Special Education: State and Local-Imposed Requirements Complicate Federal Efforts to Reduce Administrative Burden
Released: 2016-02-08T00:00:00

Letter

Background

IDEA Part B authorizes federal grants to states to help them meet the excess costs of providing special education and related services to students with disabilities. There are a number of conditions that states must meet to be eligible for funding. In particular, states must agree to make available a free appropriate public education to all students with disabilities beginning at the age of 3 and possibly lasting to the 22nd birthday depending on state law or practice, in the least restrictive environment—meaning, to the maximum extent appropriate, these children are educated with other children who do not have disabilities. To accomplish this, states and LEAs must first identify, locate, and evaluate students who are eligible for special education services, regardless of the severity of their disability. For those deemed eligible, the state and LEA must ensure that each student has an individualized education program (IEP) describing their present levels of academic achievement and functional performance; measurable annual goals, including academic and functional goals; special education and related services; supplementary aids and services; and other supports to enable the child to advance appropriately toward attaining those goals. The IEP is developed by a team of teachers, parents, school district representatives, and other educational professionals. This team must meet to develop the initial IEP within 30 days of determining that a student needs special education and related services, and must review the IEP periodically, but not less than annually, to determine whether the annual goals have been achieved, and revise the IEP, as appropriate.

To qualify for IDEA funding, states must also provide certain procedural safeguards to children and their parents. For example, these safeguards require that parents be provided with prior written notice a reasonable time before the LEA proposes or refuses to initiate or change the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child, or the provision of a free appropriate public education to the child. IDEA also affords parents the right to request a due process hearing, as well as the right to bring a civil action in a state or federal district court. States must ensure that any state rules, regulations, and policies related to IDEA conform to the purposes of IDEA, and are required to identify in writing to Education and their LEAs any state-imposed requirement that is not required by IDEA.

The 2004 reauthorization of IDEA included several provisions that were intended to help reduce administrative tasks and paperwork associated with documenting compliance with the law. Specifically, the law:

Created two pilot programs: the Paperwork Waiver Demonstration Program (Paperwork Waiver Program), and the Multi-Year IEP Demonstration Program (Multi-Year IEP Program). Under the Paperwork Waiver Program, Education could waive statutory or regulatory requirements that states must comply with in order to receive funding under Part B for up to 4 years, for up to 15 states. The Multi-Year IEP Program authorized Education to allow up to 15 states to give parents and LEAs the option of developing a comprehensive IEP covering up to 3 years, rather than developing yearly IEPs, as currently required.

Required that Education publish and disseminate model forms, including forms for documenting IEPs, providing prior written notice, and providing procedural safeguards notice.

Introduced various administrative changes, including raising the amount of federal grant funds that states may set aside for administration and other state-level activities, and permitting states to use these funds for paperwork reduction, among other things; eliminating the requirement for benchmarks and short-term objectives in IEPs, and requiring that states identify in writing to LEAs and Education any state requirements that are not mandated by IDEA, and that they minimize requirements that LEAs and schools are subject to under IDEA.

IDEA requires states to have a mechanism for interagency coordination between the state educational agency (SEA) and any other state agencies that provide or pay for any services that are considered special education or related services. For example, since 1988, costs of some related services provided to low-income children under IDEA may be covered by Medicaid. In 1999, GAO reported that Medicaid documentation requirements are more burdensome than those of IDEA, leading states to cite this as an area of concern in coordinating Medicaid and IDEA services.

Following the 2004 reauthorization, there has been little public debate on the issue of paperwork and administrative burdens associated with IDEA. In 2012, GAO reported information about the burden on states and school districts associated with federal education regulations and identified three IDEA requirements as being among the more burdensome: reporting IDEA performance indicators, IEP processing, and transitioning students into school-age programs from infant and toddler programs. We also found that officials of states and school districts reported they generally did not collect information about the costs to comply with federal requirements, noting that states and school districts are not required to report compliance costs, the data are not useful to them, and collecting such data would in itself be burdensome. We recommended Education take additional steps to address duplicative reporting and data collection efforts across major programs. In addition, we recommended Education identify unnecessarily burdensome statutory requirements and develop legislative proposals to address these burdens, acknowledging that the agency’s ability to address burdens associated with some provisions of IDEA might be limited without statutory changes. Education agreed that it should take additional steps to address duplicative reporting and data collection efforts that are not statutorily required, and believed additional efficiencies could be achieved in its data collections. However, Education noted that some data elements are required under various program statutes and said it would work with Congress in the next reauthorization of IDEA to address duplication or the appearance of duplication resulting from those requirements.

Additionally, GAO has performed extensive work on the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), including the law’s effectiveness and approaches to reducing burden on the public. Under PRA, federal agencies are generally required to submit any proposed information collections to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval, including an estimate of the burden the information collections impose on the public. This submission certifies that the information collections meet the PRA standards that, among others, include taking steps to ensure the collection: avoids duplication, minimizes burden on the public. is necessary for agency performance, and In response to PRA requirements, Education submits estimates of time needed to collect and report some IDEA related information, including state applications for IDEA funding, the State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report, and SEA and LEA recordkeeping requirements. In our past work, we have noted potential discrepancies between Education’s estimates and reported burden as estimated by institutions of higher learning, making it difficult to know the actual burden imposed by these data collections.

Education Has Implemented Provisions of IDEA Designed to Reduce Paperwork, but States Have Been Reluctant to Use Them

States Saw Little Benefit in Participating in Pilot Programs

Education took several steps to design and implement two pilot programs, the Paperwork Waiver Program and Multi-Year IEP Program. To promote these pilot programs, Education conducted a national outreach tour to discuss the changes in the 2004 IDEA reauthorization and provide information about the pilot programs. In December 2005, Education also published notices of proposed requirements and selection criteria for both programs, and requested public comments by March 6, 2006. Education published the final requirements and selection criteria in July 2007, and made applications available to states in October 2007. Additionally, Education officials noted they held a teleconference for the state directors of special education describing the process for applying to participate in the pilot programs, which was also publicized through email and supported by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc. (NASDSE).

Despite Education’s efforts, no state applied to participate in either of the pilot programs. NASDSE officials told us that the application requirements were much too resource-intensive for the potential value they would bring, and implementation of either pilot program would most likely require additional staff that federal funding would not cover. Several states wrote letters to Education explaining their reasons for not applying for and implementing the Paperwork Waiver Program in particular, noting that the program would require more paperwork and staff, but provide little in the way of additional federal funds. For example, New York’s letter listed as key reasons for not participating the extensive requirements for participation, limited funding for the pilots, and the staff commitment necessary for both development of the proposals and ongoing oversight of the pilot projects. In a similar letter, Rhode Island noted that implementing the Paperwork Waiver Program would likely result in more paperwork—not less—as well as taking more time from staff. Likewise, Wisconsin and Missouri expressed concerns about the number of requirements and constraints, coupled with inadequate funding. Education officials said that the amount of funding that was offered to help states implement the Paperwork Waiver Program, $25,000 per state, was based on the amount of available funding at the time, and had taken into account the need to establish a sound evaluation design, as well as Education’s commitment to providing technical assistance, as needed.

States also might have been reluctant to participate in the Paperwork Waiver Program because Education cannot waive certain provisions states find most burdensome. For example, Education officials said that states and LEAs were most interested in Education waiving the requirements to notify parents of procedural safeguards and to provide parents prior written notice of certain actions taken with regard to their child’s education, both of which are procedural safeguards that Education is prohibited from waiving under IDEA. Furthermore, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) told us that none of their members were in favor of the paperwork waivers, in part because of the perceived risk of exposing local districts to potential litigation if they were to eliminate any of the requirements that parents have come to expect.

