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Special Education Section of the New York State Commission on Property Tax ReliefThe following is the special education section of the report by the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief (The Suozzi Commission Report). The full report may be downloaded from the following link: http://www.cptr.state.ny.us/reports/CPTRFinalReport_20081201.pdf
Special Education New York State’s Social Compact – When discussing special education it is important to emphasize, especially during these difficult fiscal times, that New York State has always had, and continues to have, a deep commitment to the social compact that demands that we care for those most in need. The Commission can be successful in its mission to reduce expenses, especially those that relate to special education, only if it presents a roadmap that not only achieves cost savings, but also improves services and outcomes for students and their families.
The Council of School Superintendents commends the members and staff of the Commission on Property Tax Relief for undertaking what appears to be the most thorough independent review of New York's special education policies in the more than 30 years since the current basic structure was put in place. - Understanding Special Education – It is important to understand that “special education” is a term of art. For those who are not education experts, the perception may be that special education programs serve only those students with a severe diagnosed mental or physical challenge. In reality, the 400,000 school-age students classified in special education in Parents, Students and the Educational System – The Commission solicited testimony and spoke with dozens of experts throughout this process. Many parents of students with milder issues seek special education classification for their children because they want them to receive “extra help” or services so they can succeed in school and life. They do not have enough confidence that their children will be provided with the assistance they need in the educational system unless they are classified as special education students. We, as a State, must do a better job of providing “extra help” and other supportive services that parents demand and children need, in the general education setting. Classifying students into special education is not only more costly, but more restrictive and potentially less conducive to a student’s success. To accomplish this goal, parents need to be able to trust that their children will be better served in the general education environment. Therefore, general education services for students with mild disabilities must be enhanced. The Problem – Costs are too high, too many special education students are in separate schools or in other more restrictive environments, and key educational outcomes are well below the national averages. Special education was one of the mandates most frequently cited by school officials during testimony to the Commission as a significant contributor to educational costs. Almost all representatives of school boards and school district management, as well as many academic experts, pointed to the growing costs of compliance, and the fact that as of 2007, By a significant margin, Based on salaries (the only data available for comparing expenditures by all states), Even while spending much more, New York ranked 38th in 2005 in key educational outcomes, such as the proportion of such students leaving the system with either a diploma or certificate, or transferring to general education.27 The graduation rate for those students is approximately 50 percent statewide, but only about 20 percent in large cities. According to the State Education Department, special education accounts for 27.1 percent of the total instructional cost of education, even though it involves only 12.4 percent of the students. As shown on the following table, special education has been a key element in the past decade’s accelerated growth in overall school expense. Instructional cost per pupil for special education is substantially higher than for the general pupil population – in 2006-07, instructional expense per pupil for special education was $23,898, just over 2.5 times the $9,494 for general education. For the last five years, special education expense has grown at a compounded annual rate of 9.0 percent, while general education spending has grown at a rate of 5.7 percent. Today, slightly more than 400,000 public and private school-age pupils in the State – one out of eight pupils – have been classified as needing special education services. This 12.4 percent classification rate29 is a slight increase over the 11.8 percent rate five years ago. Classification rates vary considerably across the State, even among similar districts. For example, as shown in the following table, low need districts range in classification rates from 4.7–17.6 percent, and the Today, slightly more than 400,000 public and private school-age pupils in the State – one out of eight pupils – have been classified as needing special education services. This 12.4 percent classification rateis a slight increase over the 11.8 percent rate five years ago. Classification rates vary considerably across the State, even among similar districts. For example, as shown in the following table, low need districts range in classification rates from 4.7–17.6 percent, and the 29 The classification rate used within The wide disparity between districts is directly related to two factors: 1) variation in subjective standards being applied by committees on