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The following appeared in Friday's Investors Business Daily and can be
found at:

http://www.investors.com/web_edition/today/welcome.html



NATIONAL ISSUE


Date: 3/26/99
Author: Anna Bray Duff
A recent Supreme Court ruling required public schools to pay for disabled
students' nursing care. The decision left many school districts with one
worry: How will we find the money?

Nearly 6 million of the 48 million K-12 students in the U.S. are in special
education programs. While most of them have learning disabilities, about
17,000 are so severely disabled that they may well require full-time
nursing care.

Schools worry that educating these kids will cost a lot - some lawmakers
say an extra $15,000 a year per student for those requiring nursing care.
The cost of special education has also outpaced the funding set aside for
it, diverting money to disabled students that was meant to pay for school
supplies, books and building maintenance.

Special ed costs are rising for several reasons.

More and more kids with behavior problems are now diagnosed with learning
disabilities. Advances in technology have given students who once would
have been stuck at home the chance to attend classes. There's also a trend
to see ''inclusion'' of disabled students into mainstream classrooms as a
civil right.

Still, few are asking openly if inclusion at any cost is best for disabled
students, let alone other kids trying to learn. School districts also hope
there will be an easy way out, as Congress seems willing to spend more
money on special ed.

Around the country, schools are running out of space, due to a surge in the
number of school-age children and crumbling buildings. Enrollment has gone
up by about 15% this decade. The number of special ed students has risen by
more than 25%.

Federal and state governments are also piling on mandates, like limits on
how many kids can be in a classroom. The Supreme Court ruling raises
questions about how mandates meant to help some children can affect the
education of the rest.

''The whole issue in our eyes is not whether a child deserves a service. It
is who is supposed to pay for that service,'' said Michael Carr, director
of student services at the San Jose Unified School District in California.

San Jose Unified spent an extra $23.9 million last year for its 3,301
special ed students, or about $7,240 for each. Washington paid about 21% of
that, although the 1975 federal law mandating a ''free and appropriate''
education for all students said the federal government would pay 40% of the
extra costs.

''We're really underfunded,'' Carr said. ''The federal and state
governments pass all these mandates of things we have to do, but there's no
money attached to them. So we have to make up the difference out of our
district budget, which makes it very tight.''

The GOP budget resolutions now before Congress boost special ed spending so
that Washington would come closer to paying its 40% share. The federal
government now pays only about 10%.

The White House budget promises to boost special ed funding by only 1%. The
administration will instead spend more on early childhood programs that -
it says - will eventually reduce the need for special ed.

The 7-2 Supreme Court ruling could make things even tighter for schools, as
it greatly expanded the definition of what qualifies as an ''educational
service.''

The court required the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, school district to pay for
nursing services for Garret Frey, a quadriplegic high-school sophomore.

When Frey was 4, he went for a ride on a motorcycle with a blanket draped
around his neck. The blanket got caught in the motorcycle's drive shaft and
pulled him off, severing his spinal cord.

Since then, Frey has needed nursing to take care of his tracheotomy tube,
catheter and ventilator. Until 1993, his family had paid for the care with
insurance and the proceeds of a $1.3 million settlement with the motorcycle
manufacturer. That money ran out, and the family turned to the school
district.

The court was asked to decide whether nursing services counted as medical
services, which schools don't have to pay for. Since Frey's services don't
have to be performed by a doctor, they didn't count as medical, the court
said.

Basically, anything that is not required to be performed by a doctor could
now qualify, says Rick Glazier, chairman of the Cumberland County School
Board in Fayetteville, N.C.

''I suspect you'll see significantly increased requests from parents for
more services, and more one-on-one services,'' Glazier said. ''Parents who
had otherwise provided what I would call medical services will now look to
the school districts.''

Nationwide, the National School Boards Association figures there are about
17,000 students with such extreme needs. (The NSBA filed an amicus brief
with the Cedar Rapids school district.) Funding their care could add up to
more than $500 million, the NSBA estimates.

Such high-needs children make up a small share of special ed students. The
majority of America's 5.8 million special ed students have learning
disabilities.

The overall number of special ed students has swelled by 57% since the 1975
law took effect - faster than the overall number of students.

Those students are increasingly put into mainstream classrooms. Nearly half
are in mainstream classrooms - up from about a third at the start of this
decade.

The Department of Education estimates that federal, state and local
governments spent as much as $35 billion on special ed in the 1995-96
school year, the most recent year available. That figure is hard to verify,
though, because money comes from dozens of different programs.

Special ed programs may be crowding out other education spending, suggests
a study from Richard Rothstein with the Economic Policy Institute in
Washington. Special ed spending rose to 19% of school budgets in 1996, up
from 17.8% in 1991. Over that time, spending on regular education fell to
56% from 58%.

Why are more students in special ed? To a certain extent, Glazier said,
''it's social problems coming home to roost.''

NSBA Executive Director Anne Bryant makes another point: ''We are doing a
much better job of identifying students with learning disabilities,'' she
said. ''And medical technology, and technology in the classrooms, is
greatly enhancing our ability to help children with special needs.''

But some disabilities, such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
(one of the fastest-growing nationwide), are tough to diagnose. Two experts
can disagree whether a child has it. In those cases, what the parent wants
- rather than what the school system can handle - often wins the day.

Whether they want their children put in special ed or taken out, parents
are increasingly willing to challenge a school's assessment of their child.
For example, the number of special ed mediations in California more than
tripled over the past decade. If mediations don't work, lawsuits often
follow.

''The school system that wants to put out resistance to parents' demands
faces a legal system that is stacked against (it),'' said Walter Olson, a
legal scholar at the Manhattan Institute in New York.

For starters, a school district can't claim poverty when it challenges a
student's disability status in court. The cost of educating a disabled
student can't be a major factor in the case.

If a district loses in court, it has to pay the parents' legal fees along
with its own. If it wins, it still has to pay its own fees.

''It's heads, you win; tails, we're even,'' Olson said.

Special ed funding is also hard to predict, says Glazier, whose district
includes Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. military base.

''A lot of parents whose children have an exceptionality seek to be
transferred here because we're known for having such a good program. But it
is particularly tough to pay for here because we are a low-wealth area,''
Glazier said.

While school administrators debate funding, teachers face the issues of
time, attention and training. Many teachers believe the trend toward
inclusion is requiring them to take on tasks they're ill-equipped to handle.

For example, teachers with no training sometimes have to perform tasks like
changing colostomy bags and intravenous drips, says Janet Bass, a
spokeswoman for the American Federation of Teachers.

They also worry that educating some special ed students may undercut their
ability to work with other students.

Federal rules limit the measures teachers and schools can take to
discipline students with behavioral disorders. If a child acts out, and
it's related to his or her disability, there are limits on the amount of
time the child can be taken out of the classroom.

''If there's a child who has constant outbursts, it can affect the
education of all the other kids,'' Bass said.

''It may not be very (politically correct) to say it, but schools' primary
mission is to educate, not to socialize children,'' Bass said.

''While accommodations can be made for the vast majority of special-needs
children to be in a regular classroom,'' she said, ''we have to be given
the ability to put kids in the most appropriate setting so that all kids
can get an education.''





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(C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc.