Report to the Ranking Minority 

Member, Committee on Health, 

Education, Labor and Pensions, 

U.S. Senate 

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

September 2004 SPECIAL 

EDUCATION 

Improved Timeliness 

and Better Use of 

Enforcement Actions 

Could Strengthen 

Education’s 

Monitoring System 

GAO-04-879 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-879.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Mamie Shaul at 

(202) 512-7215 or shaulm@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-879, a report to the 

Ranking Minority Mentor, 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 

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.

4-21 months (actual) 9-28 months (actual) 1 year (expected)

Monitoring

visit

Monitoring

report issued

Corrective action

plan approval

Closure of

corrective

action plan

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. 

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. 

What We Recommend

GAO recommends that the 

Secretary of Education issue 

guidance to states for collecting 

data on key outcome measures. 

GAO also recommends that the 

department improve response 

times throughout the monitoring 

process and impose realistic 

timeframes and firm deadlines for 

remedying noncompliance. 

Education disagreed with one 

recommendation and was not 

explicit about its intentions for the 

others. 
Page i GAO-04-879 Special Education 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3 

Background 5 

To Monitor Compliance with IDEA, Education Uses a Risk-Based 

System That Relies Upon State-Provided Information 8 

Noncompliance Education Found Was about Equally Split between 

Failures Involving Services to Students and Procedural 

Deficiencies 14 

Education Has Sought to Bring States into Compliance by 

Providing Technical Assistance and Requiring Corrective Action 

Plans, but Resolution Has Been Prolonged 16 

Conclusions 23 

Recommendations for Executive Action 24 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 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 31 

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Education 33 

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 

Contents 
Page ii GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

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reproduce this material separately. 
Page 1 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 1997-

2002. 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 

 1

Hereafter, 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. 
Page 3 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

Results in Brief 
Page 4 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 
Page 5 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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.

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. 

Background 
Page 6 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

 2

IDEA 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. 

3

The 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. 
Page 7 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

 4

The special conditions require correction of noncompliance during the 1-year grant period. 

5

Education 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. 

6

The 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. 
Page 8 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

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, 

 7

Back 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. 

To Monitor 

Compliance with 

IDEA, Education Uses 

a Risk-Based System 

That Relies Upon 

State-Provided 

Information 

States Conduct Their Own 

Performance Reviews and 

Submit Annual Reports to 

Education 
Page 9 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 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 

 8

States 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. 

Education Reviews StateReported Data to Identify 

Those States Most Likely 

to Need More Oversight 

and Assistance 
Page 10 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

 9

Measures 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. 
Page 11 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

Figure 1: States That Received Monitoring Visits, 1997-2002 

Source: GAO analysis of Education data.

States receiving monitoring visits

District of

Columbia

Commonwealth

of Northern 

Mariana Islands

American Virgin Islands

Samoa

Hawaii Bureau of Puerto Rico

Indian Affairs
Page 12 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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).

While Education Has 

Taken Steps to Improve 

States’ Data Reporting 

Systems, Some State 

Performance Measures Are 

Weak 
Page 13 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 
Page 14 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

Noncompliance 

Education Found Was 

about Equally Split 

between Failures 

Involving Services to 

Students and 

Procedural 

Deficiencies 
Page 15 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

24 Related services, such as counseling, speech pathology, and assistive 

technology, were not ensured or adequately provided. 

17 Student transition statements were inadequate or missing. 

14 Student placement in the least restrictive environment was not ensured. 

13 Extended school year activities were not ensured. 

12 Lack of personnel. 

4 Regular education settings lacked accommodations and/or supports. 

4 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. 
Page 16 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

noncompliance.a

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. 

Source: GAO analysis of Education data. 

a

We 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. 

Education Has Sought 

to Bring States into 

Compliance by 

Providing Technical 

Assistance and 

Requiring Corrective 

Action Plans, but 

Resolution Has Been 

Prolonged 
Page 17 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

To Effect Compliance, 

Education Typically 

Provided Technical 

Assistance and Required 

State Correction Plans, but 

Most Cases of 

Noncompliance Remained 

Open for Years without 

Resolution 
Page 18 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

Table 3: Results of Education Monitoring Visits, 1997–2002 

State Date monitored

Date monitoring 

report issued 

Date 

noncompliance 

was closed

Connecticut 2-3-97 6-11-97 2-99

Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands 3-6-97 7-21-97 Not yet closed

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

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

Source: GAO analysis of Education’s Web site, documents, and interviews with department officials. 

a

Education was not able to provide documentation of the closure date, but agency comments showed 

a closure date May 2004.

b

Utah did not have any findings of noncompliance. 
Page 19 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

 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. 

4-21 months (actual) 9-28 months (actual) 1 year (expected)

Monitoring

visit

Monitoring

report issued

Corrective action

plan approval

Closure of 

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.
Page 20 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

Enforcement Actions Have 

Been Taken Infrequently; 

Resolutions Were 

Protracted 
Page 21 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

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. 