Stakeholders cited similar reasons for not participating in the Multi-Year IEP Program. Representatives from NASDSE and the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) cited the costs associated with applying for the program absent sufficient additional federal funding. In its response to the proposed requirements for the pilot programs, the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, Inc. commented that enabling states to participate in a multi-year IEP demonstration program would have primarily negative implications for families of children with disabilities.

Some States and Local Districts Used Federal Model Forms Primarily to Help Develop Their Own Forms

Although some states have adopted some of the model forms Education developed pursuant to the 2004 reauthorization’s attempt to reduce paperwork, they have used other model forms primarily as a reference tool to develop their own state forms. In a 2011 NASDSE survey of state directors of education, 18 of the 39 who responded said they had adopted one or more of the forms. Of those who did not adopt any of the forms, 17 said they had used them to help guide revision of their own forms, and only 3 indicated they had not used the forms at all.

Education officials and other stakeholders offered several reasons why some states have not adopted the model forms as written and instead used them as reference tools. Education officials said that some states find the model IEP form, for example, lacks the content necessary to meet state and local requirements. Several stakeholders agreed that the model IEP form does not cover all the information required by states, so even if states used a federal model form as a starting point, the state forms could all be different because the state requirements vary so widely. For example, officials from one stakeholder organization told us its state has its own model form for prior written notice because it includes additional procedural safeguards specific to that state. A different stakeholder noted that it would be a lot of work for states to switch from the state forms with which they are familiar to Education’s model forms; another stakeholder said that local school districts may also tailor the forms for local use. On the other hand, one stakeholder noted that the forms provided helpful models for states and districts, and said that further standardization of these forms would be particularly useful for students who move across districts and states because currently they must be reevaluated using different forms, which is resource-intensive and frustrating.

The states we visited used some of Education’s forms and not others. For instance, Arkansas has generally adopted Education’s model form for notice of procedural safeguards in its entirety, while New York has adopted most of this form, but has added state-specific information. Both Arkansas and New York have included most of Education’s model form on prior written notice, but with some modifications. Neither state has adopted the model IEP form. One Arkansas official suggested that the model IEP form does not adequately instruct those completing it to include details that could protect school districts from potential parental litigation. In contrast, the official said, the state form specifically calls for those details, which helps staff complete the form in keeping with Arkansas’ direction. New York officials told us they do not use the IEP form because they must include other items in their form to ensure compliance with both federal and state requirements.

Stakeholders Had Mixed Views on the Effects of Other Paperwork Reduction Provisions

Views on the effects of other IDEA provisions related to paperwork reductions are mixed, based on our conversations with focus group participants, representatives of education stakeholder organizations, and state and local officials in Arkansas and New York. For example, several focus group participants and stakeholders differed in their views of a provision allowing states to use set-aside funds for certain authorized state-level administrative activities, including paperwork reduction activities. Several participants in our state administrator focus groups reported that they have used the flexibility of this provision to help fund automated systems for preparing IEPs and for assisting in data collection and reporting. However, officials from NASDSE said that some states have restrictions on the amount of funds they can use for state administration, making the provision irrelevant to them for paperwork reduction purposes.

Stakeholders said that the effect of the revised IEP provision eliminating benchmarks and short-term objectives was mostly negligible. For instance, several stakeholders said that any potential reductions in paperwork were offset by what they described as a new statutory requirement that IEPs include a statement of measurable annual goals, including academic and functional goals. Although Education officials characterized that statutory language as clarifying a previously existing requirement rather than creating a new requirement, several stakeholders said the provision created additional work for those states and local districts that revised their local IEP forms to explicitly include the annual goal information.

The 2004 reauthorization also required states to identify any state- imposed special education rules, regulations, and policies not required by IDEA or federal regulations, and minimize the number of rules, regulations, and policies that districts and schools are subject to under IDEA, but it is not clear what effect this provision has had. Education facilitates compliance with this provision by directing states to list their state-imposed rules, regulations, and policies on their annual applications for federal IDEA funding. However, in our review of the information that states submit, we found it varies in detail and format. Education does not verify the accuracy of the information states provide, and the provision does not require Education to do so, making it difficult to determine the prevalence of state-imposed requirements based on state responses alone.

