Mississippi’s Utilization of Funds Provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
Executive Summary
Introduction
PEER conducted this review to:
PEER inquired into whether the Mississippi Department of Education and local education agencies1 are efficiently and effectively spending IDEA grant funding to meet the needs of children identified by the Child Find2 process and identifying children in need of access to the special education system and its services within Mississippi.
PEER focused solely on those individuals (ages six through twenty)3 and services provided through IDEA Part B Section 611 grant funding and limited the review to the information available from the Mississippi Department of Education, rather than contacting each individual local education agency directly.
This report does not comment on the adequacy or appropriateness of specific services provided through IDEA funding.
Background
Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1975. The purpose of IDEA is to ensure that all students with disabilities are provided a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment that is appropriate to their individual special education needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living. The U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs authorizes IDEA funding.
In order to be eligible for IDEA in Mississippi, a student must be between the ages of three through high school graduation or age twenty, whichever comes first; have been determined to have a disability covered under IDEA; and, as a result of that disability, need special education and related services in order to make progress in school.
State education agencies administer the IDEA grants, provide technical assistance, and conduct fiscal and compliance monitoring. Local education agencies must conduct Child Find activities, allocate funds within their local education agencies to meet students’ individualized education program4 (IEP) requirements, and ensure that IEP teams are established. IDEA requires local education agencies to provide related services necessary to assist an IDEA-eligible student in benefiting from his or her educational program (e. g., speech-language pathology, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy).
According to the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) staff, services were provided to approximately 57,000 students (ages six through twenty) with IDEA Part B grant funding during the 2014-2015 school year.
How are IDEA funds expended to meet the needs of eligible students?
IDEA grant funding is not allocated based on an identified population of children with documented special education needs. Instead, it is allocated via a federal formula based on the prior year’s grant allocations and additional amounts based on total student enrollment and the number of students receiving free and reduced lunches in Mississippi. These IDEA grant funds supplement, not supplant, other sources of state and local funds to provide special education services. The local education agencies have final discretion in providing services to achieve the purposes of IDEA.
IDEA funds are distributed to states through a federal allocation formula. Once IDEA funding reaches the local level, each local education agency individually determines how to use IDEA funds, in concert with state and local funds, to help carry out each child’s IEP and ensure that each child receives a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
MDE does not track or maintain financial expenditure data for IDEA Part B grant funds in a manner that would allow the department itself or a third-party reviewer (such as PEER) to determine how IDEA funds were spent in relation to specific services. MDE’s primary tool for capturing local education agencies’ expenditures of IDEA grant funding is an annual expenditure report that provides expenditure data based only on broad budget categories (e. g., employee benefits, contractual services, instructional supplies). According to annual expenditure reports for FY 2014, local education agencies in Mississippi expended approximately 71% of their available IDEA grant funds on salaries and employee benefits.
Local education agencies must expend the same portion of local, state, and federal funds on the IDEA-eligible student as they would on any other child before a local education agency can expend IDEA funds on an IDEA-eligible child. IDEA only provides funds to cover the costs beyond the local, state, and federal funds spent to educate an IDEA-eligible child. Further, IDEA funds cannot be used to supplant other local, state, and federal funds already in place. State education agencies must expend IDEA funds provided to them on administering the IDEA grant or on monitoring, enforcement, mediation, and other state-level activities (e. g., training).
MDE has implemented fiscal policies to monitor local education agencies’ compliance with federal spending requirements. However, MDE’s current fiscal audits do not determine whether the local education agencies allocate funds in a manner that will best meet the students’ needs (e. g., the quality or appropriateness of the services provided to the students).
What is MDE’s role in ensuring that children with disabilities who are eligible for IDEA are identified and receive services?
MDE requires local education agencies to complete and submit annual Child Find reports. Local education agencies use these reports to track and report various output measures regarding their respective Child Find efforts, then MDE reviews these reports as part of its monitoring. Regarding the receipt of services, MDE’s review process for individualized education programs focuses on monitoring local education agencies’ compliance with IDEA mandates and regulations rather than on results and its dispute resolution process does not specify the issues or concerns that underlie each complaint.
IDEA includes the Child Find mandate, which requires all local education agencies to identify, locate, and evaluate children with disabilities. This requirement applies even if the local education agency is not providing special education services to the child. MDE uses various ways to announce that the state is providing educational opportunities to children with disabilities, including annual online publications and dissemination of brochures. Each local education agency must also conduct an annual Child Find publicity campaign.