4-9 years (actual)

5-10 years total

1-3 years (actual)

Problem

identification

Imposition of

sanction

Closure of 

noncompliance 

cases

Source: GAO analysis of Education data.
Page 22 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

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. 

Compliance Deadlines 

Often Missed; State 

Officials Indicated—and 

Federal Officials 

Acknowledged—

Difficulties of Meeting 

Timeframes 
Page 23 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

Conclusions 
Page 24 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

We recommend that the Secretary of Education 

• 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; 

• 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; 

• impose firm and realistic deadlines for states to remedy findings of 

noncompliance; and 

• when correction of noncompliance is expected to take more than 

1 year, make greater use of Education’s authority to initiate compliance 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 
Page 25 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 
Page 26 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 
Page 27 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

Page 28 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

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. 

 1

The 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 

Site Visits 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 29 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 

Monitoring Report 

Analysis 

Analysis of 

Compliance 

Documentation 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 30 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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. 

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. 

Analysis of 

Enforcement 

Documentation 
Appendix II: IDEA-Related Sanctions: 1994-

2003 

Page 31 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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 instances) Provision of services to incarcerated 

youth. 

1997–Special conditions 

1998–Special conditions 

1999–Special conditions 

2000–Special conditions 

2001–Special conditions 

2002–Special conditions 

2003–Special conditions 

Not yet resolved. 

 Timely resolution of complaints. 1999–Special conditions Resolved in 2000. 

 General supervision; identification and 

correction of deficiencies, IEP 

violations, provision of related services 

and least restrictive environment. 

2000–Special conditions 

2001–Special conditions 

Resolved in 2002. 

Connecticut Ensuring ability to request due process 

hearings. 

2002–Special conditions Resolved in 2003. 

District of Columbia Eleven areas of noncompliance, 

including general supervision; due 

process hearings; timeliness of 

evaluations and placements; and 

provision of free appropriate public 

education in the least restrictive 

environment. 

1998–3-year compliance agreement 

2001–Special conditions 

2002–Special conditions 

2003–Special conditions 

Not yet resolved. Three 

findings remain open in 

July 2003: timely 

implementation of hearing 

decisions, placement in 

the least restrictive 

environment, and timely 

evaluations. 

Guam Fiscal management. 2003–Special conditions Not yet resolved; year has 

not yet expired. 

Massachusetts Ensuring IEP components are 

determined at an IEP meeting with all 

required participants; placement of 

students in least restrictive 

environment. 

2000–Special conditions Resolved in 2001. 

New Jersey General supervision; identification and 

correction of deficiencies. 

1999–Special conditions 

2000–Special conditions 

Resolved in 2001. 

Northern Mariana 

Islands 

Fiscal management. 2003–Special conditions Not yet resolved; year has 

not yet expired. 

Pennsylvania General supervision; identification of 

deficiencies; placement of students in 

least restrictive environment, provision 

of extended school year and speech 

services. 

1998–Special conditions 

1999–Special conditions 

2000–Special conditions 

Resolved in 2001. 

Puerto Rico 

(2 instances) 

Outstanding issues from 1993 

compliance agreement regarding timely 

evaluations and provision of services. 

1997–Special conditions Resolved in 1998. 

 Fiscal management. 2002–Special conditions 

2003–Special conditions 

Not yet resolved. 

Appendix II: IDEA-Related Sanctions: 1994-

2003 
Appendix II: IDEA-Related Sanctions: 1994-

2003 

Page 32 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

State Problem areas Year and sanction type Status 

Virginia Provision of services to students with 

disabilities who were expelled or 

suspended long-term. 

1994–Attempt to withhold funds; action 

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. 

Education was ultimately 

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 Islands Fiscal and program management; 

general supervision; qualified 

personnel; placement of students in 

least restrictive environment; provision 

of transportation services. 

1998–Special conditions 

1999–3-year compliance agreement 

2002–3-year compliance agreement 

Not yet resolved. 

Multiple States Participation and reporting on alternate 

assessments. 

2002–Special conditions imposed 

against 27 states.a

2003–Special conditions imposed 

against 11 unresolved states, plus 1 

additional state, Ky.b

Sixteen of 27 states 

resolved in 2003; 11 

remaining states + Ky. not 

yet resolved. 

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. 

b

Alaska, 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 

Page 33 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Department of Education 
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Education 

Page 34 GAO-04-879 Special Education 
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Education 

Page 35 GAO-04-879 Special Education 
Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Page 36 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

Deborah Edwards, (202) 512-5416, edwardsd@gao.gov 

Tamara Fucile, (202) 512-9895, fucilet@gao.gov 

The following people also made important contributions to this report: 

Ellen Soltow, Summer Pachman, Behn Kelly, Susan Bernstein, and 

Walter Vance. 

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contacts 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 
Page 37 GAO-04-879 Special Education 

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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