Students with disabilities deserve a higher standard from Delaware
We believe, as most Delawareans do, that we must strive to provide our schoolchildren with the best public education in America. Doing so is not only an economic imperative for our state, it is a moral imperative. If we want to ensure that what we tell our children – that they can do whatever they want if they have the talent and the will – then we must provide our kids with a great public education.
For too long in Delaware, however, we have had a standard for the education of children with disabilities that does not reflect our core beliefs about public education, and does not reflect what the federal government expects of us. That is why we have authored House Bill 328, which eliminates the artificially low educational standard that some Delaware school districts have had for children with disabilities.
The rights of children with disabilities are dictated by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act–the IDEA. Over fifteen years ago, a federal appeals court in the Midwest came up with a phrase when interpreting the IDEA that has become infamous among the parents of children with disabilities: the court said that students with disabilities were ‘not entitled to a Cadillac education, but instead were entitled to the educational equivalent of a serviceable Chevrolet.’
Those are the actual words of a federal court of appeals. And tragically, that language has seeped into the educational system in the State of Delaware. Even though it is not the law in this part of the country, the ‘serviceable Chevrolet’ language is what many Delaware parents who have children with disabilities face from their school districts and from the state appeal panels that hear parents’ grievances.
We believe it is completely unacceptable to tell the parents of most Delaware children that we want their kids to have the best public education in America, while telling the parents of children with disabilities that their kids will receive the educational equivalent of a serviceable Chevrolet. We have a moral and legal obligation to children with disabilities to provide them with a meaningful education.
What is required of us by federal law, and what House Bill 328 will require of Delaware schools and school districts, is that the education provided to a child with a disability provide significant learning to that child, and confer meaningful benefit on that child that is gauged to the child’s potential. That is what the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, has said that the IDEA guarantees for children with disabilities. It is also what’s right.
