Subsidized Discrimination – The Special Education Transportation Trap
New Home Independent School District in Texas is being investigated for Disability Discrimination according to Special Education Action. The local special education program was shut down and students are being bussed to classrooms 30 miles away.
30 miles away.
… and it is all being paid for with Special Education dollars no doubt.
Transportation isn’t Education
One of your rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is to have free transportation to your educational program.
This totally makes sense…
BUT, what isn’t ever talked about is how that transportation is being funded…
… and, at least as far as I can tell, school districts use their Federal and State special eduction funding to pay for special education transportation.
This is a problem.
Because transportation isn’t educational.
And the system creates a perverse incentive to segregate disabled students from their general education peers and send them far away from their local school district.
Perverse Incentives for Segregation
My previous school district gave an annual summary special education program and budget report (one of the things my current school district fails to do :( ).
It was 15 minutes or so a year, but a lot better than nothing.
Buried in the data was the disturbing fact that 25% of the school district’s special education funding was being spent on transportation.
25%
This is not money being spent on delivering education, it is a lot of money being spent on delivering students.
Problem solved?
After all, it is a lot easier to hire uncredentialled bus drivers than to find qualified special education teachers. :(
While free transportation to education should be a right… the actual education being delivered (and delivered in accordance with the law) is what matters.
For school districts that are hostile or indifferent to building good special education programs and delivering quality services… and, sadly, quite comfortable with segregating disabled students… this transportation funding turns into a twisted gift.
Fixing the System – No Free Ride for Segregation
At the federal level, Congress could “easily” amend IDEA so that no federal funding (and maybe no special education funding at all) is used for transportation. This would not remove the obligation for local school districts to provide free transportation for special education students, but would take away the incentives that subsidize segregation. Congress and the Department of Education could also require reporting on special education transportation expenditures (and distances) (as well as those for general education) to help identify patterns of discrimination.
This action could also be pursued at the state-level.
… and we can even take direct action ourselves in our local communities.
Special Education Transportation Report Card
Let’s get some data:
- What is your school district’s special education budget? (Federal funding, state funding, local funding… you may be surprised).
- How much of your school district’s special education funding is allocated to transportation (both dollars and percentage)?
- How many students are participating in the transportation program?
- Are thse students going to their local school (the school that they would be attending if they didn’t have an IEP)? (number and percentage)
- How far are special education students being transported? for how long?
??? What other data should we want ????
Special Education Transportation and us
When my son was identified with autism, the first school that they sent us to was about a 20 minute drive away from our home (see Trapped on the Bus). There were 2 Elementary schools in easy walking distance from our house and probably 4 to 6 closer than the offered school. The second school that he was sent to was even farther away and the final school was actually the furthest away in our school district (of more than 10? 15? elementary schools).
They offered us transportation (it was our right), but our son (at that time 3 or 4 years old) would have had to sit on the bus for an hour each way.
I discovered another “feature” of special education transportation (again, in our previous school district, but it did seem to work the same way there at multiple schools there)… the special education students on the bus would arrive 15 or 20 minutes before school starts and have to sit on the bus until they were retrieved by the teachers right at the bell (other kids on other buses or brought by their parents would get to play on the school grounds).
NOTE something that I didn’t even think of at the time, but NONE of the special education students were welcome on the playground before school started (unlike the general education students). We waited next to a separate gate from that used by the general education students – parents and kids – in easy sight of a number of nice playground equipment that our kids couldn’t use – until the teachers and aids came out just in time for the bell.
At least the kids who came with their parents could run around a bit (unlike the children on the bus).
