Archer Report - temporary version


Access and Equity in the Due Process System:

Attorney Representation and Hearing Outcomes in Illinois, 1997-2002*

Melanie Archer, Ph.D.
December 2002
*Copyright 2002 by Melanie Archer. Due process decisions in Illinois are publicly
available on the Illinois State Board of Education website (www.isbe.state.il.us). The
determination of whether a parent or district prevailed in a hearing is based on the
judgment of those who collected the data for this study. I would like to thank Charles Fox
for giving me the opportunity to work on this project. Michael O’Connor provided many
useful suggestions regarding this research as well as access to information about the due
process system in Illinois and nationally. Matthew D. Cohen, Charles Fox, Jennifer
Bollero, Jeri Cohen, Rob Cohen, Doug Dobmeyer, Sara Mauk, Michael O’Connor, Teri
Rymer, Mary Schwartz, Frank Stepnowski, Courtney Stillman, Charles Stone, Wallace
Winter, and Debra Wysong participated in the data collection for this study and offered
helpful suggestions and support throughout this research. Bobbie Reguly at ISBE
provided timely assistance with questions regarding due process hearings in Illinois. Any
errors are the responsibility of the author and those who collected the data for this study.
Please direct questions or comments to [email protected].

Access and Equity in the Due Process System:

Attorney Representation and Hearing Outcomes in Illinois, 1997-2002

Abstract

The President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education Report
characterizes special education as an adversarial, compliance-driven process in which
litigation is routine and parents and their attorneys dominate through strategic use of
IDEA’s procedural safeguards, including the due process system. Even so, there has been
little empirical study of the due process system to date. This study examines due process
hearings in Illinois between July 1997 and June 2002.
The empirical study of due process hearings suggests that there is substantial
inequality between parents and school districts in their ability to obtain attorney
representation and likelihood of prevailing in a hearing. Between July 1997 and June
2002, twenty hearing officers decided in favor of school districts in about 70% of all
hearings. School districts won the vast majority of all cases they brought to a hearing and
were represented by attorneys 94% of the time, compared to 44% for parents.
Access to attorney representation is a critical determinant of equity for parents
within the due process system. Overall, attorney representation for parents equalizes their
chances of prevailing in a hearing with those of school districts. This suggests that policy
proposals that would impact parents’ ability to obtain attorney representation in due
process matters will affect access to, and equity within, the due process system as a whole.
1

Access and Equity in the Due Process System:

Attorney Representation and Hearing Outcomes in Illinois, 1997-2002
The President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education Report (U.S.
Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, 2002)
characterizes the special education system as adversarial in nature and discusses the
damaging effects of real and potential litigation on special education outcomes. The
President’s Commission Report was created as a guide to Congress’s impending
reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C.A.
§ 1400). The President’s Commission states that:
Numerous parents, teachers and school administrators complained during
the Commission’s public sessions about the excessive focus on due
process hearings and litigation over special education disputes. Disputes
of all sorts divert parent and school time and money, and waste valuable
resources and energy that could otherwise be used to educate children with
disabilities . . . .
These threats create an adversarial atmosphere that severely limits the
ability of parents and schools to cooperate . . .. The threat of litigation
alone has costs for teachers, students and taxpayers . . .. these costs and the
dissatisfaction with the system merit serious reform (U.S. Department of
Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, 2002,
p. 40).
The President’s Commission Report’s frequent references to conflict and
litigation suggests an image of the IEP meeting as typically attended by parents with
attorneys at their side, demanding expensive programs and services and bullying schools
into providing them. According to one school administrator, the Individualized
Education Program (IEP) has become a "litigation document (p.16)." "The original
concept of IEPs as an instructional framework for a defined period of a child’s education
has been lost to the greater need to document legal and procedural compliance (pp.16-
17).’’
The President’s Commission Report repeatedly asserts that these trends must be
curbed. Among the Report’s recommendations is the creation of voluntary binding
arbitration systems under IDEA through which parents and schools would waive - "with
full knowledge of the consequences - their right to further procedural protections and
appeals in the IDEA due process system (p. 41)."
2
But while the President’s Commission Report offers some generalizations
regarding the roles of parents and schools within the special education system, it does not
provide a detailed discussion of why the enforcement of compliance and access to
procedural safeguards are so important to ensuring disabled students’ educational rights.
According to the National Council on Disability (NCD), there is pervasive
noncompliance with IDEA across state and local educational agencies throughout the
U.S. The NCD report "Back to School on Civil Rights" - a comprehensive assessment
of IDEA compliance - concludes that "failure to ensure compliance with IDEA is
widespread and persists over time. While noncompliance is regularly documented by the
Department of Education, sanctions have rarely been used (2000)."
Why has this noncompliance persisted in spite of the creation of laws and
regulations to govern special education? What the President’s Commission and other
analysts have not fully taken into account is the inequality in the roles of parents and
schools within the special education system, the differential resources they are able to
bring to disagreements, and the effects of this inequality on special education
decisionmaking.
Due Process Hearings in Illinois, 1997-2002
While the President’s Commission Report reaches broad conclusions about the
adversarial nature of special education, the "culture of compliance," and the need to
reduce conflict, it also identifies the "collection and analysis of data on due process and
dispute resolution" as one area in which basic research is needed (2002, p. 67). A "due
process hearing" is an administrative hearing before an impartial hearing officer that
parents or school districts may elect when a special education dispute cannot be resolved
between the parties. It is an essential procedural safeguard created under IDEA, the
outcome of which may be appealed by either party to the court system.
This study looks at the experience of parents and school districts in the due
process system in Illinois, and examines factors that affect which party prevails in a
hearing. The data for this study consists of 343 due process hearings that were decided in
Illinois between July 1997 and June 2002.1 These data were collected a group of
attorneys interested in special education issues and the author, and comprise all of the due
process hearings in which decisions were issued during this time period.2 Each hearing
decision was reviewed in either full report or summary format. 3 Data items collected for
each report included: the name of the hearing officer, the school year in which the
decision was issued,4 whether a parent or school district requested the hearing, the major
issues in the case, whether a decision was issued or the case was dismissed, the prevailing
party, and whether the parties had attorney representation.
3
The primary data analysis technique employed in this study is the analysis of
frequency tables with the chi-square statistic for testing statistical significance. A
multivariate statistical analysis was also performed to predict the likelihood of a parental
win vs. loss in a due process hearing as the result of multiple factors including hearing
officer, case characteristics, access to attorney representation, and school year.
A key element in this research is the determination of the prevailing party in a
hearing. The designation of the prevailing party – parent or school district - is based on
the findings and remedies indicated in the due process reports. For example, the
following report indicates a decision in favor of a school district:
the hearing officer ruled that the placement proposed by the school district
complied with IDEA. The hearing officer declined to issue any of the
findings or grant any of the relief requested by the parents (ISBE Hearing
No. 6).
As defined here, a parental "win" means that the parent substantially prevailed on
at least one, but not necessarily all, of the major issues in a case. In the following
example, the parent was designated as the prevailing party even though the school district
