Editorial Staff

Public Statement on MA DESE Blocking Federal Funding to Religiously Affiliated Special Needs Students

/in , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

“[P]ublic school districts across Massachusetts and state education officials have violated federal law by denying services and government aid to students with disabilities who attend Catholic, Jewish, and other private schools.” That is the finding of the United States Department of Education, as reported in the October 15, 2019 edition of The Boston Globe.

More than a year before the Globe article, Pioneer released a study anticipating this finding. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) legal office has played a key role in denying students at religious schools services funded by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for more than a decade. The DESE’s legal office: (1) regulated in a flawed and arbitrary manner; (2) prevented between $96 million and $290 million from flowing to federally designated students; and (3) encouraged local school districts to underserve these religiously affiliated special education students.

However shocking the legal office’s role is in blocking federal IDEA funding from reaching special needs students, it is not unusual. Special education policy is one of the most unaccountable areas of K-12 education in Massachusetts. The DESE’s legal office has wide authority over special education law. Parents, district officials, lawmakers, advocates, reformers, and researchers alike have long been frustrated by the inability to obtain even basic information from DESE on special education services and policymaking.

Rhoda Schneider, the long-serving general counsel and senior associate commissioner, and her team have previously undermined the independence of the state’s school district accountability office. Her office has enabled DESE to avoid implementing key provisions of the landmark 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, including the law’s requirement that students pass a U.S. history MCAS test to graduate from a Massachusetts public high school.

The DESE’s legal office also played a central role in politicizing the Commonwealth’s once-independent charter school authorization process. In 2009, the department’s scandalous mishandling of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School approval process was investigated by the state Inspector General because of bureaucratic irregularities and legal obstruction, involving, once again, Ms. Schneider’s legal team.

As far back as the early 1990s, the department’s revolt-of-the-clerks culture, of which Ms. Schneider’s team was a key enabler, became so egregious that the Weld administration, with the full support of Massachusetts’ legislative leadership, went to the extraordinary length of restructuring and streamlining the state Board of Education to compel the department and its staff to fully implement and comply with key aspects of the 1993 law.

The DESE legal office has long perpetuated an unaccountable and legally questionable culture within the department. But the office’s actions regarding the IDEA and students with disabilities go well beyond bureaucratic maneuvering or maladministration. The DESE’s blocking of hundreds of millions of dollars in special education funding from reaching students in religiously affiliated schools exceeds mere scandal – it is a disgraceful violation of federal civil rights law.

Pioneer Institute requests that:

  1. The Governor, the Secretary of Education, and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education conduct an independent review with the goal of ensuring that all other federal funds, including Title I monies, have been appropriately allocated; and
  2. The Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education end Ms. Schneider’s decades of opposition to students and parents in nonpublic schools by removing her and, in so doing, conduct a thorough, independent examination of the department’s legal office.

Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts through civic discourse and intellectually rigorous, data-driven public policy solutions based on free market principles, individual liberty and responsibility, and the ideal of effective, limited and accountable government.

Get Updates on Our Education Research

Related Posts

Poll Finds Charter Schools Widely and Broadly Popular in Massachusetts

More than six years after the failure of a statewide ballot initiative that would have increased the number of charter public schools in Massachusetts, a poll shows that 62 percent either strongly or somewhat favor them, with only 16 percent opposed.

Study Urges Massachusetts to Embrace Innovative School Models

A new policy brief from Pioneer Institute urges Massachusetts policymakers to encourage the proliferation and progress of non-traditional models that offer families creative, flexible, personalized and low-cost private education options.

Poll Finds Strong Majority of Massachusetts Residents Support Restoring U.S. History MCAS Graduation Requirement

Sixty-two percent of Massachusetts residents support restoring passage of a U.S. history test as a public high school graduation requirement, according to a poll of Massachusetts residents’ attitudes toward education policy commissioned by Pioneer Institute and conducted by the Emerson College Polling Center.

Two Stars in a Glowing Voc-Tech Education System

“A Tale of Two City Schools: Worcester Tech and Putnam Academy Become Models for Recovery” is a new white paper by Pioneer Institute that analyzes how Worcester Tech and Putnam Academy — schools with high numbers of low-income and special needs students — leapt from the bottom of Massachusetts voc-tech rankings to become leaders among local schools.

Toolkit Highlights Keys to Massachusetts’s Vocational-Technical School Success

Alternating weeks of academic and vocational education, school autonomy, and close ties with local businesses have been key to the success of Massachusetts's  vocational-technical high schools, according to a report published today by Pioneer Institute.

Book Finds Massachusetts Voc-Tech Schools Are National Model, Calls for Expansion

Massachusetts vocational-technical schools -- boasting minuscule dropout rates, strong academic performance, and graduates prepared for careers or higher education -- should be expanded to meet growing demand, according to a new book published by Pioneer Institute.

METCO Works Well, Small Tweaks Could Make It Even Better, Study Says

The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO program, has successfully educated thousands of students for 56 years, but several minor changes could make it even better, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Pioneer Institute Statement on the Latest State Audit of the Boston Public Schools

The third review of the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in fewer than 20 years makes clear: Things are getting worse.  Graduation rates are down, achievement gaps are up, an unacceptably large percentage of students attend schools ranked in the lowest 10 percent statewide. In a cruel twist, more than three in five students still are not taught material on which they are tested. There remains no clear strategy for improvement.  

Study Finds Continued Growth in Education Tax-Credit Scholarship Programs

Education tax credits grew increasingly popular in 2021, with four more states enacting programs.  There are now 28 tax-credit scholarship (TCS) programs in 23 states, and they serve more than 325,000 students, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.