Special Education: Improved Timeliness and Better Use of
Enforcement Actions Could Strengthen Education's Monitoring
System (09-SEP-04, GAO-04-879).
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures
the education of the nation's disabled children. As a condition
of receiving IDEA funds, states must provide educational and
related services that facilitate learning to students with
disabilities based on their individual needs. The Department of
Education (Education) is responsible for ensuring state
compliance with the law. In recent years, questions have been
raised about Education's oversight of IDEA. GAO agreed to
determine how Education monitors state compliance with IDEA for
children aged 3-21, the extent and nature of noncompliance found,
and how Education has ensured that noncompliance is resolved once
identified. GAO analyzed Education monitoring documents,
interviewed state and federal officials, and visited 5 state
special education offices.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-04-879
ACCNO: A12237
TITLE: Special Education: Improved Timeliness and Better Use of
Enforcement Actions Could Strengthen Education's Monitoring
System
DATE: 09/09/2004
SUBJECT: Aid for education
Children with disabilities
Data collection
Data integrity
Education program evaluation
Monitoring
Noncompliance
Special education
State-administered programs
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GAO-04-879
United States Government Accountability Office
GAO Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions, U.S. Senate
September 2004
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Improved Timeliness and Better Use of Enforcement Actions Could Strengthen
Education's Monitoring System
GAO-04-879
[IMG]
September 2004
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Improved Timeliness and Better Use of Enforcement Actions Could Strengthen
Education's Monitoring System
What GAO Found
To monitor compliance with IDEA provisions that affect children aged 3-21,
Education annually reviews special education data submitted by all states
and uses a risk-based approach to identify those states in need of further
inspection. This monitoring system relies upon collaboration with states,
as each state is responsible for assessing and reporting its performance
on the provision of special education services. However, some of the data
used by Education, such as information about how parents are included in
their children's education and students' experiences after they leave
school, are weak in that they are not uniformly measured or are difficult
for states to collect.
In states Education visited for further inspection from 1997-2002, the
department identified roughly equal amounts of noncompliance for failing
to adequately provide services to students as noncompliance for not
adhering to IDEA's procedural regulations, according to GAO analysis.
Education found a total of 253 compliance failures in 30 of the 31 states
visited during this period, with an average of approximately 8 across the
30 states. GAO found 52 percent of compliance failures to be directly
related to providing student services, for instance counseling and speech
therapy. The remaining 48 percent involved a failure to meet certain IDEA
procedural requirements.
Once deficiencies were identified, Education has sought resolution by
providing states with technical assistance and requiring them to develop
corrective action plans that would ensure compliance within 1 year.
However, GAO found that most cases of noncompliance had remained open for
2 to 7 years before closure, and some cases still remain open. GAO's
examination of Education documents showed that a considerable amount of
time elapsed in each phase of the correction process, including
Education's issuance of noncompliance findings and approval of correction
plans, as shown in the following figure.
Time Taken to Complete Phases of Correction Process
Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
On occasion, Education has also made use of sanctions to address
longstanding issues with noncompliance, but in these cases, too,
resolution has been protracted. States expressed concerns about the
standard 1-year timeframe Education imposes for correction, and Education
officials acknowledged that it is sometimes not feasible for states to
remedy noncompliance and demonstrate effectiveness in that length of time.
United States Government Accountability Office
Contents
Letter
Results in Brief
Background
To Monitor Compliance with IDEA, Education Uses a Risk-Based
System That Relies Upon State-Provided Information
Noncompliance Education Found Was about Equally Split between Failures
Involving Services to Students and Procedural Deficiencies
Education Has Sought to Bring States into Compliance by Providing
Technical Assistance and Requiring Corrective Action Plans, but Resolution
Has Been Prolonged
Conclusions
Recommendations for Executive Action
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
1
3 5
8
14
16 23 24 25
Appendix I Scope and Methodology 28
Site Visits 28
Monitoring Report Analysis 29
Analysis of Compliance Documentation 29
Analysis of Enforcement Documentation 30
Appendix II IDEA-Related Sanctions 1994-2003
Appendix III Comments from the Department of Education
Appendix IV GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 36
GAO Contacts 36
Staff Acknowledgments 36
Related GAO Products 37
Tables
Table 1: Most Commonly Cited Noncompliance Findings Related to the
Provision of Services in Education Monitoring Reports, 1997-2002 15
Table 2: Most Common Findings of Procedural Noncompliance in Education
Monitoring Reports, 1997-2002 16
Table 3: Results of Education Monitoring Visits, 1997-2002 18
Figures
Figure 1: States That Received Monitoring Visits, 1997-2002 11 Figure 2:
Time Taken to Correct Noncompliance through Technical Assistance and
Corrective Action Plans 19 Figure 3: Time Generally Taken for Corrective
Process in Closed Cases Where Sanctions Were Imposed 21
Abbreviations
CIFMS Continuous Improvement and Focused Monitoring System
IDEA Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
IEP Individualized Education Program
NCLBA No Child Left Behind Act
OSEP Office of Special Education Programs
This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
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separately.
United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548
September 9, 2004
The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions United States Senate
Dear Senator Kennedy:
In the 2003-2004 school year, states received more than $9 billion under
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) toward educating
the approximately 6.5 million eligible children aged 3-21 with
disabilities in the United States. IDEA funds are used to provide both
educational services and related services, such as counseling, speech
pathology, and occupational therapy, that facilitate learning. As a
condition of receiving IDEA funding, states agree to comply with certain
requirements regarding the educational and related services provided to
disabled children. These requirements include the development of an
individualized education program (IEP) that outlines the specific services
to be provided to each student based on individual needs. For students
over the age of 14, IEPs must include a statement of transition services
to be provided to students to help them obtain the educational and
vocational skills needed to improve the likelihood of self-sufficiency
once they leave school. Similarly, infants and toddlers served under the
act must have individualized family service plans in place that include
steps to be taken to support the child's transition to preschool or other
services.
When IDEA was reauthorized in 1997, Congress placed a new emphasis on
state and local accountability for complying with IDEA and improving
educational outcomes, such as graduation and other measures of
postsecondary success, for disabled students. The reauthorized law made
each state's annual federal funds conditional on its success in providing
a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
States were also required to establish goals for student performance and
to provide the Department of Education (Education) with progress measures
toward accomplishing those goals. With the enactment of the No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2001, Congress further emphasized states'
obligations to educate disabled children by requiring them to fully
include disabled children in statewide achievement systems. With few
exceptions, disabled students are to be assessed against the same state
academic standards as nondisabled students, their aggregated scores are to
be publicly reported, and schools are to be held accountable for their
performance.
Education has responsibility for oversight of IDEA and for ensuring that
states are complying with the law. Education both provides states with
technical assistance in implementing IDEA and monitors their compliance
with its requirements. However, questions have been raised about the
effectiveness of Education's oversight. Specifically, concerns have been
raised that Education has not held states accountable for ensuring that
students with disabilities receive the services to which they are entitled
and that Education's efforts to remedy noncompliance have been
ineffective. In response to these concerns, you asked us to examine
Education's oversight of IDEA, focusing on Part B, which provides services
to children age 3-21. Our review did not include Part C of IDEA, which
provides services to infants and toddlers from birth up to age 3. This
report presents information on (1) how Education monitors state compliance
with IDEA, (2) the extent and nature of noncompliance in those states
Education selected for review, and (3) the measures Education has used to
remedy noncompliance with IDEA and the results of those measures.
