Classroom disruption: the federal Individuals With Disabilities Act, up for renewal, adds to schoolhouse violence

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 11, 1995 | by Stephen Goode

Moreover, the courts rarely are friendly to teachers' concerns. Their predominant philosophy is that a disability saps self-esteem -- and it is this loss of confidence that leads the disabled student to lash out and turn to violence. It is an approach to the law that allows the courts to conclude that disabled students should not be punished in the same ways as nondisabled students, educators say.

In addition, the schools often end up paying their opponents' attorneys' fees. Fee awards as high as $10,000 and $20,000 are not unusual, says Resnick. These funds must come out of school budgets (and therefore from taxpayer money) and be taken from the costs of other projects the schools have planned.

The House Economic and Educational Opportunities subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families, chaired by conservative Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, held three hearings on the IDEA this summer but adjourned for the August break without producing a completed bill -- something the members had planned to do. The Senate Labor and Human Resources subcommittee on Disability Policy, chaired by Tennessee Republican Bill Frist, a conservative and physician, plans to have its version by the end of September.

Educators such as Resnick, as well as advocates for the disabled, are asking the federal government to provide as much as another 40 percent of what the states are paying for special-education programs. No one in Congress is even talking about spending that kind of money. Since the states now spend about $30 billion, that would mean at least $13 billion coming from federal funds. But the federal government supplies "only" about $3 billion a year -- a figure that may increase slightly, say Insight's sources in the House, but which certainly won't climb by much and may go down.

The Clinton administration has checked in with a revised IDEA that would base federal grants to the states on the total number of students enrolled in school, rather than the number of special-education kids, as now is the case.

The Education Department sees this bill as encouraging the states to start identifying disabled youngsters early on -- say, at the toddler stage -- when disabilities, especially many kinds of learning and speech problems, are best handled.

But, more to the point, Education hopes that by basing grants on total numbers of students the states won't tend to "overidentify" children who have disabilities -- a problem many observers say adds significantly to the lists of students in special education and one that needs addressing.

The administration bill doesn't address the clear and present danger of violence in the classroom, Resnick notes, and he also says that Congress has yet to deal with that problem.

What the teachers' unions and education associations want is a system that allows disputes between teachers and the representatives of the disabled to be settled in hearings outside the courtroom -- with no attorneys present, says Resnick. The courts, they say, must be a last resort. It's a demand that the disabled and their representatives fight tooth and nail. All three House hearings on the bill this summer were heavily attended by parents of the disabled, who also staged a 1,000-person demonstration on the steps of the Capitol in favor of keeping the restrictive provisions.