https://goo.gl/uxUoNs
Dive Brief:
- Starting in 2018-19, states must start using a standardized method to determine if school districts have wide disparities in how they identify, place in segregated settings, or discipline minority students with disabilities, Education Week reports.
- School systems found to have state-defined "significant disproportionality" in one or more of those areas must use 15% of their federal special education dollars on remedies for the issue.
- The cost to states to implement the special education regulations over 10 years are estimated at between $50 million and $91 million, depending on how many districts reach the threshold.
Dive Insight:
The new special education bias rule that will begin to be implemented next year is an Obama-era revision of a George W. Bush policy signed into effect in 2004. However, under the old plan, fewer than 5% of school districts meet the disproportionality threshold. The new revisions to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) calls for states to provide better definitions and methodologies for determining this threshold and will likely mean that more school districts will be identified in the coming years. The funding method under the new provisions has also been broadened, as well.