We need a new IDEA

The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), signed 50 years ago, was a great success at expanding access and opportunity to students who'd often been excluded from schooling, writes Miriam Kurtzig Freedman. Now, "it’s time to declare victory, sunset this law, and create a new one for our era."

As a teacher, then a hearing officer and then an attorney representing public schools in disability rights cases, Freedman argues that we need a new special education law focused on helping students -- all students -- succeed.

Only 10 to 20 percent have severe or profound disabilities, she writes. Students with mild or moderate needs should not be covered by the special-education entitlement, which requires schools to spend whatever it takes to provide a "free and appropriate education." Special education should be reserved for those who really need it.

"Too often students are classified as specific learning disabled (SLD) — by far, the largest group of students with disabilities — because they did not learn to read by third grade," Freedman writes. Many aren't disabled. They're victims of poor teaching and the "wait to fail" approach.

Students with speech/language impairment may not have heard enough conversation at home.

Strengthening general education and working with families makes more sense than labeling more children as "disabled."

Once a child is "disabled," parents -- and their lawyers -- fight with schools for services, writes Freedman. The "legal tension erodes trust and diverts focus from student learning and building partnerships with parents."

The system is expensive and bureaucratic, writes Freedman. Compliance drains teachers' time and energy. Special educators spend only 29 percent of their day on teaching, researchers estimate. It's no wonder so many get frustrated and quit.

It will take courage to change, she writes in her conclusion. Schools should serve the needs of all students, disabled or not.

The Trump administration has abandoned the federal responsibility to ensure that special-education students get the help they need, writes Pepper Stetler, the mother of a child with Down's Syndrome, in The Atlantic.