Stakeholders Said Additional State and Local Requirements Contribute to Burden, but Differed on the Burdens and Benefits of Federal Requirements

States and Localities Described Additional Requirements that Contribute to Administrative and Paperwork Burden

State and local officials with whom we spoke widely agreed that nonfederal IDEA-related requirements were burdensome. For example, participants across 6 of our 9 focus groups—3 with local administrators and 3 with educators—said that additional requirements imposed by states and localities contribute to the administrative and paperwork burden beyond that imposed by federal requirements. Similarly, based on our observations and interviews with state and local officials, the number of additional requirements can be considerable. New York listed over 200 state-imposed requirements in 2014. For example, when a student is referred for special education, the school must provide a copy of the state’s 46-page handbook for parents of students with disabilities. If a student is at risk of being placed in a residential facility, the school must provide the parent with information about community support services, including how to obtain an assessment of the family’s service needs, and placement alternatives. New York officials reported that they attempted to identify state administrative requirements that did not add value to the special education process but did not find many items to remove. Further, although Arkansas listed no state-imposed requirements on its federal IDEA funding application, during our visit we observed several required forms imposed by the state. States are not prohibited under IDEA from using their own forms, and Arkansas state officials told us they did not list the forms because they did not believe they were doing anything more than what was required under IDEA. This example, however, highlights the difficulty in determining what state-imposed requirements should be reported.

In both local school districts we visited in New York and Arkansas, IEPs are electronic, and each district contracts with a vendor to develop and maintain the software used to guide IEP preparation, tailored to local preferences and needs. However, in the Rochester, N.Y. district, the electronic IEP includes state-required data elements in addition to those required by federal law. Further, the district has added at least one additional requirement that teachers include the student’s latest report card results—even though the information is available in the student’s official school file. Although this approach is typical of many school districts, these systems are tailored to local requirements and the IEPs themselves are formatted differently, making it difficult to transfer students’ records when they move from one district to another within each state, let alone across states with differing laws and administrative requirements.

Stakeholders said that the additional requirements can make it difficult to isolate the contribution of IDEA requirements to administrative burdens. One official commented that it is nearly impossible to isolate the contribution of IDEA requirements to administrative burdens at the state and local levels because there are so many other requirements placed on states and local districts related to education by other sources. In a 2015 issue paper, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association noted that although federal statutes and regulations generate paperwork and administrative burdens for their members, all levels of government contribute to the total burden shouldered by their members. In addition to IDEA requirements, there are those mandated under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, Medicaid, and various smaller programs, as well as those added by state law and local school districts, which further exacerbate the problem, whether in anticipation of, or due to compliance with, litigation and court decisions.

Stakeholders Differed on the Specific Burdens and Benefits of IDEA Requirements

While many stakeholders agreed that special education requirements contribute to administrative and paperwork burden, they differed in their views on the burdens and benefits of specific IDEA requirements. Participants across educator and local administrator focus groups cited more tasks as being particularly burdensome than did those in the state administrator groups. Common areas of concern for participants across all 3 educator focus groups and all 3 local administrator focus groups included preparing IEP documents, focusing on compliance, using technology, and identifying students with special needs or determining eligibility. In focus group discussions with state administrators, the only specific administrative task they reported as particularly burdensome was preparing state performance plans and annual performance reports for Education. (See table 1.)

Our focus group results are consistent with previous findings from a GAO review of federal education requirements in which education stakeholders identified two IDEA requirements— processing IEPs and collecting and reporting performance data to Education—as being among the more burdensome for states and districts. More specifically, stakeholders said in our prior work that IEP processing was complicated, time and paperwork intensive, and vague. They also said that IDEA indicators— performance measures that Education uses to monitor state compliance with IDEA—were complicated, time and resource and paperwork intensive, and duplicative. Similarly, participants in our focus groups for this review identified preparing IEPs and reporting annually to Education as being particularly burdensome, and described similar types of burdens to those previously identified when explaining why these tasks are particularly burdensome. (See table 2.)

