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Shortchanging Catholic school students on special education services

Raymond Flynn and Father Tom Olson

Friday, July 20, 2018Culture

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As if it's not bad enough that the Massachusetts Constitution still includes amendments rooted in the anti-Catholic bigotry of the 19th century, we now learn that the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is using the amendments to deny hundreds of millions of federal dollars' worth of special education services to students who attend private and religious schools.

To those of us who have advocated for special needs children and fought for the poor and needy in a state that prides itself on the prowess of its educational system, this is egregious.

Each year, the federal government allocates billions of dollars to states through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA.) For the current fiscal year, Massachusetts received $255.5 million.

States apportion the money to public school districts, each of which are supposed to determine the "proportionate share" of IDEA money that should be used to provide special education services to eligible private and religious school students with disabilities who attend private schools located within that school district.

Yet DESE has long flouted the law, apparently unaware that federal law supersedes state law if the two conflict. The department asserts that state and locally funded special education services to private school students are more generous than those provided to them under IDEA. It uses this blanket claim to argue that the special education needs of private school students in Massachusetts are being adequately met.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite the fact that IDEA permits services to be offered to private/religious school students onsite, these same students have no real option other than going to a public school in the town where they live to receive those services. Imagine a student living in Sharon who attends a private school in Brookline. The student would have to travel to receive services, meaning she or he would miss considerable school time and parents would have to take significant time off from work to transport him or her.

In 2007, the Parents Alliance for Catholic Education and the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston proposed amending state special education regulations to allow private and religious school students to receive services at their schools. The services would be delivered at a neutral location, defined as "any room or space on the grounds of private schools that are devoid of any religious symbolism." They even went so far as to recommend that the rooms be used exclusively for special education, but the Commonwealth still rejected the proposal.

A coalition of Catholic and Jewish schools then met with senior DESE officials over a two-year period, but the meetings yielded no change.

In 2017, a broader private school coalition filed a series of complaints with DESE's Problem Resolution System (PRS). The complaints demonstrated that as many as 16 percent of private school students may have qualified for federally funded special education services, but only about 1 percent were actually receiving them. PRS proposed no effective remedy.

Last fall, the coalition appealed to the U.S. Secretary of Education, claiming that over 12 years, between $96 million and $290 million of IDEA funds allocated to Massachusetts LEAs should have been used to serve private school students.

Let's hope the feds cut the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education down to size and end the reprehensible practice of denying federally funded special education services to the overwhelming majority of private school students who qualify for them. In this country, all children deserve an equal opportunity to attain a hope-filled future.

RAY FLYNN SERVED AS THE MAYOR OF BOSTON AND UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE VATICAN. FATHER TOM OLSON IS A PRIEST OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON AND CO-AUTHOR OF "NO IDEA: HOW MASSACHUSETTS BLOCKS FEDERAL SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING FOR PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOL STUDENTS."

- Raymond L. Flynn is the former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See and Mayor of Boston.