To address these study objectives, we analyzed Education monitoring
reports, documents, and guidance issued to states. We interviewed
department officials and examined available documentation on Education's
current monitoring system, instituted in 2003, as well as its previous
systems. Specifically, we reviewed the monitoring reports of the 31
states, territories, and other jurisdictions1 for which Education had most
recently completed monitoring visits, which took place from 19972002. We
analyzed Education's findings of noncompliance in these states and
categorized them as service-related, if the failure directly affected the
provision of an IDEA-required educational service, or procedural-related,
if the infraction involved a more process-oriented failure. In cases where
Education found noncompliance, we analyzed enforcement documents, such as
corrective action approval letters, evidence submitted by states
demonstrating compliance, and correspondence from Education acknowledging
when noncompliance had been resolved. In cases where noncompliance
resulted in sanctions, we reviewed departmental
1Hereafter, we will use the term "states" to refer to states, U.S.
territories, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Bureau of Indian
Affairs.
Results in Brief
enforcement documents, including special condition letters and compliance
agreements, from 1994-2003. This longer period of review enabled us to
obtain a more comprehensive view of Education's use of sanctions for
resolving noncompliance. Additionally, we conducted site visits to 5
states-California, Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, and Texas-that were
selected to reflect differences in such factors as special education
population size, previous noncompliance issues, date of last monitoring
visit, and geographic location. In each state we analyzed state monitoring
documents and interviewed state special education officials and members of
the special education community, including administrators, parents, and
advocates, who were involved in the monitoring process. Furthermore, we
interviewed federal officials regarding the monitoring and enforcement
process, as well as representatives from the National Council for
Disability and national education organizations.
We conducted our work between September 2003 and August 2004 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Appendix I explains
our methodology in greater detail.
Education monitors all states for IDEA compliance through a review of
state performance reports and uses a risk-based approach to select some
states for further inspection each year; however, some data used to make
these selections are weak. Education's monitoring system relies upon
collaboration with states, as each state is responsible for collecting
information about its own special education programs in particular topic
areas, assessing its performance, and reporting its findings to the
department annually. Using the data states reported, Education reviews
state performance in those areas it considers most closely associated with
improving students' educational outcomes, such as increased parental
involvement and placement in regular educational settings, rather than on
more process-oriented IDEA requirements. According to Education, the
department selects a limited number of states for on-site inspection based
on selected measures, such as graduation rates and dropout rates. Because
Education relies heavily on state-reported data, it has taken steps in
recent years to ensure that states have adequate systems in place to
collect and report special education data. Despite these efforts, some of
the data elements Education uses to make monitoring decisions are weak.
For example, graduation rates are not uniformly collected or reported.
Similarly, information about parent involvement and student transitions
into elementary school and post-secondary programs are difficult to
collect and are, therefore, reported inconsistently across states.
Education officials acknowledged that the variability in state reported
data has
limited their ability to make comparisons across states. Officials in some
states we visited attributed these variations in part to inadequate
guidance from Education and asked for more guidance on these measures.
Inconsistent reporting of state data could negatively affect Education's
ability to focus its monitoring activities on those states with the
greatest deficiencies.
Cases of noncompliance identified by Education were about equally related
to state failure in providing disabled students with services and failure
in meeting IDEA procedural requirements, according to our analysis of
state monitoring reports issued between 1997 and 2002. Education found a
total of 253 compliance failures in 30 of the 31 states that it visited
during this period, with an average of 8 across the 30 states. Slightly
more than half of Education's findings were for failure to provide a
service or facilitate the provision of a basic service to a student with
disabilities. Most commonly cited was the failure to ensure related
services that facilitate learning, such as counseling, speech pathology,
and assistive technology. The remaining noncompliance findings Education
identified involved a failure to meet certain procedural requirements
under IDEA, such as failing to complete paperwork or to meet timeliness
requirements.
Education has endeavored to bring states into compliance through state
corrective action plans and technical assistance, but cases of
noncompliance have generally continued for years before being fully
resolved. To resolve the range of deficiencies Education identified in its
monitoring visits, the department required states to (1) develop
corrective action plans, (2) institute remedies, and (3) demonstrate the
effectiveness of the remedy within 1 year. We found that all of the 7
cases of noncompliance from 1997 to 2002 that have been fully resolved
took from 2 to 6 years for closure to occur, and the remaining 23
cases-some dating back as far as 1997-have still not been completely
resolved. However, Education officials told us that most of these states
are making progress. Our examination of Education documents showed that
each phase of the monitoring and correction process took a considerable
amount of time, including Education's issuance of its findings report and
the approval of the state correction plan. On average, Education took
about a year to issue a monitoring report following its site visits, and
generally 1 to 2 years passed before states' corrective action plans were
approved. Infrequently, in cases of serious or longstanding noncompliance,
Education has taken more severe action by using sanctions such as making
grant renewals conditional on correcting noncompliance, but resolution has
been slow in these cases as well. In addition, states that we examined
rarely resolved
noncompliance within the 1-year compliance deadline specified by Education
for correction. State officials raised concerns about this 1-year time
period, and Education officials acknowledged that resolution could be
difficult to accomplish and substantiate within a 1-year period for some
deficiencies. Education officials explained that the nature of some
problems, for example personnel shortages, requires longer-term solutions.
In such cases, Education may pursue 3-year compliance agreements that
allow states to plan their remedial actions over a longer period.
To improve special education monitoring, we are recommending that
Education develop additional guidance for collecting data on key outcome
measures. To strengthen enforcement of IDEA, we are recommending that
Education improve its response times throughout the monitoring process and
that it impose realistic timeframes and firm deadlines for remedying
findings of noncompliance, including making greater use of compliance
agreements when appropriate.
In its comments on a draft of this report, Education expressed general
agreement with the deficiencies we found and asserted its belief that
changes made to the monitoring system in the past few years have already
begun to effectively address these deficiencies. The department discussed
a variety of actions it was taking but did not explicitly agree or
disagree with most of our specific recommendations. Because we could not
determine whether the actions Education discussed will result in the
needed improvements, we did not delete these recommendations. In the case
of our recommendation about compliance agreements, Education disagreed,
saying that the department lacks the authority to initiate them because
the compliance agreement process is voluntary on the part of the states.
While we agree that Education cannot compel states to enter into these
agreements, we continue to believe that Education does have the authority
to initiate compliance agreements and that this action could result in
beneficial outcomes.
Background IDEA is the primary federal law that addresses the special
education and related service needs of children with disabilities,
including children with specific learning disabilities, sensory
disabilities, such as hearing and visual impairments, and other
disabilities, such as emotional disturbance and speech or language
impairments. The law requires states to provide eligible children with
disabilities a free appropriate public education in "the least restrictive
environment," that is, in an educational setting alongside nondisabled
children to the maximum extent appropriate.
School districts are responsible for identifying students who may have a
disability and evaluating them in all areas related to the suspected
disability. In addition, they must re-evaluate children at least once
every 3 years, or sooner if conditions warrant a re-evaluation, or if the
child's parents or teacher requests a re-evaluation. Under IDEA, students
receive special education and related services tailored to their needs
through an IEP, which is a written statement developed by a team of
educational professionals, parents, and interested parties at meetings
regarding the child's educational program.2
If the IEP team determines the child needs extended year services, schools
are required by regulations governing IDEA to provide such services beyond
the normal school year. Further, the act requires that states have in
place a comprehensive system of personnel development designed to ensure
an adequate supply of special education, regular education, and related
services personnel to provide needed services.
IDEA seeks to strengthen the role of parents and ensure they have
meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their
children. In particular, IDEA regulations require that parents receive
prior notification of IEP meetings and that the meetings be scheduled at a
mutually agreed upon time and place. The act affords parents other
procedural safeguard protections, such as the opportunity to examine their
child's records and to present complaints relating to the identification,
evaluation, educational placement of the child, or the provision of a free
appropriate public education.3 Under IDEA, disputes between families and
school districts may be resolved through due process hearings, state
complaint procedures, or mediation.