Aside from their views on IDEA requirements they regard as particularly burdensome, stakeholders across all 9 focus groups acknowledged that administrative tasks and paperwork play an important role in helping ensure accountability and transparency in the special education process, among other benefits. (See table 3.)

Although the parents that we spoke with during our site visit in New York did not express any positive views of the administrative requirements, parents in Arkansas said the IEP is useful in guiding discussions with school district staff, and serves as a record of what the district is doing for their child. Based on our discussions with groups that represent the interests of parents with children who receive special education services, evaluation reports, which provide information about a student’s limitations and strengths, can facilitate individualization of instruction by providing a baseline for performance that can be used to measure student progress. Officials from these organizations also noted that administrative requirements that safeguard procedural rights, such as prior written notice, benefit parents by helping them understand how to help their children receive special education services.

Additionally, based on our discussions with parents and representatives of parent organizations, we found that administrative requirements in special education can be helpful to parents, but only to the extent that the information generated is accessible, and requirements are enforced. In particular, the language used to document students’ current levels of performance poses a challenge for many parents, who sometimes find the language complicated and confusing, making it difficult to understand important information about their children. In another example, while parents noted that certain administrative requirements, such as IEPs and parent meetings, can be useful tools to share information and promote collaboration among those involved in a child’s education, they did not find them helpful when used incorrectly. For example, parents expressed some frustration with IEPs they felt were not being followed, as well as IEP meetings they felt were sometimes used to justify a course of action rather than to determine the best course of action for their child.

Available Research Shows Administrative and Paperwork Tasks Take Time Away from Teaching and Training

Available research supports what stakeholders told us about special education administrative burden. Specifically:

The 2002 Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education (SPeNSE), commissioned by Education, found that elementary and secondary special education teachers reported spending an average of 1 hour per day completing forms and paperwork—as much time as they spent preparing for lessons.

A 2008 time-use study found that special education teachers in five Texas school districts spent an average of almost 2 hours per day (1 hour and 51 minutes) on administrative tasks—more time than they or their principals thought they were spending.

A 2012 study of how preventive services are implemented by special education teachers found that special education teachers across seven elementary schools in Kansas spent about 1 hour per day, on average, doing managerial tasks that involved paperwork.

In an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association biannual survey of school-based speech-language pathologists and educational audiologists, respondents listed paperwork as their top challenge in each survey from 2004 through 2014.

Consistent with this research, participants across our 3 educator focus groups estimated that they spend between 2 to 3 hours per day on administrative tasks, or roughly 20 to 35 percent of their time, and said that these tasks take away time needed to complete other required tasks. In particular, they said they do not have enough time to complete paperwork during their regular work hours, which means they complete it on their own time. Participants across the educator focus groups also reported that paperwork and administrative tasks take time away from the classroom and other important tasks, such as academic planning and performing assessments.

Although local administrators would reasonably be expected to spend more time on administrative tasks due to the nature of their jobs, they still shared similar concerns regarding administrative and paperwork burdens crowding out important, non-administrative responsibilities, such as providing training or observing classrooms.

Education and States Stated that They Have Adopted Computer Technology and Other Steps that Reduce Administrative Burdens, but These Efforts Have Limitations

Computer Technology and Data Systems Have Reportedly Helped Ease Some Administrative Burdens Related to Special Education Requirements

Some participants in all of our focus groups said that computer technology and the availability of electronic data sets have reduced administrative burdens associated with IDEA. In particular, some participants in focus groups stated that they found electronic IEPs to be helpful in ways such as making data input easier, reducing the chance for data entry errors, and pulling data together from different sources. According to several SEA officials in our focus groups, the linkage of IEPs with automated data systems assists SEAs in their monitoring and compliance activities with local school districts.