also won on at least one major issue:
The parents requested the hearing stating that the school district failed to
provide a FAPE for the student. The school district failed to conduct a
case study evaluation as requested by the parents. The parents sought an
independent evaluation and two and a half years later placed the student in
a private specialized school . . . . The hearing officer ordered the district to
reimburse the parents for the evaluations undertaken on the student's
behalf. The district was further ordered to conduct a comprehensive case
study evaluation and determine eligibility for services and programs.
Reimbursement for tuition and transportation was denied (ISBE Hearing
No. 383).
Is Special Education in Illinois an "Adversarial Process"?
The 1997 amendments to IDEA were intended to make parents equal participants
in the process of developing Individualized Educational Plans and to put them on an even
footing with members of their children’s school teams—teachers, case managers, speech
4
therapists, and so forth. While this was meant to ensure that their special knowledge of
their child’s disability would be taken into account in the design of special education
programs, it also created the potential for disagreement and conflict.
But is special education accurately characterized as an increasingly or primarily
adversarial process? Table I shows data from the Illinois State Board of Education
(ISBE) on the number of requests for due process hearings and the number of hearing
decisions in Illinois, 1997 to 2002.5 It appears from ISBE’s statistics that the number of
hearing requests and decisions has remained relatively constant over the last five years.
The number of hearing decisions issued during this period varied from year to year by a
maximum of only 13 decisions.
These are extremely small numbers relative to the overall population of special
education students in Illinois. For example, during the 2000-2001 school year, there were
296,095 children in Illinois between the ages of 3 and 21 years receiving Part B services
under IDEA (Office of Special Education Programs, Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services).6 According to the Illinois State Board of Education, during
2000-2001 there were 485 requests for due process hearings. These requests represent
0.16 percent – less than two-tenths of a percent – of students receiving Part B services
under the IDEA during that year. Another way of stating this is that only about 1 in
every 610 children and families were involved in the due process hearing system in any
way during this time period.
Because many due process requests are settled or withdrawn, during 2000-2001
there were only actual 66 hearings in which a decision was issued according to ISBE.
One may conclude from this that a due process hearing that goes forward is a fairly rare
event: there was only about 1 hearing for every 4,486 families with children being served
in Illinois under IDEA Part B, 3 to 21 years of age.
But even more unusual is when a parent is the prevailing party in a hearing.
According to data for collected in this study, 16 families won due process hearings during
the 2000-2001 school year. This represents 1 in 18,506 families with children in the
special education system.
Access and Equity in the Due Process System
In Illinois there is substantial inequality between parents and school districts in
their access to the due process system, ability to obtain representation by an attorney, and
in their likelihood of prevailing when a hearing does occur. On average, parents are
significantly less likely than school districts to win a due process hearing conducted by an
5
impartial hearing officer. Between July 1997 and June 2002, parents won 30.5%, less
than one-third, of all due process hearings in which a decision was issued (see Table 2).
School districts prevailed in due process hearings 69.5% of the time during these years.
There were some hearing officers who made no hearing decisions favorable to
parents during the time period of this study. Figures 1 shows the percentage of hearings
decided for parents and school districts by hearing officer for all cases in which a
decision was issued, July 1997 to June 2002.7
There were 20 impartial hearing officers who issued 4 or more decisions during
this time period. The number of decisions made by hearing officers during this time
ranges from 4 to 28. It should be noted that these data include only cases in which
decisions were issued within this specific time frame, and do not reflect the record of
hearing officers in due process cases that were settled or dismissed.
Figure 1 shows that 9 hearing officers decided cases more often than average for
parents (that is, more than 30.5% of their decisions were in favor of parents), while 11
hearing officers decided more often than average for schools (more than 69.5% of their
decisions were in favor of school districts).
Among hearing officers who decided more often than average for parents, the
percentage of decisions for parents ranges from 33.0% to 73.0% percent. Among the
hearing officers who decided more often than average for school districts, the percentage
of decisions made for school districts ranges from 71.0% to 100.0%. Figure 1 shows that
there are 7 hearing officers in Illinois who made 80.0% or more of their hearing decisions
in favor of school districts during this time period.
Hearings Requested by School Districts
School districts use the due process hearing system to assess the need for, arrange
for the provision of, or change special education services for students when parents do
not give permission for, do not participate in, or do not agree with their children’s
evaluation, reevaluation, or placement. School districts often file single-issue cases or
those which are fairly narrowly defined, for example, to obtain consent to conduct a case
study evaluation or for the initial placement of a child in a special education classroom.
But even though many of these cases are narrower than those typically brought by
parents, they have a potentially major impact on the educational opportunity of students
with disabilities given that they often involved obtaining access to, or remaining in, the
special education system.
6
An example of this is when a school seeks to change the placement of a special
education student, for example, by moving the student from a less restrictive to a more