2IDEA requires that the IEP team include (1) the child's parents; (2) at
least one of the child's regular education teachers, if the child is
participating in the regular education environment; (3) at least one
special education teacher, or if appropriate, at least one provider of the
child's special education; (4) a representative of the public agency
qualified to provide, or supervise, special education and who is
knowledgeable about the general curriculum and the resources available
from the public agency; (5) an individual who can interpret the
instructional implications of educational results; (6) at the discretion
of the parent or the agency, other individuals with knowledge or expertise
about the child; and (7) the child, if appropriate.
3The procedural safeguards afforded parents include written prior notice
whenever Education proposes to initiate or change, or refuses to initiate
or change, the identification, evaluation or educational placement of the
child, and the provision of a free, appropriate, public education to the
child.
The Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)
is responsible for administering IDEA. Education authorizes grants to
states, supports research and disseminates best practices, and provides
technical assistance to states in implementing the law. Education is also
responsible for monitoring states' compliance with IDEA requirements and
ensuring that the law is enforced when noncompliance occurs. Education
reviews states' systems for detecting and correcting noncompliance in the
state, including noncompliance at the local level. In the event of
noncompliance, Education has the specific authority to employ six
sanctions: (1) imposing restrictions or "special conditions" on a state's
IDEA grant award;4 (2) negotiating a long-term compliance agreement with a
state requiring corrective action within 3 years; (3) disapproving a
state's application for funds when the application does not meet IDEA
eligibility requirements; (4) obtaining a "cease and desist" order to
require a state to discontinue a practice or policy that violates IDEA;
(5) withholding IDEA funds in whole or in part depending on the degree of
the state's noncompliance; and (6) referring a noncompliant state to the
Department of Justice for appropriate enforcement action.5
Education's system for monitoring state compliance with IDEA has been
evolving for more than 5 years. This evolution is, in part, in response to
the stronger accountability and enforcement provisions6 in the 1997
amendments to IDEA that emphasized the importance of improving educational
outcomes for disabled children, including improving high school graduation
rates, increasing placement in regular education settings, increasing
participation in statewide and districtwide assessment programs, and
improving the outcomes of services provided to students with emotional and
behavioral disorders. In 1998, Education implemented the Continuous
Improvement Monitoring Process, which focused its monitoring efforts on
states with the greatest risk of noncompliance and placed increased
responsibility on states for identifying areas of weakness. In 2003,
Education implemented the Continuous Improvement and
4The special conditions require correction of noncompliance during the
1-year grant period.
5Education must provide the state education agency with reasonable notice
and the opportunity for a hearing before withholding funds, disapproving a
state's grant application, seeking a cease and desist order, entering into
a long-term compliance agreement, or making a referral to Justice.
According to Education, the type of hearing will differ depending on which
enforcement action is proposed.
6The 1997 amendments authorized the Education, at its discretion, to
withhold part of a state's IDEA funding, instead of just the entire grant.
Additionally, the amendments established the authority for Education to
refer noncompliant states to Justice.
To Monitor Compliance with IDEA, Education Uses a Risk-Based System That
Relies Upon State-Provided Information
Focused Monitoring System (CIFMS), which, among other things, added new
state performance reporting requirements to its monitoring system.
Officials of some special education advocacy groups with whom we spoke,
including the National Association of State Directors of Special
Education, commented favorably on these changes. However, the National
Council on Disability, which had published a 2000 study critical of
Education's enforcement of IDEA, continued to question whether Education
has taken effective actions to remedy the problems reported.7
Education uses a risk-based system to focus its monitoring efforts, but
some data it uses are weak. Education's monitoring system relies upon
states to collect information about their special education programs,
assess their own performances, and report these findings to the department
annually. In addition, the department selects a limited number of states
for further inspection based on a subset of measures. Because this system
relies heavily on state data, the department has taken steps in recent
years to ensure that states have adequate data collection systems in
place. However, some of the data are not uniformly measured or are
difficult for states to collect. Education officials acknowledged that
data variability limits the usefulness of the reported information. Some
officials in states we visited attributed these variations in data in part
to inadequate guidance from Education and expressed a desire for more
direction on how to measure and report these data.
States Conduct Their Own Performance Reviews and Submit Annual Reports to
Education
To assess their own IDEA compliance, states conduct annual special
education performance reviews and report their findings to Education. To
conduct these reviews, states have undertaken a variety of activities. In
particular, states collect data from local districts, including local
graduation rates, student placement rates, and parental involvement
information, and analyze these data to identify areas of noncompliance at
the local level. Additionally, states obtain input from the public about
local special education programs through hearings and surveys. States also
review dispute resolution processes, including state complaint systems, to
determine the type of problems generating complaints and ensure that
complaints are being resolved in a timely fashion. In recent years,
7Back to School on Civil Rights, National Council on Disability, Jan. 25,
2000. The National Council on Disability is an independent federal agency
that makes recommendations to the President and Congress on
disability-related issues.
Education has required states to include groups of stakeholders in the
review process, such as parents, advocates, teachers, and administrators
from the special education community. State and local officials work with
these stakeholders to identify areas in which they may be out of
compliance and create detailed improvement plans to remedy these problems.
Several state officials we interviewed said the inclusion of stakeholders
has been an improvement in the self-evaluation process. For example,
officials in Texas told us that working with stakeholders has helped them
better understand the severity of particular problems and subsequently has
helped position the state to respond to these problems more efficiently.
Upon completing the review process, states are required to create detailed
improvement plans to address identified deficiencies, which are submitted
to Education annually along with the results of their self-reviews through
a uniform reporting format. Education implemented this uniform reporting
format in recent years to streamline its review process, thereby improving
the department's ability to identify data gaps.
Education Reviews State-Reported Data to Identify Those States Most Likely
to Need More Oversight and Assistance
Education reviews state-reported data to assess states' improvement
efforts and identify those states most in need of further monitoring and
assistance. In recent years, the department has required states to report
on those requirements it considers most closely associated with student
results, a narrower array of issues than the department previously
monitored.8 These data are focused on performance in five general
categories: (1) the provision of educational services in the least
restrictive environment, (2) state supervision of IDEA programs, (3)
facilitation of parental involvement, (4) student transitions from early
childhood programs, and (5) student transitions into post-secondary
programs. Education has required states to supply a variety of data for
each of these categories. For example, under the state supervision
category, states report information regarding the resolution of formal
complaints, due process safeguards for students and parents, special
education personnel requirements, as well as other supervision data.
Officials in 4 of the 5 states we visited said that Education's narrowed
focus has improved the
8States are not required to report procedural data to Education that are
not closely related to student performance, such as information about the
distribution of procedural safeguard notices, local education agencies'
applications for state grants, and compliance with IDEA confidentiality
provisions. States are required, however, to monitor state systems in
these procedural areas to ensure that states and localities are in full
compliance with IDEA regulations.
monitoring process by concentrating attention on those areas most likely
to affect results for children.
Education evaluates the collected data for each state in several ways,
including assessing how the measures have changed over time and comparing
data for special education students to those for general education
students. Education has identified areas of IDEA noncompliance through
these screens. For example, based on its data review Education can
determine if states have been resolving complaints within IDEA-established
guidelines or whether waiting lists have been preventing students from
receiving IDEA-guaranteed services.
Additionally, according to Education, the department uses selected
measures, such as state-reported data on graduation rates, dropout rates
and rates of placement in various educational environments9 to determine
which states warrant further monitoring and intervention activities,
including onsite visits.10 States that rank low relative to other states
on these measures may be selected. In conducting site visits, Education
reviews state records, makes visits to selected districts for on-site
examination of student records, and assesses state special education
systems, such as complaint systems and student assessment programs.
