Schools Need Rules When It Comes To Students With Disabilities

By Nancy J. Zollers

The recognition and enforcement of fundamental rights to education for students with disabilities came late in this country's history. In the quarter of a century since, most educators and parents have assumed that the basic purposes of the original 1975 law granting these rights, PL 94-142, were fulfilled long ago. Specifically, they thought that, by law, public schools were prohibited from excluding children with disabilities; were required to make individualized educational plans available to them and provide due process to their parents; and would protect the most vulnerable children and those with the most severe disabilities.

Today, however, the practices of for-profit charter schools in my state of Massachusetts cast doubt on the disability-rights victory of a universal right to free and appropriate education. The practices are reminiscent of the days before the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and serve as a reminder of what schools may do to some families and students in a laissez-faire climate.

Charter schools would like to be schools without rules. For many of their developers, this is the key advantage—to build a school free of external mandates. Charter school proponents are critical of current public schools and the forces that drive them. They believe that without the traditional constraints of curriculum standards, hiring lists, and state mandates, they will be able to compete with and improve upon the rest of the public education system. As one founder of a charter school put it, when told of his obligations to comply with special education regulations, "I want our school to be judged as vigorously as possible on how well our kids do, perhaps even on...