Special Education: Class Action?

Here's a story and video from WFMZ Channel 69 in Allentown, PA about a class action special education suit for Reading and Lancaster students. There is a second article from the AP that appeared on PennLive.com

POSTED: 06-20-2008 10:51 PM ET | MODIFIED: 06-20-2008 10:52 PM ET
Special Education Funding Fight in Court
A U.S. district judge is deciding if a special education funding lawsuit in Pennsylvania should have class-action status. The suit was filed in federal court in 2006, on behalf of special education students in Reading and Lancaster. It says the state's funding formula short changes some urban districts...because it assumes 16 percent of all students in each district require special-education services. But the number varies from district to district. A legal advocacy group for the poor wants the state Education Department to revise the formula. The Education Department says special-education disputes should be resolved through administrative hearings.

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Pa. special ed formula attacked in federal court
6/20/2008, 4:16 p.m. EDT
By MARTHA RAFFAELE
The Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's special-education funding formula is under attack by a federal lawsuit that claims the state shortchanges needy school districts with large numbers of learning-disabled students.

The Community Justice Project, a Harrisburg-based legal advocacy group for the poor, wants the state Education Department to revise the formula, which assumes that 16 percent of all students in each of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts need special-education services.

The state has used the formula since 1994 to distribute special-education aid among the districts.

But the formula ignores factors such as the actual number of special-education students, the cost of providing needed services and a school district's ability to pay for special education with local property-tax dollars, said Evalynn Welling, a lawyer with the organization's Pittsburgh office.

"We have a systemic failure to distribute special-education funds in an equitable fashion," Welling said Friday during a hearing on the plaintiffs' request for class-action status.

U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane did not immediately rule on the request. Kane said she would leave the court record open for 10 days to give attorneys for both sides time to file affidavits, then issue an order.

The organization filed the lawsuit in 2006 on behalf of seven special-education students and their parents in the Reading and Lancaster school districts.

All seven, identified only by their initials, have struggled in school because they have been deprived of services such as tutoring and teachers' aides, according to the lawsuit. Some are also trying to learn English as a second language, but lack bilingual instructors.

Because the formula applies the same assumption of special-education enrollment statewide, districts with lower enrollments are more richly rewarded by the state on a per-pupil basis, the lawsuit alleges.

Special education students make up about one-quarter of the public-school enrollment in Lancaster and about 15 percent in Reading. The state's funding per special education pupil for those districts amounted to $2,861 and $3,581 respectively for the 2005-06 school year, according to the lawsuit.

By contrast, the Mars Area School District in Butler County, where roughly 5 percent of students are enrolled in special education, received $7,827 in per-pupil state funding during the same year.

Pennsylvania had more than 270,000 students enrolled in special education, or about 15 percent of all public school students, during the 2005-06 school year.

The Education Department has not formally responded to the lawsuit's allegations that the formula is unfair. Michael L. Harvey, a state attorney representing the agency, declined to comment on them after Friday's hearing.

The agency has tried unsuccessfully to have the suit dismissed on grounds that the students and their parents failed to seek administrative hearings to resolve their disputes before going to court. During Friday's hearing, Harvey alluded to that argument as he tried to make the case for denying the plaintiffs' application for class-action status.

Parents who dispute whether their children are receiving appropriate services must first initiate so-called "due process" hearings at the local level, according to the Education Department. They can appeal to an administrative panel appointed by the department, and then state or federal courts, if they are dissatisfied with the local ruling.

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On the Net:

Community Justice Project: http://www.communityjusticeproject.org

Pennsylvania Department of Education: http://www.pde.state.pa.us