Following these visits, Education issues a report of findings and, when
noncompliance is found, requires states to produce a corrective action
plan.11 Education policy tells states to implement a remedy and provide
evidence of its effectiveness within 1 year of Education approving the
state corrective action plan. As shown in figure 1, Education carried out
monitoring visits in 31 different states between 1997 and 2002, visiting
between 2 and 8 states per year.
9Measures of various educational environments are related to IDEA's
requirement that children with disabilities be educated in the least
restrictive environment, that is, educated with nondisabled children to
the maximum extent appropriate. IDEA requires states to report these data,
as well as graduation and dropout rates.
10Under Education's current monitoring system, CIFMS, these visits will be
called "focused monitoring visits" because they will focus on specific
critical indicators of performance, such as measures of various
educational environments.
11Plans addressing noncompliance may be called either corrective action
plans or improvement plans. According to Education officials, corrective
action plans address only noncompliance, while improvement plans address
noncompliance, as well as other performance issues.
Figure 1: States That Received Monitoring Visits, 1997-2002
Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
While Education Has Taken Steps to Improve States' Data Reporting Systems,
Some State Performance Measures Are Weak
Because Education has relied heavily on state-reported data, it suspended
its usual monitoring visits in 2003 in order to conduct visits to verify
the reliability of state systems for collecting and reporting special
education data.12 After reviewing selected data from all states, Education
selected 24 states for onsite examination of their data collection
procedures and protocols.13 Following the data verification visits, the
department provided states with technical assistance to address any
identified deficiencies. According to Education documents, most of the
visited states had data collection systems in place, several of which were
of high quality; however, some states needed to better monitor the
accuracy of their data and train their data entry personnel. Education
officials said that selected states will receive monitoring visits in the
fall of 2004.14
While Education has facilitated improvements in state data collection
systems, some of the data are weak. Education has allowed states
flexibility in measuring and reporting some performance measures used for
site visit selection, such as graduation rates and dropout rates;
consequently these data have not been calculated in a uniform manner
across states.15 For example, special education students in Arkansas may
receive a standard diploma even if they have not met regular graduation
requirements, while special education students in Delaware must meet
regular graduation requirements to graduate with a standard diploma. State
education officials we talked with said that comparisons of these rates
might not be valid because of the wide disparity in how graduation rates
are measured and, therefore, should not be used by Education to make
judgments about the relative performance of states.
Other types of information that Education has used to evaluate state's
performance, such as student transitions and parental involvement, are
weak because they have been difficult to gather or because states have
been unclear about how to measure them. States have used a variety of
12Education officials told us that they do not specifically look for
noncompliance during data verification visits, but if noncompliance is
detected they address it.
13Seventy-five percent of the 24 states were selected for site-visits
because the results of the audits revealed potential data collection
problems, while the remaining 25 percent were randomly selected.
14These are the focused monitoring visits mentioned previously.
15For more information on variations in school dropout rates, see GAO,
School Dropouts: Education Could Play a Stronger Role in Identifying and
Disseminating Promising Prevention Strategies, GAO-02-240 (Washington,
D.C.: Feb. 1, 2002).
methods to report these data; consequently, Education has not compared
states' performance in these areas. Officials in all 5 states we visited
noted that student transitions data were particularly difficult to collect
because several different agencies were involved in the process and it was
often difficult to track students once they left school. Officials in 4 of
the 5 states we visited also expressed confusion about how to report
parental involvement. For example, officials in one state were unclear
about whether they should report the percent of parents notified of
meetings or the percent of parents who attended meetings, while officials
from another state believed that the measures they used to report parent
involvement did not adequately describe parent involvement.
Officials in 2 of the 5 states we visited attributed their difficulty in
collecting and reporting these measures in part to inadequate guidance
from Education, and officials in 3 of the 5 states we visited expressed a
desire for greater guidance from the department on how to collect and
measure these areas. In our review of Education guidance, we found the
direction provided to states in terms of what to measure and report to
Education in these areas was vague, as Education does not specify how
states should demonstrate performance. For example, Education provides
states with 17 potential sources for indicators to measure student
transitions into postsecondary programs but does not specify which of
these indicators should be reported to Education in annual reports.
Education officials with whom we spoke acknowledged difficulties with
student transition and parent involvement data and said that they are
taking steps to improve data quality. To help address data deficiencies,
Education has funded the National Center for Special Education
Accountability Monitoring, which assists states, local agencies, and the
department in the development of data collection systems.16 In working
with state special education directors, special education advocates,
Education officials, and others, the center has found that reliable data
sources often do not exist for several of the data elements collected by
Education.
16As of July 2004, the center is working with approximately half of all
states, including 2 of the 5 states we visited.
Noncompliance Education Found Was about Equally Split between Failures
Involving Services to Students and Procedural Deficiencies
Our analysis of Education monitoring reports for states visited between
1997 and 2002 showed that failures directly affecting services to children
were about as common as failures involving violations of procedural
requirements.17 Education identified a total of 253 noncompliance findings
in 30 of the 31 states visited during this period, with an average of
approximately 8 findings per state. Our analysis showed that 52 percent of
the findings involved state failures to directly ensure that students were
receiving required special education services. As shown in table 1, the
most common finding of service noncompliance was failure to adequately
provide related services intended to assist learning, such as counseling,
speech pathology, and assistive technology. Another common deficiency
Education cited was failure to adequately outline the activities and
training planned to prepare a student for life after exiting school. Of
the 12 states that were cited for not having adequate special education or
related services personnel, some acknowledged that a personnel shortage
had prevented them from always making timely evaluations, which could have
resulted in delayed services, late placement decisions, and limited
provision of extra help that would be needed to teach special education
students in regular education settings.
17For our analysis, we defined a service compliance issue as an activity
that directly provides the student with a basic service required by IDEA
or an activity that will immediately facilitate the provision of a basic
service required by IDEA. A procedural compliance issue was defined as an
activity that meets a process-oriented requirement of IDEA. While the
implementation of these process-oriented requirements might improve the
special education program immediately or over time, the activity or
process does not directly provide or immediately facilitate a basic
service to a student.
Table 1: Most Commonly Cited Noncompliance Findings Related to the
Provision of Services in Education Monitoring Reports, 1997-2002
Number of
states cited Noncompliance related to the provision of services
Related services, such as counseling, speech pathology, and assistive
technology, were not ensured or adequately provided.
Student transition statements were inadequate or missing.
Student placement in the least restrictive environment was not ensured.
Extended school year activities were not ensured.
Lack of personnel.
Regular education settings lacked accommodations and/or supports.
Timely evaluation of student needs was not ensured, resulting in delay of
services.
Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
The remaining 48 percent of Education's findings were for compliance
failures that we classified as procedural in nature, that is, activities
that did not directly provide or immediately facilitate a service to
students. According to our analysis, Education's most common finding of
procedural noncompliance with IDEA was failure to invite some of the
appropriate parties to student transition meetings where parents, school
personnel, department representatives, and the students themselves
determined what educational and vocational training they would need before
they left school. Other procedural failures, shown in table 2, often
involved the completeness of paperwork or timeliness of meeting other IDEA
requirements. For instance, the department found that in several states,
notices sent to parents regarding upcoming IEP meetings related to student
transition did not include required information such as the purpose of the
meeting and the list of who was invited. Similarly, some states did not
produce written complaint decisions in a timely manner that outlined how
complaints were resolved.
Table 2: Most Common Findings of Procedural Noncompliance in Education
Monitoring Reports, 1997-2002
Number of
states cited Noncompliance related to procedural requirements
16 Agencies and/or students not invited to IEP meetings related to
student transitions.
