Family & Community Special Communities
Special Education

Special Education Annual Report
December 1, 2002

Special Education Activities and Programs: (continued)

Alternate Assessment. With the goal that all publicly funded students participate in the MCAS test program or an alternate assessment, a total of 9,072 and 8,897 students with disabilities

participated in the Alternate Assessment Program for 2001 and 2002, respectively. The requirement of universal participation ensures that all students will have the opportunity to learn the material covered by the academic learning standards within the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks. Massachusetts has received recognition nationally for both the high degree of participation of students with disabilities and the strong commitment to high expectations for all students, including students with disabilities.

Personnel Development. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education uses several state and federal funded grants to strengthen partnerships with children-serving agencies, local school districts, parents, individuals with disabilities and their families, teachers, institutes of higher education and service organizations. One such existing partnership grant during the period under review is "Project FOCUS." The "Project FOCUS" grant guides statewide efforts toward ensuring qualified and informed special educators, general educators and parents in meeting the federal requirements for a Comprehensive System of Personnel Development (CSPD). During its third year, the four major partners - the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Federation for Children with Special Needs, the Institute for Community Inclusion/UMASS and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education - continue to build upon its cohesive network of programs. Selected initiatives include:

1. The Department sponsored 60 individuals from among 25 different school districts to participate in intensive training on the universal design for learning model provided by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST). Evaluations received from this training event identified the information and its usefulness at the district level as exemplary and immediately useful.
2. During the school year 2001-2, Project FOCUS made available a competitive grant program totaling over $250,000 called "Empowering Special Educators as Leaders." This grant program was aimed at teachers in special education programs working in cooperation with school personnel, families, agencies and institutions of higher education. 32 teacher-led teams received funding under this grant program. Reports from teacher-leaders indicated that this program was successful in mobilizing groups of stakeholders in making policy and program improvements in special education practices at the local level.
3. During the summer of 2002, Project FOCUS piloted a recruitment effort aimed at individuals seeking special education teacher certification and already approved to teach on a waiver (which requires annual coursework toward full certification). These individuals had at least one year of teaching experience (under the waiver) and were endorsed by the superintendent and special education director with whom they had worked. During the summer these eight individuals participated in intensive coursework and supervised practicum in inclusive settings and with the completion of coursework during the fall semester in 2002, these individuals are expected to complete all requirements for initial certification by the spring of 2003. Preliminary information has indicated this program was highly regarded and may serve as a model of an alternate route to certification.

Federally funded grant programs. The Office of Special Education Planning and Policy Development offers entitlement and discretionary grant programs to school districts, collaboratives, and approved private special education schools each year. The primary funding source for such programs is federal special education funds. In FY 2002, grant programs funded amounted to $145.7 million, an increase of almost $30 million over FY 2001. The 2003 planning for grants at this time is approximately $175 million.

Financial Information. The November report prepared for November 2001 reported that cost increases or savings would be calculated using FY99 and FY00 as the baseline years. It was anticipated that the "Circuit Breaker Law" would be in effect beginning July 2002.

As the economic situation in the Commonwealth became more stressed, the Governor and Legislature decided to delay the onset of the Circuit Breaker reimbursement program, which is now slated to begin as of July 2003. However, information from FY01 and an estimate for FY02 has been added to the financial information available for review. Data shows that although special education spending has increased, so has general education spending and the overall special education spending as a percent of the education budget has remained stable at about 21%.

Municipal Medicaid. Massachusetts's cities and towns have been participating in the Municipal Medicaid program as a means of maximizing federal dollars to Massachusetts. School districts participate in this program to generate funds based on services to students receiving special education. Federal revenues based on this program are returned directly to the municipality. A number of municipalities also share such revenue with the school district, and, therefore, this program has been a source of funding for some school districts. Since its inception in FY94 through FY02 this program has generated approximately $495 million for Massachusetts. In FY00, Medicaid claiming for Massachusetts was approximately $74 million dollars, in FY01 approximately $68 million and in FY02 it was approximately $95 million. Of approximately 375 districts, 329 (88%) districts participated in this revenue-maximization program.

Statewide Special Education Data: The tables and charts below show several dimensions of special education data. The presentations include the gender, age, types of disabilities, race/ethnicity and placements of special education students within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from the year 2000 to 2002. The Department does not have data on how many students are served out-of-state.

The following table highlights the change in the numbers and percentage of students with disabilities over the past three years.

Although the drop in both numbers and percentage from 2001 to 2002 is significant and represents a greater decrease than in any single year for the last 10 years at least, we caution that the data may not represent actual changes in the numbers of students served, but rather is representative of the use of an individual student data base for the first time in Massachusetts history. Use of a state-assigned student identifier number (SASID) ensures that there is no duplication in the count of students. In the past, it is probable that multiple cities and towns claimed individual students because, in many cases, programmatic and financial responsibility was shared among 2-3 districts, reflecting many students with divorced parents living in two different districts and also students in state custody living in districts separate from those districts in which the parents live. Use of a SASID made it possible to ensure that each student was only "counted" once. Therefore, it is not possible to attribute, in whole or in part, the decrease in the count of students with disabilities to changes in law or services.

The ratio of male to female students with disabilities remains stable over 2000 to 2002 with males representing approximately 65% of the population of students with disabilities.

The following table shows the various types of disabilities identified for students with disabilities in Massachusetts. The 2001 data is new information for Massachusetts since we have not required identification by type of disability until September 2000, and did not collect data by disability until the 2001-2002 school year.

Data for Massachusetts prior to the 2001 data reflect numbers of students by disability, but such information is limited in its utility. Prior to the 2001 data, the disability data were formula-driven (based on a formula developed in 1992) and responded to the federal requirement for reporting by disability, but did not represent an actual count of students by disability. This information is significant information for Massachusetts to gather and allows us to see that our numbers for Autism are also at a higher rate, similar to the national trend. Good information by type of disability will allow dedication of resources in the right places for specific purposes that may be unique to single types of disability.

This table providing numbers of students by type of disability shows some significant differences when the numbers are formula derived (2000) or derived from actual student data (2001). Note the "changes" in numbers for students who are Deaf-Blind, have Multiple Disabilities, or have Neurological Impairments. Simply by moving to actual information as opposed to the older formula, we suddenly see over 10,000 students characterized as Developmental Delay, a category that can only be used for young children up to 9 years of age.

Related Services
During the summer of 2000, statutory changes to Ch. 71B changed some of the eligibility requirements for special education. A new provision allowed students to be found eligible for special education if they (1) had a disability, (2) the disability was causal to an inability to make effective educational progress and (3) the student required either specially designed instruction or related services that were necessary to access the general curriculum. Under former requirements the third criteria had been that the student required special education, defined then solely as specially designed instruction. Former requirements only allowed the provision of related services if they were necessary for the student to benefit from the specially designed instruction. A need for related services only would not have resulted in a finding of eligibility prior to the summer of 2000. Upon the statutory change, the Department began to request that school districts identify when a student was receiving solely related services in order to access the general curriculum. This information was requested as a means of identifying the impact of this statutory change in eligibility requirements. FY 2001 is the first year where we have complete information on the numbers of students eligible under this provision as compared to students eligible under former provisions only. Of the 150,003 students eligible for special education, 5% (7,476) were identified as eligible using this new provision redefining special education.

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