From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Special Education

Description: In this podcast we discuss how some states use different 
guidelines to determine which students qualify for special education. 

Related GAO Work: GAO-19-348, Special Education: Varied State Criteria 
May Contribute to Differences in Percentages of Children Served

Released: April 2019


[ Background Music ]

[ Jackie Nowicki: ] It's important to understand that there is a 
federal law that requires states to serve all eligible children.

[ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news 
and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm 
Matt Oldham. Around 13 percent of students aged 3 to 21 enrolled in 
public schools received special education services in the 2015-2016 
school year. A federal law requires states to identify, locate, and 
evaluate all children with disabilities to help them get the same 
opportunities in the public school system as other students. I'm with 
Jackie Nowicki, an Education Workforce and Income Security director at 
GAO and she's here to talk about her report on states' efforts to 
identify and evaluate children for special education, and how the 
Department of Education monitors those efforts. Thank you for joining 
me, Jackie.

[ Jackie Nowicki: ] Oh, it's my pleasure, Matt.

[ Matt Oldham: ] So, what's this look like right now across the country?

[ Jackie Nowicki: ] At the federal level, the Federal Special Education 
Law requires states to serve all eligible children, you know, kids who 
are eligible for special education services. So, in 2016 the percentage 
of eligible kids across states ranged from about 6 ½ percent to about 
15 percent, which, you know, given that states are supposed to serve 
all eligible children, you might think that that -- that is a little 
bit strange on its face. And so, that's what our report dives into here 
is, why do those differences exist, and -- and is that a problem or not 
in the context of what the federal law says.

[ Matt Oldham: ] So, then why might one state have different special 
education enrollment percentages from a neighbor?

[ Jackie Nowicki: ] Yeah, great question. So, IDEA, which is the 
Primary Federal Special Education Law, as we said, requires states to 
have processes and procedures in place to identify and determine 
eligibility for kids who might, you know, need special education 
services. So, those procedures and processes give states a fair amount 
of latitude, within the confines of the law, to kind of do their own 
thing, so things like states are able to determine what does a 
developmental delay -- delay look like in their state, so they can 
determine their own eligibility rates. They can determine what it means 
to have a developmental delay. So, within the context of the law, for 
example, in Maryland, to be eligible for special education services, a 
child needs to have a 25 percent delay in a developmental area. But in 
Arizona, you need to have a 50 percent delay, so you can see with some 
of those differences how you might start to wind up with different 
eligibility and enrollment rates across states.

[ Matt Oldham: ] So, what's at stake then, if students requiring 
special education aren't identified?

[ Jackie Nowicki: ] We know that kids who have developmental delays or 
who are at risk for having developmental delays, that early 
intervention matters. That the sooner that we're able to help kids get 
the services they need and the supports that they need to address 
things like delays in perhaps motor skills or language skills, the 
better off they are, and the sooner that we're able to close those 
gaps. So, it's really important that states are doing what they need to 
do to find and serve kids who have been deemed eligible.

[ Background Music ]

[ Matt Oldham: ] So, it sounds like the main Federal Law on Special 
Education, IDEA, allows for states to determine their own eligibility 
rules and disability categories. So Jackie, what's the Department of 
Education's role in this matter?

[ Jackie Nowicki: ] So, Education has a -- more of a monitoring role 
here so because IDEA does give states a fair amount of flexibility, 
education focuses on ensuring states have policies and procedures in 
place to monitor the implementation of the special education programs 
in school districts. So, Education is not about telling a state, “you 
must have X percentage of your kids enrolled or servedâ€