Vouchers for special-ed students (Part 2)

[Guest guest]

Washington Times Article published Apr 30, 2008

Vouchers for special-ed students

April 30, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/5f54jw

By Marcus A. Winters and Jay P. Greene - The second of three.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal law

governing special education, requires a school system to enter into a

legally binding contract that specifies the services it must provide to each

individual disabled student. Parents who believe the school system fails to

provide these services can seek remedy of that failure through a legal

process. But this right is only as meaningful as one's ability to enforce

it. Frustrated parents face the unappealing prospect of engaging in a legal

fight with the same people who care for their children each day. Given the

psychological and financial difficulty of pursuing the legal path and given

how frequently public schools win those disputes, most disgruntled parents

come to terms with sub-par services.

But a new way of structuring special education holds the promise of changing

this situation. Under special-education voucher programs that now exist in

five states, instead of going to court, disabled students can use a voucher

to pay for the cost of attending another public school or a private school.

Rather than fighting, they can walk out the door and take the money that is

spent on them with them.

As we described in this space yesterday, the disabled students who remain in

public schools benefit academically from Florida's special-education voucher

program, called the McKay Scholarship. In a new study we found that the

quality of special education seems to improve when students gain more

options to leave their public school. But these expanded options also

benefit the students who choose to leave with a voucher, the public schools

from which they leave and the taxpayers.

It is true that private schools are not legally required to provide

particular services to disabled students in the same way that public schools

are under IDEA. But in reality, no one loses any rights when they use a

voucher to attend a private school. If their private school does not serve

them well, families can always pursue appropriate services from their

assigned public school through the legal system. Families simply gain

another mechanism to make their right a reality.

Further, private schools appear more willing to provide necessary services

than public schools, even though they are not contractually mandated to do

so. Parents of disabled students participating in Florida's McKay program

report that they are almost three times as likely to receive all promised

services from their McKay private school as from their previous public

school (86 percent vs. 30 percent).

More than 90 percent of parents participating in the McKay program report

that they are satisfied or very satisfied, while only about a third of them

were similarly satisfied with their previous public school. What is it that

they like about their experience? For starters, disabled students

participating in McKay benefit from significantly smaller classes when they

take a voucher to a private school. On average, their class size drops from

21.8 students in their previous public school to 12.7 students in the

private school they attend with a McKay Scholarship. And the rates at which

disabled students are bullied for their disability drop from almost half in

the public school to about one in twenty in the private school with a

voucher.

Even the public schools that students leave benefit. Schools no more relish

legal battles with parents than parents do. By giving dissatisfied parents

an exit option other than litigation, special-education vouchers reduce the

financial and administrative burden on school districts.

Lastly, taxpayers benefit because McKay Scholarships are capped at the

amount that the public schools spend on students or private-school tuition,

whichever is less. Since the tuition at many private schools is less than

the spending on disabled students at public schools, the financial burden on

taxpayers is reduced. The average amount of a McKay voucher in Florida is

only $7,206, far below the average per-pupil amount spent on a disabled

student in the public schools.

The current special-education system is an arrangement that only lawyers

could love. It creates rights that can only be enforced in court - if then.

It creates conflict between families and schools. It is all about process

and not about results. Adding vouchers to the mix changes all of that by

giving families an alternative mechanism for getting what they need,

reducing costs and conflict, and ensuring better results for all disabled

students.

Marcus A. Winters is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Jay P.

Greene is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and head of the

Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.

Amy

Fighting the fight for all our children's rights...