Disability Law Commons^™

The Rights Of Disabled Students, Derek W. Black, Robert A. Garda Jr., John E. Taylor, Emily Gold Waldman

Robert A. Garda

Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform situates case law in the broader education world by including edited versions of federal policy guidance, seminal law review articles, social science studies, and policy reports. It offers comprehensive coverage of education law while also focusing specifically on equality and civil rights issues. It includes individual chapters on each major area of inequality: race, poverty, gender, disability, homelessness, and language status. Those chapters are followed by a structured approach to the complex first amendment questions, dividing the first amendment into three different chapters and addressing, in order, freedom of expression and thought, religion in …

Disabled Students' Rights Of Access To Charter Schools Under The Idea, Section 504 And The Ada, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Charter schools are under increasing attack for denying admission to disabled students. But traditional schools also turn away disabled students, often preventing them from attending schools in their neighborhood or within their district. This Article discusses when a school is permitted under federal disability law to deny admission to a disabled student. After nearly four decades of special education jurisprudence and regulatory guidance, the circumstances under which a student with a disability may be denied admission to a particular school are still remarkably unclear. This Article first discusses the "zero-reject" principle underlying the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and concludes …

Culture Clash: Special Education In Charter Schools, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Charter schools and special education for disabled students are based on conflicting education reforms and agency oversight principles. Charter schools operate in a culture of regulatory freedom and flexibility. They arose out of the modern era of accountability reform, in which student outcomes are the primary measure of school success and the driving engine of agency oversight. In stark contrast, special education laws were conceived in the civil rights era of education reform, which emphasized process and paid little attention to outcomes. The education of disabled students is steeped in a culture of regulatory oversight focused on rigid compliance with …

Equitable And Adequate Funding For Special Needs Children In Louisiana, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Comprehensive and coordinated special education remains a major problem across public schools in Louisiana. One issue arises due to the fact that special education money in some districts is allotted at the district level instead of following students to the schools they attend, resulting in inconsistent support for schools serving students with multiple types of disabilities. Money is not allocated based on student needs and the neediest students do not receive the services the funding is intended to provide.

Louisiana Appleseed and the Louisiana Bar Foundation have recruited volunteer attorneys to: (1) research Louisiana Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) formulas and …

Who Is Eligible Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act?, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Determining who is eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) has plagued decision-makers for over three decades, leading to both over- and under-identification of eligible children and the disproportionate identification of minority students as disabled. The statutory requirements for finding a child IDEA-eligible appear straightforward: a child must have an enumerated disability that adversely affects educational performance and by reason thereof the child must need special education. Application of these provisions has proven problematic, however, and the authorities are divided as to what constitutes “educational performance,” when is it “adversely affected” by the disability, under what circumstances …

The New Idea: Shifting Educational Paradigms To Achieve Racial Equality In Special Education, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

African American students are being re-segregated in today's public schools by their disproportionate placement in special education classes for the disabled pursuant to the Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). At the same time, the overall number of children found disabled and entitled to special education under the Act has skyrocketed over the past decade, leaving special education classes with swollen roles and inadequate resources. Congress attempts to remedy this divisive dual eligibility crisis when it re-authorized the IDEA in 2004 by promoting an educational paradigm of individualized instruction in general education. The new IDEA seeks to "fix" special …

Untangling Eligibility Requirements Under The Individuals With Disabilities In Education Act, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Finding a child eligible for special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is one of the most important, if not the most important, decision that will be made in that child's life. Despite the importance of eligibility determinations the eligibility criteria of IDEA are intricately tangled and often misapplied by courts, hearing officers and inevitably parents and educators. The confusion surrounding eligibility standards leads to the disastrous results of both over-identification and under-identification of IDEA eligible children. This Article attempts to untangle the web of IDEA eligibility standards in order to determine who is entitled to its …