Arkansas Special Education Project

Ed Week reporter Alyson Klein reports in her blog that Arkansas is a “bright spot” when it comes to figuring out a way to put the ARRA funding its getting to constructive use.  We find this highly curious given what we know to be serious deficiencies in how special education – one of the areas targeted by ARRA funding – is being delivered in Arkansas.

This news is encouraging, however.  Where many states point to funding shortfalls as their excuse for failing to render a Free and Appropriate Public Education (“FAPE”) to students with special needs, Arkansas can’t claim any such thing.  Technically, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (“504″) don’t permit fiscal considerations as a defense against public education agency non-compliance, anyway, but fiscal reality is fiscal reality.

What Ms. Klein’s article tells us is that the situations like that which Zakhquery Price experienced several years ago in which he was unlawfully exited from special education by Fort Smith Public Schools so that he could be residentially placed for over 3 years through the Department of Human Services’ Behavior Treatment Services Program (funded by Medicaid) rather than provided with special education and related services appropriate to his actual needs, should not be happening to any children who find themselves in need of appropriate autism-related programming now.

Rather, the intent of the IDEA for education agencies to develop new programming to support all special education students’ needs should now be adequately funded, removing any excuse for State agencies to play financial shell games in an effort to shift the financial burden of children’s needs off of the special education system and onto the health care system.  The health care system is not authorized or equipped to address children’s educational needs caused by their handicapping conditions.

Further, Medicaid does not fund services addressing the needs of children with autism spectrum disorders.  Misclassifying children with autism spectrum disorders as mentally ill or emotionally disturbed in order to get Medicaid-funded residential placement puts them into programming that fails to address the real source of their problems.  Children who carry dual-diagnoses of autism and mental/emotional health disorders will not benefit from treatment directed at their mental/emotional health needs if there isn’t also embedded programming that addresses their autism.

Autism is a neurological disorder that impacts how one processes information coming in from the environment as well as internal body states.  It is not a mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.  Nor is it an emotional disturbance, such as depression or a mood disorder.

Hopefully, now that Arkansas has ARRA funding at its disposal, it will not only use it to build new buildings (which are certainly important and not to be discounted), but to also beef up special education so that children with special needs get exactly what they require and aren’t inappropriately placed according to how resources have previously been allocated.

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