Teachers Aren’t Nurses

When passed by Congress in 1975, the Individuals With Disabilities Act was, as its near-acronym intends to suggest, a good IDEA. Disabled children do better in regular schools than in grim state institutions, so the law essentially requires public schools to educate disabled students in the “least restrictive environment”--usually a regular classroom.

In recent years, however, the percentage of students with major problems, including serious mobility and developmental disorders, has risen. Unable to hire health care professionals, many strapped school districts now require their teachers to handle nursing duties ranging from dispensing pills to giving insulin injections.

The situation stands to jeopardize the health of disabled students in particular, and, by taking teachers’ attention away from other students, the education of all may suffer.

Last November, state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin proposed reforms to guide schools in carrying out special education goals. The reforms would, for example, make it easier for schools to expel or transfer students who disrupt classes in ways unrelated to their disability.

Sacramento, however, must protect the disabled from what some special education advocates say is a growing tendency to give them short shrift. For instance, some districts are using the state’s effort to reduce class size as an excuse to re-segregate disabled students into separate classrooms or even hallways. Having expert medical help on hand would do a lot toward making teachers more comfortable with the severely disabled in their classrooms.

Washington could help by revising its system of doling out funds based on the number of disabled students reported by the schools, a system that encourages schools to report students with vague or marginal “disabilities” but does not ensure that funding will be spent on the severely disabled who most need it. Furthermore, the funds could be tied to improvement of educational results for disabled students and community income. Schools in poor areas with the highest percentage of disabled students often have the least money to hire nurses or other specialists.

Many of these proposals were included in a federal bill that died in the Senate earlier this year. It deserves to be revived when the new Congress convenes.