special education in different districts; and 2) differing capacities of districts for accommodating students with the need for extra help in general education settings. The Board of Regents has in recent years often expressed concern about inappropriate classification, and State Education Department has worked to avoid inappropriate referrals for special education. The department has encouraged and sometimes required new practices in districts where performance measures indicate significant need for reform.30 30 [Our goals] are to prevent unnecessary special education placements and to ensure that students with disabilities who are returning to or remaining in the general education program have the support they need to meet higher standards -December 1996 Report to the Regents by State Education Commissioner Richard Mills Special Education Hearing Requirements During the 2007-08 school year 6,157 hearings were requested in Special Education Transportation A student with a disability is entitled to suitable transportation, as specified in the child's Individualized Education Program. State law requires transportation to and from public school and nonpublic school settings within 50 miles of the child’s home, if the child is receiving special education services and programs. The Commissioner may approve placement more than fifty miles in distance if no appropriate non-residential special service or program is available. Each district has discretion to determine how transportation is provided. School districts may provide transportation services themselves, or contract with a private contractor or with BOCES, or use a combination of providers. State aid reimbursement is available for the cost of transporting students with disabilities. School superintendents testified to the Commission that the already high cost of special education is increased by the growing district expenses associated with transporting students to non-public schools and off-site special education programs. As an illustration, nine 31 The NYS Dispute Resolution Association, Inc. (NYSDRA) calculated this figure in 2005 by interviewing several NYS Special Education advocates and parent attorneys regarding their average expenditures, and what was included in those costs (preparation for the hearings, hearing costs, experts, etc.), and several hearing officers to determine what costs they incurred. 32 Regional Educational Advocacy Group. Written Testimony submitted to CPTR. June 2008. Eliminate Class Size Requirements: Class size mandates should be repealed, and schools should be permitted to establish class size based on their students’ needs. No Minimum Service Levels: There should be no mandatory minimum levels of special education services such as the current minimum two hours per week for speech therapy, to cite one example. CSEs should be allowed to determine what service level is needed for each student. Requirements for Autistic Pupils Are Too Prescriptive: The requirements for autism reflect the older, more severe definition of the disability and not the broader definition that is applied today. As a result, the specificity of existing requirements prevents CSEs from determining the appropriate level of support and service needed for each student. Increase Responsibility of the District of Residence: Advocate for a federal change so that the district of residence can retain or at least share responsibility for the IEP in instances involving parental placement. Transportation: Advocate for a federal change that would reduce the requirement that transportation be provided up to 50 miles to and from a private school. Special Education Recommendations Outcome-Based Accountability 15. The State Education Department should shift its emphasis from regulatory enforcement, especially in special education, to performance standards, and support improved performance with training and expert assistance that promotes best practices. This shift in regulatory approach is particularly important in the area of special education, but should be applied to general education as well. Consistent with this approach, the State Education Department should actively engage those schools that do not meet performance standards by offering technical assistance and support. There are 204 State mandates that implement, clarify, or exceed the Federal special education requirements. As a first step towards performance-based management, the Commission recommends those State mandates that exceed federal law be administered as guidelines, where appropriate. To accomplish this, the State Education Department should convene a group of stakeholders, including representation from school boards, superintendents, principals, teachers and parents, with the goal of converting as many of these State mandates into guidelines as possible by the 2010-11 school year. In the interim, the following mandates should be revised and simplified by the 2009-10 school year: Staffing Guidelines: The Commission believes that inflexible staffing mandates that require pupil-teacher-aide ratios for various classifications and settings are a key contributor to the expense of special education. CSE Guidelines: The requirements for the composition, procedures and multiple deadlines of the Committees on Special Education should be reduced to the Federal IDEA requirements. IEP Guidelines: Many of the requirements for the composition of Individualized Education Program teams should be reduced Federal IDEA requirements and/or turned into guidelines, including requirements for IEP content. 