The Bayou state takes on U.S. Dept. of Ed - rightfully
Louisiana’s new graduation requirements for students with disabilities (SWD) are not sitting well with Washington D.C. and that’s ok. Personalized objectives with carefully tailored instruction are what matter and what recent legislation guarantees.
Early this summer the Louisiana Legislature passed and the governor signed into law Act 833 House Bill 1015, which authorized, among other actions, Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams “to determine promotion to the next grade level under certain circumstances as it relates to the student’s achievement level or required state assessments… [and] to provide for participation … relative to requirements for Individual Graduation Plans and graduation.”
Meant in part to deal with the state’s low four-year graduation rate for students with disabilities (SWD) – 33 percent in 2011-12 – it was supported by advocacy groups and state schools chief John White.
But barely a week had passed before the federal Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERs) along with the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) issued a letter to Superintendent White expressing “significant concerns” about potential legal issues.
Essentially, the objections fall into two categories:
- Potential violations to ESEA and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), especially in regard to academic content standards;
- Anticipated infringement of civil rights afforded through Section 504 and the American with Disabilities Act because of potential denials of free appropriate public education (FAPE).
It is curious that the U.S. Department of Education is treating ESEA as sacrosanct in its evaluation of Louisiana’s new law when the Secretary of Education has granted waivers to not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 43 state education agencies (SEAs) exempting them from many of its provisions. Except for the administration’s infatuation with whole scale state testing, the same could be done for the Bayou state’s efforts to individualize school completion for SWD.
Apart from the apparent contradiction in policy, though, there are other reasons to discount the The Bayou state takes on U.S. Dept. of Ed - rightfully :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:
Testing snafu leaves thousands of disabled students in limbo
(Calif.) With classes underway in most school districts statewide, teachers assigned instruction of some 40,000 cognitively disabled students have been left in academic limbo without an applicable set of content standards or assessment to teach to.