IDEA requires the development of an individualized education program that outlines specially designed instruction necessary to allow each child with a disability to participate and progress in the same curriculum as all other children. IDEA requires that each IEP include certain information (e. g., annual performance goals) and states and local education agencies often include additional information for documentation purposes. Although MDE monitors local education agencies’ implementation of IEPs through a four-year compliance monitoring cycle, the department’s review is compliance-based rather than results-based.
The procedural safeguards in IDEA and the State Board of Education’s policy establish three major resolution options to handle complaints of alleged violations of special education law: formal state complaints, mediation, and due process hearings. However, MDE does not analyze complaint data in a manner that would allow the Office of Special Education to identify and target potential recurring complaint issues or problem districts. Also, PEER found that the information was documented by such broad terms that an external reviewer would not be able to determine how or why a district would need to implement a corrective action plan.
How does MDE ensure accountability in the implementation of IDEA Part B in Mississippi?
The current accountability structure for implementation of IDEA Part B, both nationally and in Mississippi, needs improvement. While MDE does maintain an annual performance report to track compliance and progress on selected performance measures on a statewide basis, currently no correlation can be made between how MDE tracks and monitors performance and whether funds are being allocated to IDEA students or programs in the most effective manner (e. g., performance in relation to a specific IDEA program goal, disability type, or educational placement setting).
IDEA Part B has historically been implemented with the primary focus on compliance with the requirements of IDEA, rather than on improving results for children with disabilities and balancing those results with compliance. However, MDE, under guidance of the U. S. Department of Education, is in the process of implementing a new enhanced performance framework entitled Results-Driven Accountability (RDA) that will place increased emphasis on student performance, especially reading performance for K-3. Even though the national trend is to use this enhanced performance framework, RDA’s performance measurability and impact are several years from full implementation, pending consistent data.
MDE maintains an annual performance report to track compliance and progress on selected performance measures on a statewide basis, not by IEPs. Therefore, no correlation can be made between how MDE tracks and monitors performance and whether funds are being allocated to IDEA students or programs in the most effective manner. By not capturing performance data in relation to a specific IDEA program goal, disability type, or educational placement setting, MDE cannot identify and implement best practices in providing special education services.
In June 2014, the U. S. Department of Education announced that it would shift the way it oversees the effectiveness of states’ special education programs in making each state’s annual determination under IDEA by changing its primary focus from compliance to a new framework known as Results-Driven Accountability, which focuses on improving results for children with disabilities while balancing those results with the compliance requirements of IDEA.
In implementing Results-Driven Accountability, MDE selected “increasing the percentage of third grade students with Specific Learning Disability and Language/Speech rulings in targeted districts who score proficient or higher on the regular statewide reading assessment to 75% by FFY 2018” as its IDEA focus area (i. e., state-identified measurable result) by which to measure educational results and functional outcomes in children with disabilities.
Summary Conclusion and Recommendations
MDE and the local education agencies should shift the focus of IDEA Part B program implementation from compliance to incorporate evaluation of performance. This position aligns with the recent shift toward a Results-Driven Accountability system that is being implemented at the federal level. Focusing on performance would also align with the Mississippi Legislature’s ongoing effort to revitalize performance budgeting, which requires increased accountability for the efficient and effective use of public resources.
1 A local education agency (LEA) is a public board of education or other public authority legally constituted within a state to either provide administrative control or direction of, or perform a service function for, public schools in a state, city, county, township, school district, or other political subdivision. A local education agency may provide, or employ professionals who provide, services to children included in IDEA, such as physical, occupational, and speech therapy. A school district is a local education agency but not all LEAs are school districts (e. g., Roger McMurtry Specialized Treatment Facility, Walnut Grove Correctional Facility).
2 Child Find is a continuous process of public awareness activities, screening, and evaluation designed to locate, identify, and evaluate children with disabilities who are in need of special education and related services.
3 Federal IDEA law grants states the flexibility to establish their own eligibility requirements regarding children with disabilities in order to be consistent with state law or practice. MISS. CODE ANN. § 37-23-1 (1972) mandates free appropriate public education services and equipment for exceptional children in the age range three through twenty for whom the regular school programs are not adequate. Therefore, IDEA eligibility in Mississippi includes children aged three through twenty instead of three through twenty-one.
4 An individualized education program (IEP) is a written document that is required for each child who is eligible to receive special education services and that is specially designed to direct the provision of services and supports in order to enable each child to be involved and make progress.