restrictive environment. In one case
the hearing was requested by the district because they believed that the
student needed a more structured setting (therapeutic day school) in order
to control and modify his behavior. The parents contended that the
district had violated the students rights with regard to the student’s
classification from autistic, to autistic-like to autistic-like/EDB. The
parents believed that the proposed therapeutic day school was too
restrictive and that he should be placed as close to home as possible . . . .
The hearing officer found that the district’s proposed placement in a
therapeutic day school was appropriate, found no violations with regard to
the suspension and found no violation with regard to the student’s
classification (ISBE Hearing No. 89).
School districts requested 28.1% of all of the hearings in which a decision was
issued (see Table 2). Table 2 shows that the number of hearings requested by school
districts has fluctuated over the years, but appears to be increasing.
School districts have also been winning an increasing proportion of all hearings
since about 1998. According to Figure 2, over the last four years school districts have
been increasingly likely to prevail in hearings relative to parents. During the 1998-1999
school year, parents prevailed in 38.3% of cases, but this dropped to 20.0% in 2001-2002.
This trend most likely reflects such factors as the changing mix of hearing officers
deciding cases, the increasing number of hearings requested by school districts, and
perhaps other factors as well.
When school districts are the requesting party in a hearing, they are
overwhelmingly likely to prevail. School districts won 91.2% of the cases they brought to
a hearing. Figure 3 shows prevailing party by school year and is broken down by the
party who requested the hearing. This figure shows that between 1998 and 2002, parents
have had almost no chance of winning a hearing brought by a school district. For three
years in a row - school years 1999 to 2001 - parents won none of these cases.
Hearings Requested by Parents
When a parent rather than a school district initiates a hearing, the parent is more
likely to prevail – but still less than half of the time. Figure 3 shows that parents
7
prevailed in 39.0% of the cases they brought between July 1997 and June 2002,
compared to 61.0% for school districts. Again, these data suggest an increasing
divergence in parents’ and school districts’ likelihood of winning over time: parents won
46.2% of the cases they brought in 1998-1999, compared to 30.6% in 2001-2002.
Parents most often brought placement cases, but they also brought other types of
cases, such as those concerning the provision of "a free and appropriate public education
(‘FAPE’)," content and implementation of the Individualized Educational Plan, eligibility
for special education, and access to related services. Typical cases in Illinois included
those in which parents sought a variety of placements, including placements in local
neighborhood schools as well as private and residential placements.
Attorney Representation and Due Process Outcomes
Representation by an attorney is the most important single predictor examined
here of whether a parent will win or lose a due process hearing. School districts have
attorney representation more than twice as frequently as parents. Figure 4 shows that in
94.0% of all hearings, school districts were represented by attorneys. Parents had
attorney representation only about 44.0% of the time. Thus, in about half of all due
process hearings, attorneys represented school districts while parents were not
represented. In such circumstances, parents are significantly more likely to lose.
Figure 5 shows the effect of attorney representation on the outcomes of due
process hearings for 276 cases in which hearing decisions were made and information
about attorney representation for both parties is known. This figure shows that access to
attorney representation by parents significantly increases their chances of winning a due
process hearing: 50.4% of parents with attorney representation won due process
hearings, compared to only 16.8% of those without attorney representation. This finding
is statistically significant.8
This suggests that attorney representation equalizes parents’ chances of prevailing
with those of school districts. Attorney representation does not give parents an overall
advantage in the hearing system, but puts them on a more even footing with school
districts. If parents are not represented, however, school districts are on average 5 times
more likely than parents to prevail.
Figure 6 again shows the impact of attorney representation on hearing outcome,
this time broken down by whether a parent or school district requested the hearing. As
was previously shown, parents are more likely to prevail in a hearing when they have
8
brought the case. Access to attorney representation increases parents’ likelihood of
prevailing regardless of whether the parent or district requested the hearing: however,
this effect is greater if the parent requested the hearing. Parents actually won more cases
than they lost if they both requested the hearing and were represented by an attorney. If a
parent requested the hearing but was not represented by an attorney, the school district
was 3.3 times more likely than the parent to prevail.
Finally, Table 3 presents a multivariate statistical analysis of the effects of
attorney representation, hearing officer, case characteristics, and school year on parents’
likelihood of winning a due process hearing. This equation allows a look at how several
factors impact a hearing outcome and an assessment of their relative influence. Logistic
regression is used here for the prediction of the binary outcome of whether a parent won
or lost a due process hearing.
Table 3 shows that factors that significantly increased a parent’s chance of
winning a hearing are: (1) if the parent had attorney representation, (2) if the parent
requested the hearing, (3) if a hearing officer was assigned who makes decisions for
parents more often than the average hearing officer, (4) if the hearing included a broad
range of issues rather than a single, narrow issue; and, (5) the earlier in time that the
hearing took place during the school years 1998 to 2002.
Conversely, factors which significantly increased a school district’s chance of