12 States did not ensure that local education agencies corrected
a
noncompliance.
11 Complaints were not adequately resolved within timelines.
11 Incomplete notice provided to parents regarding IEP meetings related
to student transitions.
10 States did not identify local education agencies' noncompliance.
5 Assessment modifications not adequately provided.
Education Has Sought to Bring States into Compliance by Providing
Technical Assistance and Requiring Corrective Action Plans, but Resolution
Has Been Prolonged
Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
aWe could not determine from Education documents whether the underlying
compliance problems that the local education agencies failed to identify
or correct were service-oriented or procedural in nature. For this
analysis, we classified these failures to identify or correct deficiencies
as procedural.
When Education has identified noncompliance, it typically has offered
technical assistance to states and required them to create corrective
action plans; however, states have generally not resolved the
noncompliance in a timely manner. Most cases of noncompliance have
remained open for several years before closure, and some cases dating back
as far as 1997 have not yet been completely resolved. Education's process
for correcting deficiencies consisted of several phases, each of which
took a considerable amount of time to complete. For example, on average, 1
year elapsed from Education's monitoring visit to issuance of its report
findings. The department has also made limited use of sanctions to address
longstanding issues with noncompliance, but in these cases, too,
resolution has been protracted. Further, we found that the 1-year
compliance deadlines specified by Education were often missed. State
officials commented, and Education officials confirmed, that this standard
1-year timeframe for correction may not, in some cases, provide an
adequate period of time in which to implement a remedy and demonstrate its
effectiveness. To address noncompliance situations that are expected to
take more than 1 year to correct, 3-year compliance agreements may allow
states to plan their remedial steps over a longer period.
To Effect Compliance, Education Typically Provided Technical Assistance
and Required State Correction Plans, but Most Cases of Noncompliance
Remained Open for Years without Resolution
To resolve the deficiencies identified in 30 of the 31 states visited from
1997-2002, Education offered technical assistance to states and required
them to develop corrective action plans and submit them to the department
for approval. The department assisted states in achieving compliance
through informal guidance and, in some cases, follow-up visits to confirm
states' actions. Education officials answered questions regarding policies
and best practices as well as referred states to regional resource centers
and other technical assistance providers if needed. Also, Education
required states to create corrective action plans and submit them to the
department for review and approval. The plans were expected to include
strategies to remedy deficiencies and demonstrate the effectiveness of the
remedy within a year of the approval date of the plan. For example,
Maryland was cited for failure to ensure that students with disabilities
were educated in regular education settings to the maximum extent
possible. To address this violation, one of the steps in the state's
correction plan was to create professional development activities and
training materials that emphasized inclusiveness and making appropriate
placement determinations. During the 1-year period of correction, states
were required to submit periodic updates to document evidence of
improvement for Education's review.
Although corrective action plans have a 1-year timeframe for completion
according to Education policy, our analysis showed that most cases of
noncompliance addressed through this method remained open for years. We
found that only 7 of 30 states with findings of noncompliance visited from
1997 to 2002 had completely resolved their deficiencies as of May 2004.18
Closure of these cases, that is resolution of all deficiencies, took from
2 to 7 years from the time the deficiencies were first identified during a
monitoring visit. Of the remaining 23 cases, about half have been
unresolved for 5-7 years. Education officials told us that for almost all
of these outstanding cases, states have made progress toward correcting
the noncompliance, and 11 states are close to completion. Table 3 lists
the dates of Education's monitoring visits, reports, and case closures for
the 31 states monitored in the time period 1997 to 2002.
18We could not determine from the documentation Education provided the
nature of the issues that remain unresolved in the 23 states that have not
yet closed their findings of noncompliance. For the 7 states that have
closed their findings of noncompliance, Education issued letters to the
states indicating that all issues of noncompliance had been addressed.
Table 3: Results of Education Monitoring Visits, 1997-2002 Bureau of
Indian Affairs 5-17-99 4-20-00 Not yet closed Ohio 10-18-99 3-30-01 Not
yet closed Maryland 10-25-99 7-26-01 Not yet closed Arkansas 1-10-00
8-25-00 Not yet closed Colorado 1-10-00 3-30-01 Not yet closed Louisiana
2-14-00 7-20-01 Not yet closed Florida 2-28-00 4-23-01 Not yet closed New
Jersey 9-25-00 9-14-01 Not yet closed Pennsylvania 10-23-00 2-1-02 Not yet
closed Hawaii 2-12-01 6-5-02 Not yet closed District of Columbia 3-26-01
6-18-02 Not yet closed South Carolina 2-11-02 1-6-03 Not yet closed
Illinois 4-22-02 12-31-02 Not yet closed Texas 5-6-02 3-10-03 Not yet
closed
Date
Date monitoring noncompliance
State Date monitored report issued was closed
Connecticut 2-3-97 6-11-97 2-99
Commonwealth of Northern 3-6-97 7-21-97 Not yet closed
Mariana Islands
American Samoa 3-10-97 7-25-97 Not yet closed
Missouri 4-28-97 1-8-98 5-04a
Oregon 4-28-97 1-8-98 5-03
Virgin Islands 5-19-97 6-29-98 Not yet closed
California 6-8-98 4-6-99 7-02
North Dakota 9-21-98 9-14-99 5-04
Nebraska 10-5-98 4-19-00 3-04
Washington 10-5-98 12-22-99 Not yet closed
Arizona 1-25-99 5-22-00 Not yet closed
New Mexico 12-7-98 1-7-00 Not yet closed
Utahb 12-7-98 12-2-99 Not Applicable
Massachusetts 4-6-99 6-21-00 Not yet closed
Wisconsin 2-22-99 10-18-00 Not yet closed
Montana 4-12-99 4-7-00 12-03
South Dakota 5-17-99 12-20-99 Not yet closed
Source: GAO analysis of Education's Web site, documents, and interviews
with department officials.
aEducation was not able to provide documentation of the closure date, but
agency comments showed
a closure date May 2004.
bUtah did not have any findings of noncompliance.
In analyzing the time taken to correct noncompliance, we found that the
correction process consisted of two phases, each of which frequently took
a year or more to complete, as shown in figure 2. The first phase,
Education's issuance of a findings report following its monitoring visit,
took a year on average, with a range of 4 to 21 months. Officials in the 3
states we visited that were monitored since 1997 expressed concern about
the timeliness of Education's monitoring reports. Officials from 2 of
these states said that the reports contained out-dated information that
did not reflect the current environment in the state. In addition, state
officials in 1 state said that they delayed the development of their
corrective action plans until they received Education's findings report.
Education officials told us that staffing constraints and multiple levels
of report review contributed to the delays in issuing reports, but they
did not provide a goal of reducing the time needed to issue reports.
Second, the time from report issuance to approval of the corrective action
plan generally took an additional 1 to 2 years. During this time period,
states produced an initial corrective action plan that they revised, if
needed, based on review and feedback from Education.19 Education officials
acknowledged that this approval process can be lengthy, but have indicated
they are working to reduce the period for corrective action plan approval
to 6 months.
Figure 2: Time Taken to Correct Noncompliance through Technical Assistance
and Corrective Action Plans
Monitoring Monitoring Corrective action Closure of visit report issued
plan approval
corrective action plan - state is expected to fix problem and demonstrate
the effectiveness of the remedy within 1 year, but often takes longer
Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
19In the 12 cases where Education's documentation included dates needed to
calculate this period of time, states took from 2 to 18 months to submit the
initial corrective action plan.
