How can we compel the federal government to fully fund special education (IDEA), as it mandated itself to do?

Answer 1

Lawsuits against the government. It must be done by the parents. Special education policy already is 99% court cases. IDEA was originally started through parent advocacy and lobbying.

Parents no longer are fighting for their children, especially in Washington, etc. People perceive the Six Principles of IDEA (Zero Reject, LRE, IEPs, Due Process, FAPE, fair assessment), as natural and expected rights. Actually, they were hard-won through political activism taking over a decade (1960's - early 1970's).

With parents no longer throwing heart and soul into getting into the politicians faces regarding funding, etc., the politicians have turned education into a tool for themselves. They talk a pretty talk to get re-elected, then keep funding as low as possible. By scapegoating teachers through overloading them with responsibility for everything about a child (including things out of teacher control like student attendance rates), while not giving them the resources to have a real chance at success, the politicians can keep the public eye away from the fact that they're the ones killing they American education system.

Schools are caught between student need and funding. What is needed for the students to succeed are much lower student to teacher ratio, better teacher training in specific areas of the thirteen categories -- especially methodology for each type of disability, materials and supplies, therapies at child-need schedules rather than funding schedules, etc.

If the government took all the money (tens of millions of dollars) they spend on standardized tests, and put that money back into the classroom, the following could be implemented:
--smaller class sizes/caseloads
--educational assistant for every teacher
--increased professional training in a variety of areas (e.g. regular ed teachers with increased training in ESL and SPED)
--use the excellent teacher preparation programs out there as standards to hold all programs to; there are huge differences in graduates from different univeristies in professional knowledge, etc.
--professional standardized tests are not measuring what they are meant to measure... some wonderful teachers struggle to pass them, while horribly inept people pass just fine. Another point of evidence that all standardized tests measure is whether someone is a good test-taker, NOT the content knowledge or skill levels (so why use them on our students?).
--teacher accountability could be maintained through student portfolios containing work reflecting student gains, with students passing at 80% mastery of content rather than 60%, combined with the annual evaluations already in place; and auditors who do random sampling of portfolios and evaluations to ensure that the content and evidence contained in them aligns with the stated results; it would take much less staff than what is used for standardized testing
--administrator accountability modified to focus on improving the less-competent teachers, rather than an accross-the-board attack on all teachers (which creates burn-out as excellent teachers get the message that they "are never good enough" no matter what they do); student behavior (currently, NCLB penalizes schools with office involvement in behavior problems... the more referrals to the office a school has, the lower it's score for AYP); financial -- how much district money actually makes it into classroom use?; and auditing of records to ensure that administrators aren't just "pushing the paperwork" without actually doing the tasks
--audit current funding, and increase funding to Child Protective Services and the Juvenile Probation Office so that parents can be held fully accountable for attendance, and home environment issues that affect student behaviors, instead of moving accountability for all of it to teachers. CPS and JPO are horribly understaffed and overloaded.

ETC.

Answer 2

If you have a specific case against a school district or other agency bound to provide a "free, appropriate education" provided by the federal government, you need to contact a lawyer who specializes in the disability laws. The only way to fight the government is to use its own laws in your favor. That's how the rights were created in the first place... people fighting for what their family members needed. Remember, you have to participate in a hearing first, to try to resolve the issue without the courts. If that doesn't work, you are then allowed to try to resolve in court.

Answer 3

If the government is not funding IDEA then you need to gather real proof, and confront them. Even if that means getting on CNN or something.

Answer 4

IDEA is a bogus "idea".. No child left behind is pushing kids into inclusion when they aren't ready or may never be ready to be mainstreamed.