16. Dramatically accelerate the integration of special education with general education. Providing an appropriate education to students with disabilities will always cost proportionately more than services to non-disabled students, as their needs are, by definition, more intensive and more individualized. However, we must insure that these extensive dollars are spent in an effective manner that produces positive outcomes for these students and long-term benefits and savings for the taxpayers and the State’s economy. - Rebecca Cort, Deputy Commissioner Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities, For children with milder issues, parents should not have to pursue classification of their child in special education in order to receive services. Nor should districts be forced to go through the formal classification process before providing any basic additional help to pupils with milder needs. The Commission believes that the integration of special education with general education must be accelerated dramatically. Further, the artificial and outmoded barrier of “classification” between general education and special education should be eliminated for the large number of pupils with needs on the milder end of each disability category or spectrum. The full integration of special and general education will be accomplished only if the skepticism of parents is allayed. The Commission believes this can occur if school officials and parents communicate and build partnerships to ensure that the needs of students are met. The Commission proposes to strengthen educational services in general education, so that pupils with milder needs can be adequately served without being classified for special education. Enhance general education with evidence-based practices to provide appropriate services for all students. “Evidence-based” techniques, such as response to intervention (RTI), identify individual pupil needs and adapt instruction to meet those needs. RTI and similar techniques should be available to all students in general education, early enough to improve educational performance, and without the need for classification for those with milder needs. This would ensure that services are available to more pupils, and would reduce classification, bureaucracy and overall expense. The Commission notes that the State Education Department is actively promoting the strengthening of general education to address the needs of struggling students who are at risk for classification without adequate intervention, and commends the State Education Department's efforts to encourage all school districts to adopt RTI. Strengthen pre-service training of all teachers so that they are prepared to meet the needs of students with disabilities in general education settings. To maximize the inclusion of students with disabilities in the regular classroom, and to address workforce shortages, all teachers should be trained to meet the needs of students with disabilities in the general education environment. Encourage schools that reduce their classification rate to invest available funding. Such schools generally continue to receive enhanced foundation aid as a result of “save harmless.” These schools should invest those funds in general education programs that enhance services for students with milder needs. 17. School districts with classification rates 20 percent higher than the State average (approximately 130 school districts), should be reviewed by the State Education Department to determine if assistance in reducing these rates is required. The State Education Department, working with BOCES, should expand the efforts of their expert teams to assist local Committees on Special Education in districts with high classification rates to follow State classification standards, identify weaknesses in general education capacity and implement best practices. In addition, the school report cards should include declassification rates as well as classification rates to emphasize the importance of reassessment of student needs. Reduce Litigation Costs 18. Reduce the Cost of Litigation. The expense of litigation must be decreased, as amounts saved could be spent to improve and increase programs for students in special education. Promote alternative dispute resolution: The existing special education mediation program should be expanded and other methods to encourage early dispute resolution, such as IEP facilitation, should be promoted. Building parent and school district partnerships and trust is fundamental to reducing disputes and therefore costs. Remove a hearing layer in the dispute process: One layer of the current hearing process, which involves a district hearing followed by a State Education Department hearing, should be eliminated. Measures should also be taken to reduce the number and duration of disputes, and the consistency and effectiveness of hearing officers should be evaluated. Shift the burden of proof in hearings: Chapter 583 of the Laws of 2007 placed the burden of proof on the school district. This law should be modified so that the burden of proof is on the school district only when the family is unable to afford counsel. Shorten the statute of limitations for non-approved private school reimbursement cases: Parents who enroll their child in a non-approved private school, without the approval of the IEP team, have two years from the alleged violation to file a due process complaint seeking reimbursement from the school district for the cost of the placement. (Education Law § 4404 (1)(a)). Since school district budgets may be adversely affected when parents seek private school tuition reimbursements years after a