Enforcement Actions Have Been Taken Infrequently; Resolutions Were
Protracted
Although most instances of noncompliance were addressed without more
severe actions taken, occasionally Education took measures beyond
technical assistance and corrective action plans by imposing sanctions on
states. During the 10-year period from 1994 to 2003, Education used three
types of sanctions-withholding of funds, special conditions, and
compliance agreements. Withholding of all grant funds was attempted once
by Education, but the state successfully challenged Education's action in
court and receipt of the grant was not interrupted. The most commonly used
sanction was special conditions put on states' annual grants stipulating
that the problem must be resolved within 1 year. During the 1-year period
of correction, the states continued to receive funds. In cases of
noncompliance requiring longer-time periods to correct, an additional tool
available to Education was a compliance agreement, which allowed a state 3
years in which to correct the noncompliance while also continuing to
receive funds. Compliance agreements were used only for the Virgin Islands
and the District of Columbia. Education officials told us that compliance
agreements were used infrequently because they are voluntary and states
must agree to the arrangement. States that entered into compliance
agreements were also required to undergo a public hearing process to
demonstrate that they could not completely address their violations within
1 year.
In total, Education has taken enforcement action against 33 states for
noncompliance from 1994 to 2003. An action was taken against multiple
states for failing to publicly report on the performance of children with
disabilities on alternate assessments, as required by the 1997
reauthorization of IDEA. As a result of other compliance issues, Education
has imposed 15 sanctions against 11 states in this 10-year period.
Appendix II contains more details on enforcement actions taken by
Education from 1994 to 2003.
Education considers a number of factors in deciding to impose a sanction,
including the duration, extent, and severity of the noncompliance, as well
as whether a state has made a good faith effort to correct the problem. We
found that sanctions were imposed for a variety of specific deficiencies-
commonly for failing to provide related services, place students in the
least restrictive environment, or have an adequate state system in place
for detecting and correcting noncompliance at the local level. In New
Jersey, special conditions were imposed to address long-standing
noncompliance involving state oversight of local special education
programs. New Jersey officials told us that the enforcement action caught
the attention of senior state officials and helped the special education
department obtain the resources needed to correct the problem within 2
years of the imposition
of the sanction. When considering the type of sanctions to impose,
Education officials told us that their primary consideration is the
expected time of resolution. In cases where officials believe the problem
can be addressed in 1 year, special conditions may be used. In cases where
resolution is expected to take longer, 3-year compliance agreements may be
pursued.
In cases involving sanctions, the resolution of compliance issues was
often prolonged - generally ranging from 5 to 10 years from the time of
problem identification to the imposition of the sanction to closure, as
shown in figure 3. In most instances, 4 to 9 years elapsed before
Education imposed sanctions,20 and an additional 1 to 3 years generally
passed following the sanction before noncompliance was closed. For
example, Massachusetts received special conditions on its grant award in
2000 for noncompliance that was first identified in 1991. Once the special
conditions were imposed, Massachusetts remedied the noncompliance in 1
year. Education officials indicated that the reason why several years
often elapsed before sanctions were used was that Education preferred to
work with states instead of imposing sanctions if they demonstrated good
faith efforts to correct deficiencies and followed the steps outlined in
their corrective action plans.
Figure 3: Time Generally Taken for Corrective Process in Closed Cases Where
Sanctions Were Imposed
Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
In addition to those cases that were closed, some ongoing cases have been
even more protracted. Although states that receive special conditions
attached to their grants are expected to correct problems before the next
grant year, in many cases problems were not fully resolved and continued
for years. In these cases, states received multiple special conditions for
20In the enforcement case against 28 states for failing to report publicly
on alternate assessments, the sanction was imposed in a shorter period.
some of the same issues of noncompliance. For example, Pennsylvania
received a special condition on its grant for 3 consecutive years
beginning in 1998 before achieving compliance on all issues. At the
beginning of the 1999 grant year, Pennsylvania had resolved two of the
five original issues of noncompliance. Additionally, enforcement actions
for California, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands
dating from 1997 and 1998 have not yet been completely resolved.
Compliance Deadlines Often Missed; State Officials Indicated-and Federal
Officials Acknowledged- Difficulties of Meeting Timeframes
States we reviewed often did not meet the 1-year compliance deadline
prescribed by Education, and state officials said that some types of
noncompliance could not be corrected within 1 year, a problem that
Education officials also acknowledged. Our examination of Education's
records for a sample of 9 states with corrective action plans revealed
that none had completely corrected their noncompliance within 1 year of
approval of the plan, as required by Education.21 Likewise, states
receiving special conditions on their grant usually did not completely
resolve the noncompliance issue within 1 year, and some took numerous
years to make the correction. For example, California received special
conditions attached to its grant award in 2000 for various deficiencies.
The state did not complete the correction of this deficiency within 1 year
and as a result received an additional special conditions letter in 2001.
Regarding the 1-year deadline, Education officials told us that some
states may not be able to correct deficiencies and demonstrate the
effectiveness of the changes within the year required of them. In
addition, they said that in many cases, a state may take corrective steps
within one year but that demonstrating the effectiveness of the remedy may
extend beyond 1 year. Officials in 3 states we visited also raised
concerns that some types of noncompliance could not be corrected within 1
year. For example, Kansas officials said the state could not demonstrate
compliance with a requirement to change an IEP component because IEPs are
written yearround and thus every IEP could not be changed within the
1-year deadline. Also, Education officials we interviewed emphasized that
some deficiencies take longer to correct than others. They commented that
states often could correct certain procedural deficiencies within a year,
21We examined records for 17 states, but due to incomplete documentation
and other reasons, we were able to draw conclusions about the timeliness
of resolution for only 9 states.
Conclusions
but entrenched problems, such as personnel shortages, generally take more
than 1 year to remedy.
In cases of noncompliance that require longer periods of time to correct,
Education may pursue 3-year compliance agreements with states that allow
the states to continue to receive funds while they are correcting
noncompliance. This sanction requires states to establish interim goals
and engage in longer-term planning, with specific compliance benchmarks
and timelines. States that enter into compliance agreements must
demonstrate at a public hearing they cannot achieve compliance within 1
year and that a 3-year time frame for correction is more appropriate.
However, this option has been rarely used. One state we visited objected
to a compliance agreement Education proposed. The department did not
pursue the compliance agreement and, instead, imposed special conditions
on the state's grant approval each year for several years. Officials from
this state said that they chose not to enter into a compliance agreement
because they considered the additional reporting requirements and
monitoring activities it would entail to be too burdensome.
Education has taken steps in the right direction since 1997 in focusing
its review of state support for children with disabilities on those
factors that most affect educational outcomes for disabled students, such
as increased parental involvement and placement in regular education
settings. In recent years, Education has invested considerable effort to
assist states in improving data reliability. Furthermore, by reviewing
this information through the use of a uniform reporting format, Education
is in a better position to make its local site visits yield improvements
where they are most needed. Despite these efforts, some of the information
states report about their special education programs are weak and not
comparable, which limits Education's ability to select states for on-site
visits that have the most pressing problems. Education made 31 site visits
between 1997 and 2002, visiting no more than 8 states in any 1 year. Given
such finite opportunities for inspection, it may be easy to miss areas
where children are not receiving educational and related services.