Education has developed a data system called EDFacts which it believes will help reduce administrative burden. According to Education, EDFacts is a system designed to centralize data provided by SEAs and LEAs and to streamline data processes at the federal, state, district, and school levels. SEAs transmit data to Education via the EDFacts Submission System, an electronic system designed to help SEAs transmit data in a timely and efficient manner through the use of a file submission application. It includes data required by IDEA and is comprised of six data collections. To further ease the data submission process, Education has developed a web-based Data Submission Organizer tool that provides information about how and when to submit IDEA and other K-12 data. Members of our focus groups also said that GRADS360, an IDEA-specific data system unveiled in October 2014 by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), has effectively reduced the reporting burdens associated with IDEA. GRADS360 is the electronic platform for states to submit data which is then used to create states’ annual IDEA Part B and Part C State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR). The SPP/APR evaluates a state’s efforts to implement the requirements and purposes of IDEA, and describes how a state will improve its implementation. Education’s GRADS360 website contains, among other things, profiles on states’ previous data submissions, tools on how to submit data to the system, and a calendar that specifies data submission deadlines. Some focus group participants said GRADS360 has reduced the burden associated with completing the SPPs and APRs. One participant asserted that GRADS360 reduced the administrative burdens of producing these reports by 50 percent.

In addition to EDFacts and GRADS360, Education’s OSEP has funded four technical assistance centers intended to help states produce and submit high quality IDEA-related data. The centers focus on (1) IDEA’s data collecting and reporting requirements (The IDEA Data Center), (2) the development or enhancement of longitudinal data systems (The Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems for children from birth through age 5), (3) support for combining IDEA data with the Education- funded State Longitudinal Data System (Center for the Integration of IDEA Data), and (4) assistance to SEAs on their federal special education fiscal data collection and reporting obligations (Center for IDEA Fiscal Reporting).

Some focus group participants said SEAs are implementing computer systems that they believe help ease administrative burden. Most of these efforts involve computer data and system consolidation. For example, several participants said their states have activated systems in which electronic IEP data and other student data can be integrated with the state’s student data management system. Participants cited benefits to this integration including making it easier for LEAs to upload participants’ data to the state system, and enabling the state to have data related to IDEA requirements. One focus group participant said her state has a single computer system so that the SEA and LEAs within the state can use the same system.

Despite Benefits, Existing Technology Reportedly Has Limitations in Addressing Burdens

Some participants in our focus groups said the computer systems used in their states need to be improved to further reduce burdens associated with IDEA requirements. Several participants said existing computer systems are not well integrated and thus do not exchange data across systems. For example, two LEA participants said they must each work with separate computer systems or databases that do not allow automatic data transfers. In one instance, the participant noted having to pull down data from an IEP system and then upload it to another system. In the other case, the participant said data from each database in the system had to be uploaded separately because none of the data had been collated across databases. Another participant noted having to use five different federal log-ons and yet still could not find the information sought. One participant also said that reporting the same information multiple times across different computer systems (federal and state) was a burden.

Other focus groups members told us that technical problems can make using automated systems difficult. Some of these technical problems included system crashes, losing data when attempting to save the data into the system, major technical “glitches,” and a lack of computer system capacity. In addition, one educator cited the burden of having to learn a new computer system, only to have the system replaced with another shortly thereafter.

Stakeholders Also Reported Using Non- technology Strategies that Help Ease IDEA’s Administrative Burdens

Focus group participants, stakeholders in New York and Arkansas, and other special education officials said adopting certain types of non- computer-related practices had reduced the burdens faced by SEAs, LEAs, and educators generally fell into three categories: administrative support, IEP management, and communication strategies.

Administrative support. One practice was to assign one or more individuals to perform or monitor administrative duties related to IDEA. According to state special education officials from our site visits, many of the larger school districts hire due process clerks to handle logistics. These are teachers who may continue to teach part time or take on the special education administrative role full time. This frees special education teachers from some of the required paperwork. Some participants from our focus groups said that having administrative clerks reduced the time and burdens associated with administrative tasks. One educator from a focus group said hiring a paraprofessional to set up all IEP meetings, contact parents, and send out meeting notices proved helpful in reducing administrative burden. Another practice favored by one focus group member was establishing dedicated time periods in which a teacher would exclusively teach for 3 weeks and then complete administrative tasks for 1 week.

