What are some drawbacks to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) P.L. 94-142?

Question

I can think of millions of positive things about IDEA but because I'm not a teacher yet I don't really know the drawbacks. Are there any drawbacks? Are there any big flaws with IDEA?

Answer 1

Yes, I have been a Special Education Supervisor, sp.ed. teacher (grades P-12 at various times)...and I've taught reg.ed.  The drawbacks that I've seem are:

Excessive paperwork causes the sp.ed. teacher to spend most of his/her time completing it and holding conferences.  The paras are often found to be the ones doing the instruction, so the sp.ed. child is not getting instruction from a teacher as much as needed.

Stress level that sp.ed. teachers feel from the Due Process involved with IDEA causes many sp.ed. teacher to burn out.....this is one reason we have a hard time finding sp.ed. teachers.

IDEA is often misinterpreted.

Although, we do need the law...to protect the rights of children with disabilities.

Answer 2

Go to www.schwablearning.org and sign up for free to post on their parent to parent message board. You will get LOTS of suggestions there.

I am not sure if you are talking about the actual laws themselves, or the 'implementation' of the laws.

As for the implementation of these laws, it is almost nonexistant all over the USA. You can also ask about this on the schwab site.

There is no enforcement to make schools follow these laws so they don't. Instead, they lie, cheat, violate laws, are intimidating and hostile toward parents, spend thousands of dollars to take parents to court to NOT help the child, when they could have spent just a fraction of that money to go ahead and help the child.  (MANY MANY case law on this one)

etc because they do not want to help children with special ed.

It's hard to tell if there are any drawbacks to IDEA laws without them actually being implemented. Even though schools are suppose to, they usually don't.

Go to the best sites for the IDEA laws, which are

www.wrightslaw.com

www.reedmartin.com

The only 'drawback' I have personally found with IDEA law is the part about actually finding a child eligible for special ed.

In the section 'initial evaluations' it states that whenever a school or parent requests an eval, it has to be done.

But in the part about 'child find' it states that ALL schools are suppose to FIND and EVALUATE all children that are SUSPECTED of having disabilities.  

So when a parent asks for an eval, the school will usually come back with 'we don't 'suspect' the child has a disabiltity so we don't have to evaluate'.

OK, Well, how did they determine this without even doing an eval!?

The part about child find has nothing to do with the PARENT requesting teh eval to be done, so the school is NOT suppose to use this as an excuse to refuse to do an eval if parent requests it.

One GREAT thing about IDEA law is 'prior written notice'. MOST parents don't know about this. Schools are suppose to give this to parents, listing LEGAL reasons that schools have for starting, stopping, changing, or refusing anything to do with FAPE.

Since schools KNOW they will NEVER be reprimanded for not following the laws, they don't give this PWN. So, they come up with any old c**p to refuse doing anything for these kids.

If the parents knew about PWN and used it, that would cut a lot of the schools c**p out becuase the school will NOT put 'illegal' reasons in writing on the PWN, and they will HAVE to do what's legal.

Another problem with IDEA is, the schools have the upper hand on this. There is NO WAY for parents to even know the IDEA laws even EXIST until they ask for an eval IN WRITING to see if their child can qualify for special ed.

IDEA law states schools are to inform parents of IDEA laws and their rights at the time they request an initial eval in writing.  The problem with this is,  before this happens, the parent DOES NOT KNOW about the IDEA laws. Sometimes they don't even know that they can ask for an eval.

And even when the parents DO ask for an eval, the schools DO NOT inform them of IDEA laws and their rights.

IDEA needs to be changed to reflect better imforming of parents about these laws. Since schools KNOW most parents don't know the IDEA laws, they will continue to do the c**p they do.

Case in point -  All schools have what is called an 'intervention program' that they are to help children who have problems. Parent involvement is not required for this program.  This program IS NOT special education.  The RULES for this program state that these children are suppose to be in this program for  6 weeks and if no improvement, THEN the child has the eval done to see if he can qualify for special ed.

But, since this program is mandated by RULES and not LAWS, they don't have to do ANY of this. My school had my child in this so called intervention program for 2 1/2 YEARS with no progress.

I didn't know the rules then. As soon as I learned the laws and my childs rights, IT WAS ON.  The school was HORRIBLE to me! All with the knowledge and approval of the district superintendent and the GA state dept of education.

The school did an 'assesment' and told me it was the REAL eval for sped eligiblity. IDEA law states an assesment can NOT be done for this purpose.

The school even had me to sign the CORRECT consent form to do the CORRECT eval, but they did the ILLEGAL assesment and told me it was the REAL eval. Of course they had to  say she didnt' qualify for special ed, they did the wrong eval to determine this ! And if they said she DID qualify for special ed, they would have taken a chance on the state finding this out (later on the state DID find out and did nothing about it)

Anyway, what the people in charge of these intervention programs do is tell the parent that they HAVE to have the child in this intervention program FIRST before the child can have the eval done to see if child qualfies for special ed. ILLEGAL.

They tell the parent that the child has to have an 'assesment' done to determine if child can have the sped eval done. ILLEGAL

They say a child can not have sped eligiblity eval done because they are not failing. ILLEGAL

They say a child can't be in special ed because there's not enough money ILLEGAL

LOTS of teachers that I know of are mandated by their administrators to NOT tell parents if a child is having problems because they do NOT want to help them.

My dd's teacher FINALLY said to me after I had to take her out to homeschool -  'I am so sorry, the admins just would not let me help your child.'

Beware of all this, you WILL be caught up in this mess. Not long ago a special ed teacher in Texas was fired for helping parents know their rights and what to do to help their child.

This happens all over the country.

THe 2 sites I mentioned above has info about this, as well as www.specialedlaw.blog

www.mothersfromhell2.org

www.learningabledkids.com