Aside from targeting the right states for visits, the lengthy resolution
process has been a problem in OSEP's monitoring system. In many instances,
noncompliance with the requirements of IDEA has persisted for many years
before correction. One reason for the delay is that Education has allowed
considerable time to elapse in the initial phases of the correction
process; specifically, the time from the first identification of a problem
to the imposition of the 1-year time frame for correction. This
considerable delay-sometimes taking up to 21 months between problem
identification and the issuance of department findings-could result in
states postponing the implementation of corrective plans. Although the
initial phases of the correction process can be lengthy, Education's
1-year deadline for states to correct deficiencies is, at times, too short
for states to achieve compliance. Unrealistic timeframes may both
discourage states from focusing on achievable, albeit longer-term, plans
for correction. These unrealistic timeframes may also lessen the impact of
the enforcement action itself, as in the case where special conditions are
imposed for infractions year after year with few consequences to the
state, but potentially detrimental consequences to students with
disabilities. The imposition of appropriate deadlines, including the more
frequent use of compliance agreements that allow for better long-term
planning and predictable consequences when these deadlines are not met,
could motivate states to achieve compliance more quickly.
The combined effect of such prolonged reviews-lengthy timeframes for the
receipt of reports and the approval of corrective action plans-and failure
to hold states more firmly to a rapid resolution could directly affect the
progress of some of the nation's most vulnerable children. Without some
deliberate and specific improvements to its monitoring process, Education
may face difficulties in helping the nation's disabled students realize
their full potential.
Recommendations for Executive Action
We recommend that the Secretary of Education
o develop and provide states with additional guidance for collecting and
reporting three measures that Education considers key to positive outcomes
for students with disabilities: early childhood transitions,
post-secondary transitions, and parental involvement;
o expedite the resolution of noncompliance by improving response times
throughout the monitoring process, particularly in reporting noncompliance
findings to states, and track changes in response times under the new
monitoring process;
o impose firm and realistic deadlines for states to remedy findings of
noncompliance; and
o when correction of noncompliance is expected to take more than 1 year,
make greater use of Education's authority to initiate compliance
Agency Comments
and Our Evaluation
agreement proceedings rather than imposing special conditions on grants.
We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Education for
review and comment. Education's written comments are reproduced in
appendix III. Recommended technical changes have been incorporated in the
text of the report as appropriate. The department discussed, but did not
explicitly agree or disagree with two recommendations, disagreed with one
recommendation, and did not directly respond to one recommendation, the
recommendation regarding imposing firm and realistic deadlines.
In response to our recommendation that Education provide states with
additional guidance for collecting and reporting data on student
transitions and parental involvement, the department was not explicit
about its intended actions. While Education agreed with the need to
provide states assistance in these areas, it did not clearly indicate
whether it would develop the guidance we recommended. Education said that
it is funding several centers that are assisting states in collecting data
in these areas. We commend Education's efforts to improve special
education performance data. However, to maximize the usefulness of these
efforts, the department should formalize the results of these activities
in guidance. Therefore, we continue to recommend that Education develop
and provide states with guidance on collecting and reporting student
transitions and parental involvement data.
Regarding our recommendation to improve the department's response times
throughout the monitoring process, Education acknowledged past problems
with timeliness but indicated that it had made improvements in recent
years. Education stressed that the reports we reviewed were based on its
previous monitoring processes, rather than the current process, the
Continuous Improvement and Focused Monitoring System (CIFMS). The
department said that timeliness had improved in several areas. For
instance, Education said that the time required to issue its data
verification monitoring reports has been about 4 months and that this is a
substantial improvement over the previous system. Education also said that
the CIFMS is resulting in the timely receipt of and response to state
improvement plans and that the department has a goal to issue responses to
all plans by September 30, 2004. However, we could not determine whether,
overall, Education's new CIFMS monitoring process will result in improved
timeliness. Education officials told us that the data verification visits
primarily focused on accuracy of state data, not detecting noncompliance.
Therefore, timeliness associated with these visits may not
be an indication of overall improvement. In addition, the timeliness of
the focused monitoring visits has not been established since they have not
yet begun. We believe that Education's response times should be improved,
but we could not determine the extent to which changes already made might
impact timeliness. Therefore, we modified our recommendation to suggest
that Education track timeframes associated with various steps in the new
monitoring process to substantiate possible improvements.
In response to our recommendation that Education make greater use of its
authority to initiate compliance agreement proceedings when appropriate,
the department said that it cannot independently initiate these
proceedings because the compliance agreement process is voluntary on the
part of the states. We do not agree with this position. The relevant
statute specifically authorizes the department to hold a hearing and
directs it to invite certain parties, including the state. While the
department cannot compel a state to enter into a compliance agreement, we
think initiating proceedings to consider the merits of entering into such
an agreement could likely result in beneficial corrective action
discussions between the department and the state. It could also result in
greater reliance on the 3-year compliance agreement or at least improve
corrective action planning by the state. While Education may impose other
remedies such as partial or full withholding of funding, issuing a cease
and desist order, or referring a state's noncompliance to the Department
of Justice, we believe that in many instances of noncompliance, the 3-year
compliance agreement could be the least onerous, and perhaps most helpful,
tool to improve state compliance with IDEA.
As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days after the date of
this report. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the
Secretary of Education and the House and Senate Committees with oversight
responsibility for the department. We will also make copies available to
other parties upon request. In addition, the report will be available at
no charge on GAO's Website at http//:www.gao.gov.
Please contact me on (202) 512-7215 if you or your staff have any
questions about this report. Major contributors to this report are listed
in appendix IV.
Sincerely yours,
Marnie S. Shaul Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
As requested, our review focused on the Department of Education's
monitoring of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part
B, those aspects of the law that regulate the provision of services to
disabled school-aged and preschool children.1 In conducting our review, we
examined Education's monitoring procedures and guidance since Congress
last amended IDEA legislation in 1997. Additionally, we examined reports
submitted to Education to document compliance, including self-assessments,
Section 618 data reports, and improvement plans. We also reviewed
compliance and enforcement documentation and Education monitoring reports
for the 31 states visited for Part B monitoring since 1997 (see below for
more information). Because Education infrequently used sanctions, we
examined the previous 10-year period to capture a more comprehensive
picture of enforcement actions. Additionally, we conducted site visits to
5 states, where we interviewed state officials and special education
experts. We also interviewed Education officials; representatives from the
National Council for Disability, an independent federal agency that makes
recommendations to the President and Congress on disability-related
issues; and representatives from national education organizations.
We conducted our work between September 2003 and August 2004 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Site Visits We conducted site visits to five states - California,
Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, and Texas. States were selected for variation
in the number of special education students served, geographic location,
the date of their last monitoring visit, whether they had received a data
verification visit, and whether they had been placed under sanctions by
Education for IDEA violations since 1993. Additionally, in selecting
states, we considered how states ranked on various Education risk factors,
including student placement rates, graduation rates, drop-out rates, and
level of state complaints. We conducted our site visits between December
2003 and March 2004.
1The 1997 amendments organized IDEA into four parts: A, B, C, and D. Part
A contains general provisions of the act, including the act's purposes and
definitions. Part B contains provisions relating to the education of
school-aged and preschool children, including eligibility requirements,
funding formulas, and educational placement and service requirements. Part
C pertains to services for infants and toddlers with disabilities. Part D
concerns national activities designed to improve educational programs for
disabled children.
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
Monitoring Report Analysis
Analysis of Compliance Documentation
While in each state, we analyzed state monitoring documents and met with
officials at states' Departments of Education, including the State
Directors of Special Education and members of their staff responsible for
monitoring efforts. We interviewed these officials about their experiences
with Education's monitoring processes and gathered information about the
systems used by their states to monitor local compliance with IDEA.
Additionally, in each state we spoke with members of the state stakeholder
committees, which help state officials conduct their selfassessments and
create improvement plans. Stakeholders we spoke with included parents of
special education students, special education and school administrators,
and special education advocates.