placement, the time period for filing a complaint should be shortened to 90 days. 19. Increase Collaboration in Providing Services. Numerous educators testified about the high cost of out-of-district placements, citing instances of tuition exceeding $100,000, expensive transportation, and reimbursement policies that do not adequately encourage collaboration. Facilitate school district consortia to provide local alternatives to outof-district placement. School districts should consider joint planning to develop specialized programs that can be made available to other districts and coordination to make underutilized special education programs available to students from neighboring districts. These strategies could limit the need to send students to private programs. Share out-of-district transportation for special education, preferably as part of a broader shared non-instructional services effort through BOCES or through local district consortia. Increase interagency collaboration to provide efficient regional delivery of emotional and psychiatric treatment. Regional treatment of students with severe emotional disabilities could be established through partnerships that include school districts, the State Education Department and New York State Office of Mental Health and/or BOCES to determine whether there would be tuition and transportation savings. Providing more locally based services has the advantage of allowing students to remain in their homes and local schools, wherever possible. Secure Federal Investment and Additional Savings 20. Federal Investment and Additional Savings. As funding special education remains a key reason for accelerated school spending and a significant burden on the property taxpayer, the Commission recommends the following: a. The Governor and the Legislature should call upon Congress set a target for the federal contribution to special education spending equal to 40 percent of the estimated excess cost of educating children with disabilities. In 2006-07, IDEA federal funding covered only 7 percent of the estimated additional cost of educating children with disabilities in I propose that we unleash the enormous potential of our BOCES throughout the state to reduce costs through greater service sharing beyond what BOCES is legally allowed to provide. Ronald D. Valenti, Superintendent of Blind Brook There are numerous examples of consolidation non-instructional functions through BOCES. These include a long-standing arrangement, the Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi recently released a plan under which a range of services would be jointly provided through mutual cooperation among the The Commission makes the following recommendations regarding shared service delivery: 24. Amend Education Law Section 1950 and General Municipal Law Article 5-G to remove obstacles and clearly authorize BOCES to enter into agreements with other local government entities for non-instructional services. Article 5-G of the General Municipal Law broadly authorizes “municipal cooperation” among counties outside of 25. Rescind the statutory cap on the BOCES district superintendent salaries. The BOCES district superintendent serves two roles. The individual is the chief executive officer of the BOCES who is hired by and reports to the BOCES board. The individual is also an employee of the Commissioner of Education and his or her representative in matters of concern to the Commissioner. The BOCES district superintendent’s salary is paid in part by the BOCES district and in part by the State Education Department. Currently, district superintendent salaries are linked to the salary of the Commissioner of Education to maintain alignment. This salary level has proved to be an obstacle to hiring and retaining the BOCES superintendents in wealthier areas of the state where school district superintendents’ salaries are either on par or higher. Testimony presented to this Commission suggests that the current 25 percent vacancy rate in this pivotal leadership position resulted from non-competitive salary levels. The Commission recommends rescinding the BOCES salary cap to improve the ability of BOCES districts to hire and retain highly-qualified individuals for this demanding job. Additionally, the State should seek to maximize the availability of federal Medicaid reimbursement to offset the cost of providing special education to low income children with disabilities.33 b. Shorten the time for reconciliation to reduce the amount of interest paid. Several hundred schools – special act school districts and VESID approved special education private schools – have tuition set by the State Education Department rate setting methodology. The State reconciliation method includes payment for the interest borne by the district. If a timelier rate setting process was established, the State would save money by paying less interest on the loans. Seeking Economies of Scale and Enhanced Educational Opportunities Smaller school districts have two basic flaws: 1) they are more expensive on a per pupil basis compared to larger districts; and 2) the educational opportunities they provide are more limited than those offered by larger districts. Expense: School districts with fewer than 1,000 students spend more on non-instructional services than larger districts. In 2006-07, these districts spent $5,345 per student on non-instructional services, or $859 (19 percent) more than the average spent by all districts outside of Not only do smaller school districts spend more per pupil on overhead and other non-instructional expense, they also spend more on instruction