Feds say NC special education still needs improvement. What they say still isn't working

Special education services still aren't adequate in North Carolina’s public schools, according to a new federal report.

The report, conducted earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Education and noticed in June, is the latest to label state’s special education services as in need of assistance and oversight from the federal government — a designation the department has held several times over the past decade.

The assessment, which examined the 2024-25 school year, faults the state's public schools for several things:

• not evaluating students for a disability, and setting an individualized education plan (IEP) for them, if needed, in a timely manner (74%).
• students with disabilities performing worse on exams than the year before, especially students of color.
• not making individualized special education plans in time for preschoolers.
• inadequately preparing older students for life after high school.
• inadequately surveying families for satisfaction and former students for their post-school outcomes.
• not resolving all findings of noncompliance within a year.

Many are repeat concerns.

Families of and advocates for students with disabilities say it’s the result of underfunding, a scenario affecting more than 200,000 students in North Carolina.

"The system is under enormous strain," Christopher Roe, director of state policy at the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, told WRAL in an interview.

More students are being placed in special education each year as disability diagnoses rise and the awareness of certain disabilities rises, said Roe, whose national group advocates for students with disabilities.

In an email to WRAL News, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction attributed some struggles to that increase in referrals for disability evaluation, coinciding with an ongoing shortage of qualified special education staff.

“Vacancies in special education personnel can contribute to procedural violations with the implementation of the student’s individualized education program and timely initial evaluations,” the agency wrote. “The absence of licensed personnel contributes to local disputes regarding service delivery.” 

The new report and accompanying data fault many school districts, too.

The Wake County Public School System, for example, posted one of the lowest rates of evaluating children for special education in a timely manner, just 42.5%. The federal expectation is 100%.

Uncertain oversight

Congress required special education in 1975, when it passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The law ensures that children with disabilities can get a free and appropriate education, instead of being excluded from public schools entirely. At the time of the law’s passage, Congress promised it would cover 40% of the additional cost of educating those students, but federal funding levels have never come close to that. Congress has instead foisted even more of the funding responsibility on states, which then pass any costs they don't cover down to the local school systems. 

Congress required special education in 1975, when it passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The law ensures that children with disabilities can get a free and appropriate education, instead of being excluded from public schools entirely. At the time of the law’s passage, Congress promised it would cover 40% of the additional cost of educating those students, but federal funding levels have never come close to that. Congress has instead foisted even more of the funding responsibility on states, which then pass any costs they don't cover down to the local school systems. 

The result is families and advocacy groups spending decades complaining about underfunded special education and services that they believe fail to meet the standards outlined by IDEA.

"There's not enough resources, there's not enough qualified teachers," Roe said. "And we would argue there's just not been enough enforcement as well by the federal government, which is in charge of overseeing the states, and the states are then in charge of overseeing the local school districts."

The new federal report notes potential oversight of North Carolina schools.

Oversight could include requiring the state to access federal technical assistance, designating the state as "high-risk" when considering grant awards, or directing the state to set aside federal funding to address shortcomings. The U.S. Department of Education has directed the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to use federal technical assistance. 

Just what federal oversight might look like is getting murkier, Roe said, because Education Secretary Linda McMahon has announced plans to move special education oversight out of the federal education department and into the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Civil Rights, which investigates families’ allegations of special education failures, is destined for the U.S. Department of Justice.

"To my knowledge, that has yet to happen... we're still in very early days," Roe said, adding that it's unclear if the same employees would be in charge, just in a new building. He noted some on Capitol Hill are trying to stop the move because they believe only Congress has the ability to transfer the oversight authority of those programs.

Families file thousands of complaints every year with the Office of Civil Rights, trying to challenge how their schools or states are providing special education. That, and filing complaints with their state, are the main ways to ensure compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The federal assessment is one tool that highlights problems, though it doesn't necessarily lead to those problems being resolved quickly or at all.

Continued declines

The federal report found that the Wake County Public School System largely failed to promptly evaluate or even set IEPs for students who have been referred for special education testing, data shows. The district evaluated just 42.5% of those students within 90 days, which is the state-required timeline. It was one of the lowest rates in the state, in a category in which Wake consistently ranks toward the bottom statewide.

The school system didn’t respond to questions from WRAL News, first sent June 24, about the district’s performance in the report, including why that rate had dropped so low.

The federal expectation is to evaluate 100% of students within that timeline. The federal government also urges a 60-day timeline to evaluate students but permits North Carolina to set a 90-day window instead.

Statewide, just 74% of students referred for special education evaluation were evaluated within 90 days, lower than before the Covid-19 pandemic, when 84% of students were evaluated on time.

The lower statewide average is due in part to the performances of some of the state's most populous school districts: Wake, Charlotte-Mecklenburg (56.1%) and Cumberland (45.5%). Most North Carolina school districts had timely evaluation rates of 90% or higher.

Nationally, more children are being evaluated, Roe said. "There's more awareness by parents and families when a child may need to be evaluated,” he said. “It seems to be, though, that there's just not the resources there to get those evaluations done."

Some school districts continue to deny parents' requests for special education evaluations, telling parents to wait until they try another intervention first, Roe said. That's illegal. The federal government has long told school districts they can't do that, and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction found in 2020 that numerous school districts were not following that directive. Many districts have changed course, but some complaints have challenged whether everyone has.

Another major decline in North Carolina was in preparing students with disabilities for life after high school. All of them are supposed to have transition plans once they're 16 years old, and those plans are supposed to outline goals and how to achieve them. A sampling of school districts found that just 37.5% of special education students 16 and older had an adequate one, down from 94.7% in 2009.

In an email to WRAL News, the state Department of Public Instruction said the plans are likely still being created; they may just be missing a component or multiple components, causing the plans to not count as adequate.

Last year, advocates told WRAL News they believed teacher turnover was a major factor for the continued decline in that area and said they weren't surprised.

Training is a concern for special education experts and advocates like Roe, who say that decades of shortages in special education teachers and instructional assistants have only worsened. Many new special education teachers are career-switchers without any prior teaching experience or an education degree. 

North Carolina had 1,536 special education teaching jobs last fall that were either vacant or filled by something who didn't hold a special education license.

“Special education teachers and service providers are difficult to recruit and retain in public schools,” DPI said via email. “Many of our current force enter on alternative licenses. This requires extensive professional development and technical assistance to support the delivery of special education services statewide.” 

The state’s Office of Exceptional Children provides training and this past school year started a grant program for assistance that prioritized low-performing schools.

It’s also working with the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (CEEDAR) Center and teachers colleges to help teachers implement effective practices for working with children with disabilities.The CEEDAR Center works with teachers colleges and states to make sure students with disabilities are better prepared for college or career. It’s based out of the University of Florida.

Potential solutions

Better sharing resources across schools can help individual schools get more done for students with disabilities, Roe said.

He recommended that North Carolina adopt a weighted funding formula for children with special needs. That would provide more funding for students with severe disabilities, redistributed in part with less funding to students with less severe disabilities. It would still cost more overall, estimates have shown.

More states are moving toward that model, Roe said. 

Four different studies, commissioned by lawmakers over the past 30 years, have recommended a similar funding structure, but lawmakers haven't adopted one. Instead, the state has kept a flat amount per student that doesn't account for the severity of their disability. Many students have disabilities challenging enough to require a one-on-one aide, who could cost tens of thousands of dollars per year. Each student with a disability is instead funded for at least $5,000 per year under the state formula.

The new state budget, signed into law Tuesday, calls for another study on weighted student funding in general, not specific to special education.