Rethinking the Special Education Due Process System

The re-authorization of IDEA should have occurred in 2011, but the delay of ESEA and other critical education legislation has meant that advocacy groups are only beginning to introduce legislative fixes or policy recommendations in 2013. 

AASA has begun to compile recommendations for the next re-authorization of IDEA and Rethinking Special Education Due Process, the first report in a series that addresses problems with the current statute as well as proposed improvements.

Rethinking is intended to spark a thoughtful, new dialogue about the need for critical changes to the special education dispute resolution system. 

The report contends modifications to the current due process system could greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the burdensome and often costly litigation that does not necessarily ensure measurable educational gains for special education students.

At the same time, AASA’s proposal preserves the right for parents to move forward with litigation against a district and maintains other effective dispute resolution models that were put in place in the prior re-authorizations.