per pupil. Commission analysis demonstrated that the merger of smaller school districts (smaller than 1,000 students) could save 33 Medicaid provides for a 50% federal contribution, 25% state contribution and 25% local contribution of all eligible educationally related health services to children with disabilities. as much as $7 for every additional student. In other words, for every 100 pupils added to a district with fewer than 1,000 pupils, the expense per student would be reduced by $700. These savings are not trivial, and they support similar findings from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.34 Researchers found that consolidation would save two 900-pupil school districts 7 to 9 percent and two 300-pupil districts approximately 20 percent. In its final report, LGEC used the Educational Opportunities: The Commission found that higher pupil counts are related to increased educational opportunities. For example, one analysis of school districts with fewer than 1,000 students found that larger school districts within the study group had a greater likelihood of Advanced Placement course participation among pupils in grades 10 through 12. There are two major areas of recommendation: 1) consolidation of school districts with fewer than 1,000 students and 2) shared provision of services among school districts or more broadly with units of local government, to achieve economies of scale and operational efficiencies. The Commission makes the following recommendations regarding school district consolidation: 21. Require consolidation of school districts that have fewer than 1,000 pupils. Additionally, grant the Commissioner of Education with discretionary authority to order consolidation of school districts with fewer than 2,000 pupils. As a first step in determining where and how these recommended consolidations should occur, the State Education Department should undertake reviews that examine school districts under objective standards based on pupil enrollment trends, geography, breadth of educational programs, potential fiscal savings and level of tax burden. This Commission recognizes that these reviews could identify isolated instances where consolidation of districts would not be feasible. In addition, committees could be formed within each BOCES region to evaluate potential restructuring opportunities of school districts. The Commission understands that communities will have concerns regarding a loss of identity if school buildings are closed or sports teams disbanded. The Commission believes that efficiencies can be realized without such measures, through centralized 34 Duncombe, William, and John Yinger. Does administration of a newly created, larger school district. In fact, in certain areas only administrative consolidation may be practical, especially where geographic distances would be too great to make consolidation feasible. 22. Restructure state school reorganization aid to ensure that it is used predominantly to pay for reorganization expense or to provide needed services. Additionally, temporarily suspend building aid for new projects for districts identified for potential reorganization. Currently, operating aid is increased by 40 percent for 5 years for districts that reorganize, and then reduced 4 percent a year over the next 9 years. This state incentive aid typically exceeds the direct costs of reorganization as well as the benefits. School reorganization aid should be reduced to pay only for reorganization expense or to improve needed services. The use of aid for “leveling up” of salaries and benefits, which diminishes merger savings, should be precluded, unless they result from collective bargaining and are approved by voters. Districts considered for consolidation should provide an estimate of direct costs associated with reorganization for consideration by the Commissioner of Education in making a determination. 23. Amend state law to simplify consolidation by removing anachronistic distinctions between, union free, central and city school districts. New York State Education Law provides various methods for school district reorganization, depending on the district category. For example, union free and small city district consolidations may be locally initiated, subject to the Commissioner’s approval, while merger of other districts must be initiated by the Commissioner. Such distinctions should be removed to facilitate streamlining. In addition, there are no provisions authorizing merger of the “Big Five” city school districts with other districts, and the school districts in other cities cannot be consolidated with each other. All of these statutory barriers to consolidation should be removed. Shared Service Delivery Cooperative arrangements to share the expense of non-instructional support services among school districts can reduce expenditures for all school districts regardless of size. Sharing services maintains school districts as separate operating entities while reducing duplication in the provision of services such as personnel transactions, maintenance and grounds upkeep, pupil transportation, budget preparation and auditing. Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) are authorized to offer both instructional and non-instructional shared services, some of which are eligible for reimbursement through state aid. BOCES expenditures on non-instructional services in school year 2006-07 totaled 16 percent, of their total expenditures of $2.4 billion. All school districts, except the Big Five and four others are members of a BOCES.
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