” trying to create their own special education curriculum for these students.

The Coalition for Special Education Funding Reform opposes the plan because we believe it would not save money - in fact, it would cost taxpayers more - and would redirect limited resources to building even more separate schools. To better serve students, AND save taxpayers money, the Coalition makes a number of recommendations. To read the Coalition’s Position Paper, click here.

Commentary, Asbury Park Press

Friday, November 26, 2010

Special ed needs cost, outcomes study
Better data would allow smarter policy, funding decisions

New Jersey’s special-education funding system has been built on assumptions, not data. But limiting the discussion to high-cost, intensive services, as the Press’ recent series “Special Care, Unknown Costs” seemed to do, ignores larger structural flaws in the state’s special education system and the absence of comprehensive data to inform public policy.

There are roughly 214,000 students with disabilities in New Jersey, most of whom do not require highly specialized and costly services. The majority — close to 95 percent — are served in public schools in mainstream classrooms, special classes and public regional or county-based schools.
Yet the full cost for these programs is relatively unknown. Data from the state Department of Education show highly irregular public school tuition rates for students in special education classes, and no cost data whatsoever on the full cost of services for students who receive special-education services in regular classrooms.

Accounting practices allow districts to assign costs to classrooms that do not have students in them, resulting in tuition rates that are inaccurate and, in some cases, meaningless. Moreover, public and private school tuition rates cannot be easily compared because public school tuition excludes many costs related to pensions, retirement benefits, debt service and, in some instances, facilities.

These costs are paid by state tax dollars, not local tax dollars. In addition, many regional programs are further subsidized by county taxes. These practices allow public schools to report tuition rates that appear to be lower than the full actual cost to taxpayers.

The New Jersey Coalition for Special Education Funding Reform, comprising New Jersey’s largest disability and special education advocacy groups, and whose members together represent virtually all students with disabilities in the state, has pushed for more data, both on costs and outcomes. Since 1996, we have said that solutions to some of the problems plaguing New Jersey’s special education system do not simply require more money, they require smarter money.

We have asked for a scientifically validated outcomes study to examine the lives of adults who, as students, received special education services. Such a study could identify variables in special education that produce positive outcomes and could be used to make better-informed decisions about policy and funding.

We also have urged the state to commission a comprehensive, independent study to determine the full actual excess costs to taxpayers of special education services across the continuum of placements, public and private. While several limited reviews have been conducted, including one now under way, there has never been a comprehensive study to examine full costs across settings. Some leaders in New Jersey have encouraged the expansion of regional special-education programs, but there are no accurate data to suggest that these programs are more effective or that they cost the state’s taxpayers less.

We have urged reversal of the current “Census-based formula,” which relies on statewide averages to distribute special-education aid to districts. Research shows that such a funding model does not reduce rates of inappropriate classification. Rather, it penalizes districts with higher rates of special education, while paying other districts for special-education students they do not have. We have advocated that local districts provide suitable facilities so that students with physical, behavioral and learning disabilities may be served, to the extent appropriate, in general education classrooms and not in trailers or remote classrooms.

We have promoted a funding system that encourages partnerships between local school districts and highly effective specialized programs so that proven expertise can be brought into local public schools. And, we have asked that the Department of Education verify need prior to the construction of separate school buildings intended primarily for use by students with disabilities. County-based or regional special-education buildings cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars over time — money that may be better spent on improving local facilities, services and programs.

New Jersey needs comprehensive data now, more than ever, as increasingly divisive arguments over limited resources threaten to further position students with disabilities and their families as public enemies, siphoning money from an apparently cash-strapped system. If “hidden” resources in the system were directed to early intervention, high-quality instruction and comprehensive teacher training, perhaps the costs, both personal and financial, would come down.

Brenda Considine is coordinator of the New Jersey Coalition for Special Education Funding Reform.

Asbury Park Press, Sunday, November 21, 2010
Editorial

Stop flying blind on special ed

The recently concluded six-part series on special education by Press staff writer Shannon Mullen raised a host of questions about the quiltwork of programs available to students with a variety of learning disabilities in New Jersey. Finding answers to some of the most important questions was elusive.
If the series did anything, it put the spotlight on the need for a comprehensive, state-funded study of special-education costs, program outcomes and equity issues.

Trying to evaluate the effectiveness of the special-education programs offered in individual public school districts, in private schools and in regional and county specialized schools is virtually impossible without access to better data about costs and longitudinal studies that allow districts to track progress of individual students and categories of students.