To determine the nature of noncompliance in those states selected by
Education for review, we analyzed the reports issued by Education for the
31 Part B monitoring visits Education made between 1997 and 2002. A 2002
cut-off date was selected because at the time of our analysis, Education
had not yet issued a monitoring report for the one state it visited in
2003. To analyze these reports, we reviewed the noncompliance findings
cited in these reports and divided the findings into two categories; those
relating to infractions that were service-related and those relating to
infractions that were procedural in nature.
For our analysis, we defined a service compliance issue as an activity
that directly provides the student with a basic service required by IDEA
or is an activity that will immediately facilitate the provision of a
basic service required by IDEA. A procedural compliance issue was defined
as an activity that meets a process-oriented requirement of IDEA. While
the implementation of these process-oriented requirements might improve
the special education program immediately or over time, the activity or
process does not directly provide or immediately facilitate a basic
service to a student.
To determine the results of Education's efforts to remedy noncompliance,
we reviewed Education documents and data pertaining to the 30 states
visited between 1997 and 2002 that were cited for noncompliance in
Education monitoring reports. Specifically, we analyzed the 30 monitoring
reports; and available Education documents such as corrective action plans
submitted by states in response to report findings; notification documents
from Education approving state plans; state-submitted evidence of change
in noncompliance; and, when applicable, notifications to states when
noncompliance had been sufficiently addressed. To
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
determine the length of time it took to resolve cases of noncompliance
through monitoring visits and technical assistance, we analyzed these
documents for dates and deadlines. We computed the length of time for
resolution from the date of the monitoring visit until the date Education
documented resolution of the problem.
Analysis of Enforcement Documentation
To obtain information about Education's enforcement efforts, we reviewed
all cases of enforcement action taken against states by Education from
1994 to 2003. For our review, we viewed enforcement actions as beginning
at the time a sanction was first imposed, regardless of how many
subsequent times a sanction was used to ultimately bring about compliance.
That is, if a state received multiple sanctions for the same infraction,
such as several special conditions letters in consecutive years, we viewed
all of these individual enforcement actions as one action. Likewise, if a
state received one 3-year compliance agreement, while another state
received three consecutive special conditions letters for the same
infractions, we treated both instances as one enforcement case.
For all enforcement cases, we analyzed available Education documents, such
as notifications of sanctions, including state grant award letters subject
to special conditions and compliance agreements; state-submitted evidence
of change to demonstrate compliance; and Education's correspondence to
states notifying them when noncompliance had been sufficiently addressed,
thus closing the enforcement cases. Additionally, we examined past
monitoring reports to determine when Education first identified
noncompliance that ultimately resulted in an enforcement action. In those
instances when noncompliance was not identified through a monitoring
visit, we used the date of the enforcement action as the date that the
noncompliance was first identified for the purposes of our analysis. In
all cases, we analyzed documentation for dates and deadlines to determine
the length of time it took to resolve cases of noncompliance through
sanctions.
Appendix II: IDEA-Related Sanctions: 19942003
State Problem areas Year and sanction type Status
American Samoa Fiscal management. 2003-Special conditions Not yet
resolved; year has not yet expired.
California (3 Provision of services to 1997-Special Not yet
instances) incarcerated conditions resolved.
youth. 1998-Special
conditions
1999-Special
conditions
2000-Special
conditions
2001-Special
conditions
2002-Special
conditions
2003-Special
conditions
Timely resolution of 1999-Special Resolved in 2000.
complaints. conditions
General supervision; 2000-Special Resolved in 2002.
identification and conditions
correction of deficiencies, 2001-Special
IEP conditions
violations, provision of
related services
and least restrictive
environment.
Connecticut Ensuring ability to request 2002-Special Resolved in 2003.
due process conditions
hearings.
District of 1998-3-year
Columbia Eleven areas of compliance Not yet resolved.
noncompliance, agreement Three
including general 2001-Special findings remain
supervision; due conditions open in
process hearings; timeliness 2002-Special July 2003: timely
of conditions
evaluations and placements; 2003-Special implementation of
and conditions hearing
provision of free appropriate decisions,
public placement in
education in the least the least
restrictive restrictive
environment. environment, and
timely
evaluations.
Guam 2003-Special Not yet resolved;
Fiscal management. conditions year has
not yet expired.
Massachusetts Ensuring IEP components are 2000-Special Resolved in
conditions 2001.
determined at an IEP meeting with
all
required participants; placement of
students in least restrictive
environment.
New Jersey General supervision; 1999-Special Resolved in
identification and conditions 2001.
correction of deficiencies. 2000-Special
conditions
Northern Not yet
Mariana 2003-Special resolved; year
Fiscal management. conditions has
Islands not yet
expired.
Pennsylvania General supervision; identification 1998-Special Resolved in
of conditions 2001.
deficiencies; placement of students 1999-Special
in conditions
least restrictive environment, 2000-Special
provision conditions
of extended school year and speech
services.
Puerto Rico Outstanding issues from 1993 1997-Special Resolved in
conditions 1998.
(2 instances) compliance agreement regarding
timely
evaluations and provision of
services.
2002-Special Not yet
Fiscal management. conditions resolved.
2003-Special
conditions
Appendix II: IDEA-Related Sanctions: 19942003
State Problem areas Year and sanction type Status
Virginia Provision of services to students with 1994-Attempt to withhold
funds; action Education was ultimately
disabilities who were expelled or suspended long-term.
contingent on outcome of court case.
1995-Attempt to withhold funds; action contingent on outcome of ongoing
court case.
1996-Attempt to withhold funds; action contingent on outcome of ongoing
court case.
unsuccessful in court and funds were not withheld. However, subsequent
changes in IDEA rendered the disputed issue moot, as all states were
required by statute to provide services to disciplined students.
Virgin Fiscal and program management; 1998-Special Not yet
Islands conditions resolved.
general supervision; qualified 1999-3-year
compliance agreement
personnel; placement of students 2002-3-year
in compliance agreement
least restrictive environment;
provision
of transportation services.
Multiple Participation and Sixteen of 27
States reporting on 2002-Special conditions imposed states
alternate
assessments. aagainst 27 states. resolved in
2003; 11
remaining
2003-Special conditions imposed states + Ky.
against 11 unresolved states, not yet
plus 1 resolved.
additional state, Ky.b
Source: U.S. Department of Education.
a Ala., Alaska, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Colo., Conn., Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands, Del., D.C., Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Ill.,
Mass., Maine, Mich., Miss., N.J., N. Mex., N.Y., Okla., P.R., S.C., Tex.,
Utah, Vt., Wash, and Wis.
bAlaska, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Colo., Commonwealth of the Northern
Mariana Islands, Del., D.C., Guam, Ky., Maine, Mich., P.R., and Utah.
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Education
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Education
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Education
Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
GAO Contacts Deborah Edwards, (202) 512-5416, [email protected] Tamara
Fucile, (202) 512-9895, [email protected]
Staff The following people also made important contributions to this
report: Ellen Soltow, Summer Pachman, Behn Kelly, Susan Bernstein, and
Acknowledgments Walter Vance.
Related GAO Products
Special Education: Additional Assistance and Better Coordination Needed
among Education Offices to Help States Meet the NCLBA Teacher
Requirements. GAO-04-659. Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2004.
Special Education: Clearer Guidance Would Enhance Implementation of
Federal Disciplinary Provisions. GAO-03-550. Washington, D.C.: May 20,
2003.
Special Education: Numbers of Formal Disputes Are Generally Low and States
Using Mediation and Other Strategies to Resolve Conflicts. GAO-03-897.
Washington, D.C.: September 9, 2003.
School Dropouts: Education Could Play a Stronger Role in Identifying and
Disseminating Promising Prevention Strategies. GAO-02-240. Washington,
D.C.: February 1, 2002.
Student Discipline: Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
GAO-01-210. Washington, D.C.: January 25, 2001.
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