Special Ed: Discarded Vow

The rapid growth of special education in the Los Angeles Unified School District, part of a national trend, has some tough consequences for schools. These include a shortage of qualified special-ed teachers and a worsening of the classroom space problem in already jammed schools. Funding is inadequate to fix either.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has said he will request additional federal dollars for special education, among other things, next month when he meets with Education Secretary Rod Paige in Washington. In truth, all he’ll be asking is that Washington make good on a guarantee given 25 years ago. In the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Congress promised to shoulder 40% of additional costs of educating disabled children in public schools by 1982. Without substantial help, school districts end up raiding other instruction, pitting child against child.

In the current federal budget, the government contributes about $6 billion for the 6 million children identified as disabled, only 12% of the actual cost. States pay the rest, a huge unfunded federal mandate that keeps getting bigger.

The soaring costs reflect a 30% increase in the number of children identified as having special needs during the past decade. That growth includes a spike in students diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity. It also includes significant increases in children with more severe or multiple disabilities that require more expensive care. These children are entitled to an appropriate public education, but the huge and fast-paced increase raises an urgent question: How many of the students in special-ed classes are there because they misbehave or cannot read?

A 1999 Times analysis found that tens of thousands of students in California’s special education classes had been placed there not because of a serious handicap but because they were never taught to read properly. Across the nation, children who are similarly and wrongly labeled “learning-disabled” retain a stigma throughout their public school careers. Rampant misclassification based on reading problems can be reduced or prevented altogether with systematic, intensive, research-proven instruction as early as kindergarten.

Reading First, a $5-billion initiative proposed this week by President Bush, would triple the amount the federal government spends on reading instruction. The plan, part of the reauthorization of the law that funds Title I programs, would finance teacher training, frequent diagnostic testing of children and the purchase of proven reading programs. That is part of a long-term answer, but in fairness to the states and their students, Washington needs to also triple its share of funding for special education.