IEP management. Some focus group participants said that using amended or draft IEPs (rather than creating completely new IEPs) can reduce burden. According to the participants, amended IEPs have advantages such as allowing an IEP team to make minor IEP changes without having to call a meeting or redo the entire IEP, making it easier to update or change goals, and reducing the time and impact on staff. One participant said using a draft IEP provides information so everyone attending an IEP meeting is better prepared.

Communication strategies. According to participants in several focus groups, practices that foster communication among educators and specialists who work with special education students can reduce burden. For example, one participant said creating a triad relationship with a student’s general education teacher, special education teacher, and case manager can be very important and beneficial to the student. Another participant noted the importance of everyone who works with a special education student collaborating to make a plan so that the student can make progress. In addition, one participant stated that, to reduce burdensome redundancies created by the “dual- track” paperwork systems for special education and general education, those working with a student should have a conversation and reach agreement on whether special education or general education is in that student’s best interests.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Education for review and comment. In its written comments, reproduced in appendix II, Education neither agreed nor disagreed with our findings. Education also provided technical comments that were incorporated, as appropriate.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from its issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of Education, and other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff should have any questions about this report, please contact me at (617) 788-0580 or nowickij@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix III.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

The objectives of this report were to examine (1) what Education and states have done to implement selected provisions of the law to help minimize the burden associated with administrative and paperwork requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), (2) stakeholder views about IDEA’s administrative and paperwork requirements, and (3) the steps Education and others have taken to minimize IDEA-related burden.

To address our first objective, we reviewed relevant laws, regulations, and published studies. We interviewed officials from Education and organizations representing education stakeholder groups, including special education administrators at the state and district levels, parents of students with disabilities, and educators. Some of these groups included the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc.; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; Council for Exceptional Children; Council of Administrators of Special Education; National Education Association; National Association of Secondary School Principals; and PACER Center. To identify specific provisions of the 2004 IDEA reauthorization intended to reduce the burden associated with administrative and paperwork requirements, we reviewed a Congressional Research Service analysis of the law as well as the results of our literature search.

To address our second objective, we conducted a series of 9 focus group discussions—3 with state administrators from 18 states, 3 with local administrators from 14 states, and 3 with educators from 15 states. Overall, participants came from 37 separate states, and though their comments are not generalizable, they represented a broad range of experiences from across all regions of the country and all types of school districts. To identify potential participants for our focus groups, which consisted of at least six participants each, we worked with the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc., Council of Administrators of Special Education, National Education Association, and other professional organizations representing education stakeholder groups, including educators and special education administrators at the state and district levels. The organizations we contacted that represent parents of students with disabilities included the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, Inc. and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. In addition to contacting these organizations, we posted information in a National Association of Special Education Teachers’ newsletter to identify potential focus group participants. In order to maximize the diversity of our sample of participants, we extended invitations to participants based on the state in which they were employed, type of position, years of experience, and type of school district (rural or urban). We documented these characteristics via a participant questionnaire. Using a combination of these methods for identifying potential participants ensured that all of the participants in one strata of the focus groups did not come from a single source, mitigating potential bias toward a specific organization. Once the list of potential participants was compiled, we emailed the potential participants to confirm that they currently worked or had worked previously in the relevant organization in the area of special education, and to inquire if they wished to participate.

In addition to gaining the perceptions of special education administrators and educators on IDEA administrative and reporting requirements, we also obtained information on how another key stakeholder group— parents of students with disabilities—perceive these requirements. Although parents of such students do not directly complete IDEA paperwork, we gathered information on how they perceive IDEA administrative and paperwork requirements from our discussions with organizations representing them and from results of their literature on the subject.