You can’t fix something you don’t understand, as one special-education advocate put it.

Sadly, there is no good cost data and no good data on outcomes. It has been a decade since the state took an in-depth look at special education. It’s time for another study — one that will enable educators, parents and public officials to better determine which approaches work best and in what settings, and which programs are most cost-effective.

Today, parents of the more than 200,000 New Jersey students with learning disabilities have a difficult time knowing what the best options are for their children. There is no shortage of alternatives. In addition to the hundreds of public school programs, there are regional special education districts and 176 private specialty schools.

But when it comes to placements, parents are often subject to the whims of their local school district, where decisions are made by local child study teams. Sometimes, their determinations are based on what’s best for the district rather than what’s best for the child.

While parents have the option of appealing placement decisions, it’s a wrenching, time-consuming and costly process. And many parents are understandably reluctant to challenge those charged with overseeing their children’s educational and social development.

A comprehensive special-education study, in addition to providing a clearer understanding of how the dollars are being spent and how they can be spent more effectively, should examine the placement process to make sure every child, regardless of where they live, has equal access to the programs — in district or outside the district — that best suits their needs. That clearly is not the case today.

The study also should explore the voucher systems in effect in several states, which allow parents to send their children to the program of their choice, to determine whether some hybrid of those systems might make sense in New Jersey. At the same time, the state Department of Education should develop uniform curriculum standards and training requirements for those who work with children with autism. That is particularly important in New Jersey, which has the highest autism incidence rate of 16 states surveyed by the federal government — 1 for every 94 students — and has experienced a doubling of the autistic population in the past decade.

There are hundreds of dedicated educators in this state who have done remarkable work with children with learning disabilities. For the sake of all such children and their families, it is imperative that the state invest the resources needed to ensure everyone has access to the information needed to make the best decisions for each student. The state must stop flying blind.

New Jersey is among six states asking the U.S. Department of Education for a waiver allowing them to reduce the amount of state financial support provided to local districts for special education for the current fiscal year. Click here to read New Jersey’s letter to Washington DC requesting a waiver to cut state funding for FY 2011.

Under federal special education law, states must maintain the same level of state support for special education from one year to the next unless granted a waiver to reduce that amount. To visit the section of the USDOE’s website dealing with waivers to the “maintenance of effort” provisions of IDEA, click here. In addition, the UDOE issued a one page fact sheet on waivers. To download it, USDOE Memo on Waivers to IDEA’s MOE Provision click here.

In a letter sent to Education Secretary Arne Duncan in late September, New Jersey reports that it had “ a precipitous and unforeseen decline in financial resources” causing the State to have $2 billion deficit in FY10, and forcing a reduction in state support of education including a $52 million reduction in funding for special education. According to the request, the special education reduction is less than the reduction in overall state aid to school districts (6.2%).

As required by IDEA, if a state receives a waiver, the state must return to the prior year’s level of state support the following year or face a reduction in federal funds (unless a new waiver is requested and granted.) To date, only Iowa and West Virginia have been granted a full waiver, and one state, Kansas, has been granted a partial waiver.

Click here to read what IDEA Money Watch, a federal watchdog advocacy group has to say.

The Coalition has written to members of Congress. Click here to read one of the Coalition’s letters to members of Congress.

The Coalition for Special Education Funding Reform was among a handful of invited groups to testify before the Senate Education Committee in early February. We were invited to provide legislative priorities:

1) See that New Jersey return to a weighted categorical funding system for special education. Under CEIFA, special education aid was based on the intensity of student need. All sources of aid need to follow the child, regardless of where he or she goes to school.

2) See that the State to commission an independent study to determine the full actual excess costs of providing special education services on a statewide and regional basis. There are no accurate data to compare costs across settings.

3) Preserve New Jersey’s “Burden of Proof” law, which requires local school districts to bear the burden of proof when special education services are challenged in court.

4) Ensure full funding for districts serving students with highly specialized, intensive special education needs though an ‘extraordinary services’ special education aid supplement. The funding formula should be revisited so that aid is generated based on the services in a student’s IEP – not the cost of the placement. This aid must be transportable across placements, so that districts working to return students who are in self-contained settings and who receive intensive services do not risk losing state aid.

New Jersey’s budget for 2011 proposes huge cuts for special education. The Coalition has gone on record with the legislature as opposing these cuts. Click here for a copy of the Coalition’s budget testimony.