OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY

Public Law 94-142 represented a landmark in educational legislation. The law requires States to locate, identify, and evaluate all handicapped children; establish full educational opportunities for them; and establish a full services timetable. It also required the States to provide a free appropriate public education to all handicapped children age 3 to 18 by September 1, 1978, and age 3 to 21 by September 1, 1980. The act authorized significantly increased Federal funding--estimated by OSE to reach nearly $4 billion a year by fiscal year 1982 if appropriated as authorized--to help States and LEAs carry out the act.

As part of our continuing interest in the vitality of the Nation's education efforts, we began to survey the operation, administration, and future prospects of Public Law 94-142 late in 1977, about the time that implementation of the act began. During our survey, we identified three major potential problem

areas:

-Implementation, while generally off to a good start, appeared to be spotty in some locations and experiencing problems and disagreements on the mechanics of the law.

--Resources, in terms of both operating funds and trained personnel, appeared likely to be inadequate to meet the act's general goals and specific requirements by the statutory deadlines.

--Management, by OSE and the States, appeared to need strengthening in order for local public schools to meet their responsibilities.

We then reviewed these issues in greater depth. We made our review in 1978 and 1979 at OSE headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at SEAS, LEAS, and schools in California, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington. In fiscal year 1979 these States reported a combined total of about 1.1 million handicapped children, or nearly 30 percent of the national 94-142 childcount of about 3.7 million. We visited 55 State, local, and other activities, including 38 LEAS with reported 1977 or 1978 enrollments of handicapped students ranging from 13 to about 15,000 children. Appendix I lists the locations visited.

The States we reviewed were selected to provide a crosssection of large and small populations, relatively high and low per-capita State and local funding levels, older and newer State handicapped laws, approved and not yet approved State handicapped plans, and geographic distribution. LEAS were selected on the basis of their geographic location and size. Neither the States nor the LEAS were selected because their programs were considered better or worse than others. Also, because the focus of our review was on identifying ways in which the Federal Government and the States can assist LEAS rather than on identifying specific problems at individual locations, we generally have not identified LEAS by name.

Our review included discussions with appropriate management, teaching, and other personnel at the Federal, State, LEA, and school levels and examinations of legislation, regulations, State plans, district and school records (including children's individual education folders), and other reports, files, and documents related to the program. We also toured school facilities, visited classes, and observed school activities.

We did not attempt to evaluate overall quality of education provided at any school, nor did we routinely discuss the programs with participating children or their parents.

Also, because most of the statistics on enrollments, counts, and other data we obtained were generated by many different Federal, State, and local agency computers, we could not readily evaluate the functioning of the automatic data processing systems to assess the reliability and precision of the computer-generated data.

In June 1980 we requested comments on our draft report from the Department of Education and the 10 States included in our review. Replies were received from the Department and from Florida, South Dakota, and Texas. State officials' comments were considered in preparing this report and are recognized, where appropriate, in the report. The Department's response is included as appendix II.

CHAPTER 2

CONTROVERSY ON ESTIMATED NUMBER

OF HANDICAPPED CHILDREN

Because of controversy over OSE's estimate of the number of school-age handicapped children in the United States needing special education services--about 6.2 million--compared to the actual number of children identified and reported by the States as of December 1, 1978--about 3.9 million--OSE has attempted to get States to increase the number of children identified and reported. We agree with OSE on the importance of identifying and serving all handicapped children who should be served under the 94-142 program, but we believe that OSE's efforts to increase the number of children counted and served have not been tempered sufficiently to avoid identifying and serving, as handicapped, children who do not warrant such treatment.

Although the OSE estimates were based on questionable data, they are cited in Public Law 94-142 and continue to be used by OSE to encourage States to increase their childcounts. OSE recently began a program which emphasizes increasing the childcounts but appears to show little concern for the possibility of overcounting or misclassifying children as handicapped under the act. This practice could result in unwarranted increases in the amount of Federal funds going to States. More important, it could result in possible damage to children by mislabeling them as handicapped, a danger that the Congress wanted to avoid in enacting Public Law 94-142.

Chapter 3 of this report discusses the questionable practice of including many children in the 94-142 program without determining if their impairments--which were of minor severity--adversely affected their educational performance. OSE should not continue to emphasize that States need to increase the number of children counted, without also emphasizing the dangers of misclassifying and overcounting children.

OSE ESTIMATES FAR EXCEED ACTUAL NUMBER OF
HANDICAPPED CHILDREN REPORTED BY STATES

Before Public Law 94-142 was enacted, OSE estimated that about 6.7 million children age 6 to 19, or about 12 percent of the Nation's school-age population, were handicapped and needed special educational services. Because of national declines in school enrollments since the early 1970s and differences in the

age ranges used to define "school age," the 12-percent estimate currently translates to about 6.2 million children age 5 to 17. As of December 1978, however, after several years of searching for handicapped children, the total numbers of handicapped children reported by the States in the age range 6 to 17 and 3 to 21 were about 3.6 million and 3.9 million, respectively. 1/ The difference between the actual count of 3.9 million children and the OSE estimates amounts to at least 2.3 million children who, if the OSE estimates are correct, are handicapped but have not been either identified or accounted for under the 94-142 program.

This difference of over 2 million children has generated serious controversy among OSE, State officials, researchers, and others. On the one hand, OSE, in defense of its 12-percent estimate, asserts that the States' efforts to identify handicapped children have not been adequate. On the other hand, State officials, researchers, and others contend that OSE's estimates are significantly overstated and that most handicapped children have been identified.

Our review of the basis for OSE's estimates showed that the reliability of the data used was questionable, but we were unable to determine whether the estimates were overstated. Some State and local education officials believed that few, if any, handicapped children had not been identified and counted in their States or districts. Other such officials believed that there were more than a few unidentified handicapped children in their jurisdictions, but that adding such children to those already counted would not increase the total to anywhere near OSE's estimate.

Congressional reliance on OSE estimates

The Congress enacted Public Law 94-142 in 1975 partly to meet the needs of what it understood to be over 4 million

1/Age ranges used by OSE to report statistics on handicapped children have varied somewhat and tend to further confuse the question of the number of such children. OSE used ages 0 to 5, 6 to 19, and 5 to 17 in various estimates furnished to the Congress, and uses age 5 to 17 for its current estimates, but required States to report their actual 94-142 childcounts in age ranges 3 to 5 and 6 to 21 for school year 1977-78, and age ranges 3 to 5, 6 to 17, and 18 to 21 for school year 1978-79. Therefore, available data are not completely comparable.

handicapped children in the United States who were not receiving the appropriate special education and related services they needed. This estimate was based on 1974 statistics OSE gave the Congress indicating that more than 8 million handicapped children up to age 21 (including 6.7 million age 6 to 19 years) required special education and related services, of which:

--About 3.9 million children (3.7 million age 6 to 19
years) were receiving an appropriate education.

--About 4.25 million children (3.1 million age 6 to 19 years) were receiving an inappropriate education or no education at all. OSE estimated this group of children to include about 1.75 million handicapped youngsters who were excluded entirely from schooling.

OSE also gave the Congress the following percentages by handicapping condition to support its estimate that the prevalence rate of school-age handicapped children in the Nation was about 12 percent: 1/

The Congress relied on these OSE estimates in considering the need for Public Law 94-142. For example, the House Committee on Education and Labor stated in its June 1975 report on

1/In 1970 OSE estimated a total handicap prevalence rate of 10.035 percent. In 1974 OSE increased its estimate for the learning disabilities category from 1.0 to 3.0 percent, thereby increasing the total estimate to the 12.035 percent shown in the table.