We analyzed the content of our 9 focus group discussions to identify similarities and differences within and across these groups regarding time spent on IDEA administrative tasks, perceived benefits and burdens associated with administrative requirements, and potential solutions and strategies about how to minimize time spent on administrative tasks. To achieve consensus on this identification, two analysts independently reviewed focus group transcripts and categorized relevant discussions across four different topics:

Time Spent on Paperwork

Perceived Burdens

Perceived Benefits of Administrative Tasks

Model Practices and Potential Solutions For burdens specifically, we further categorized the reasons why focus group participants considered administrative and paperwork tasks burdensome, using categories we previously developed. These reasons include and are defined as follows:

Complicated: Requirements change often, include varying or conflicting definitions, involve multiple steps, or have processes, deadlines, or rules that make compliance difficult or that result in unintended consequences.

Time-intensive: Compliance is time-consuming.

Paperwork-intensive: Documentation is excessive.

Resource-intensive: Compliance is costly or requires a substantial amount of technical support.

Duplicative: Requirements from different agencies or offices within the same agency were poorly coordinated or requested redundant information (similar or exact).

Vague: States or school districts lacked knowledge or guidance related to the requirement, or certain processes were unknown or unclear.

To illustrate the administrative processes in different school districts in different areas of the country, and to identify how differences in state and local requirements may contribute to differences in burden, along with common concerns and suggestions for addressing them, we completed site visits in Clinton, Arkansas and Rochester, New York. We selected these two school districts to highlight different experiences in how urban and rural school districts manage administrative requirements, and how parents in these districts perceive the requirements. We first selected Arkansas and New York to provide diverse geographic locations, number of state-imposed special education requirements listed on the state application for IDEA funding, and incidence of dispute resolutions as reported by a GAO special education report. Specifically, New York, in the northeast region, listed over 200 state-imposed special education requirements on its IDEA funding application, and also had a high incidence of dispute resolutions. Arkansas, in the southeast region, listed no state-imposed special education requirements on its IDEA funding application, and was not identified in the GAO special education report on dispute resolution. Within each state, we chose the LEAs and schools to achieve diversity across urban and rural districts and primary and secondary schools, and large enough to have with some experience with special education needs.

These site visits provided opportunities to understand and document local efforts to manage administrative requirements and to speak with parents about how they perceive special education procedures. The visits also allowed us to explore how differences in state and local requirements may contribute to differences in perceptions of the relative benefits and challenges associated with meeting key federal requirements. At each site, we interviewed the relevant state and local special education administrators, and those who work directly with special education students. We also obtained state and local policies and procedures, enabling us to develop a narrative about the types of paperwork various individuals are responsible for and any additional requirements imposed by the state or LEA. At each location, we also met with parents whose children were receiving special education services. Parents were informed of these meetings by the local districts, and attendance was voluntary. We compared these narratives to understand various differences across the locations.

To address our third objective, we spoke with Education officials about steps the agency had taken to reduce the associated burden of administrative and reporting requirements under IDEA, and reviewed the agency’s Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) burden estimates for proposed amendments to data collections related to IDEA implementation. We also spoke with state and local officials in New York and Arkansas about steps taken to minimize burden, and included a question on this subject in our focus group discussions. Finally, we gathered information on efforts to minimize burden from our discussions with officials from the previously- listed organizations representing education stakeholders and organizations representing parents of students with disabilities, and from results of our literature search. We selected these organizations to provide a range of views on the benefits and burdens of IDEA requirements.

Appendix II: Comments from the U.S. Department of Education

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Jaqueline M. Nowicki, (617) 788-0580 or nowickij@gao.gov.

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Mary Crenshaw, Assistant Director; Regina Santucci, Analyst-in Charge; Betty Ward-Zukerman, Justin Riordan, Tyne McGee, Daren Sweeney, Andrew Nelson, Susanna Clark, Laurel Beedon, and Sheranda Campbell made significant contributions to this report. Also contributing to this report were Walter Vance, James Rebbe, Charlie Willson, Tim Bober, Carolyn Yocom, David Forgosh, and Nyree Ryder Tee.