winning are: (1) if the parent was not represented by an attorney; (2) if the school district
requested the hearing, (3) if a hearing officer was assigned who makes decisions for
school districts more often than the average hearing officer, (4) if the hearing was
focused on a single, narrow issue; and, (5) the later in time that the hearing took place
during the school years 1998 to 2002.
Of course, not all of the relevant factors that impact hearing outcomes are
measured here, nor are they necessarily under the control of the hearing participants. Of
special note in the regard is the effect of time, measured here in terms of school years.
Figure 2 showed the negative trend over time in parents’ chances of winning a hearing
and the notable drop in the percentage of cases won by parents in the 2002 school year.
Table 3 measures the average effect on hearing outcome of moving forward 1 school year
in time beginning in July 1997, while holding constant the other factors measured in the
equation. The average effect of one year in time on hearing outcome is negative and
significant: the further forward in time from July 1997 that a hearing occurred, the less
likely the parent was to have won.
The significant effect of the year in which a hearing occurred on the prevailing
party suggests that even when the effects of attorney representation, case characteristics,
9
and hearing officer are controlled, there may be other factors that have changed over time
and affected equity within the due process system.
Conclusion
The right to a due process hearing is a fundamental procedural safeguard created
under IDEA and a central protection of the educational rights of children with disabilities.
This research suggests that more attention should be given to the unequal resources of
participants within the due process system, and within special education more generally,
and how these help to shape educational opportunity for children with disabilities. In the
due process system in Illinois, the majority of hearing officers’ decisions are made in
favor of school districts. This reflects, among other things, schools’ greater access to
attorney representation relative to parents. When parents do have attorney representation,
their chances of prevailing in a due process hearing are equalized with those of school
districts. These findings suggest that those concerned with the reauthorization of IDEA
give careful assessment to policy proposals that would reduce the current focus on IDEA
compliance, limit procedural safeguards, and reduce parental participation and access to
attorney representation within the special education system.
10
Footnotes
1Summaries of due process hearings in Illinois are available on the Illinois State
Board of Education (ISBE) website (www.isbe.state.il.us). The full hearing reports may
be obtained by contacting ISBE.
2This study analyzes due process hearings for the most recent 5 school years.
ISBE has recently made public an additional 26 case summaries for the period July-
October 2002, representing the first quarter of the 2003 school year. These cases are also
available on the ISBE website.
3The full report format contains the complete text of a hearing officer decision.
The summary report format is an abstract that provides key information about the case.
4
ISBE does not include in its case summaries either the date that a hearing request
was filed or the date a decision was issued. However, ISBE does group the cases into
ranges of months on its website (for example, all decisions issued between July 1, 2000
to October 31, 2000 are grouped together). ISBE’s groupings by month were used to
create a measure of school year for this analysis. These groupings were not of a
consistent length during the time period examined here, but allowed rough groupings into
school years as follows: July 1, 1997–July 15, 1998, July 15, 1998–June 1, 1999, June 1,
1999–June 30, 2000, July 1, 2000–June 30, 2001, July 1, 2001–June 30, 2002. Thus, it
should be noted that the 1998-1999 school year contains 10 and one-half months of data
while 1999-2000 contains 13 months. The number of cases in the earlier years is not
precise, but does allow for the examination of general trends over time.
An advantage of using school year as the unit to measure time is that it accounts
for any ‘seasonality’ that might occur in the number and type of due process hearings
filed throughout a school year. For example, schools may tend to bring more cases in the
fall and spring if they concern eligibility, evaluations, etc., while parents may bring most
of the cases during the summer months. Measuring time in school years allows a picture
of what occurs "on average" during a school year.
5
Evaluation of the Illinois Due Process Procedures, January 1 2001 – December
31, 2001, ISBE, August, 2002; personal communication to Michael O’Connor from
Bobbie Reguly, ISBE. It should be noted that ISBE’s statistical reports present data by
school year, but do not necessarily correspond to the way the data is grouped on the
website. This makes it difficult to precisely reproduce the numbers in the statistical
reports from the groupings of cases on the website.
6It can be estimated that students receiving Part B services under IDEA comprise
about 12.5 percent of all children enrolled in school in Illinois between the ages of 6 to
17. These and other state-level special education statistics are available at
www.IDEAdata.org.
7The names of the hearing officers have been removed from this table, although
this information is publicly available on the ISBE website. To obtain information on the
11
decision record of any individual hearing officer, one can go to the case summaries,
search for the name of the hearing officer for the dates of interest, and count the number
of decisions made for parents and school districts. One can then calculate the percentage
of decisions made for each group (ignoring cases in which no decision was made because
the case was dismissed, settled or withdrawn).
8 Chi-square = 34.108, d.f. = 1, p < .0001. The chi-square statistic indicates that
the probability is less than 1 in 10,000 that this relationship in the data would have been
found randomly, or is a ‘fluke.’ This statistic strongly supports the conclusion that the
relationship between attorney representation and due process outcomes exists within the
population examined here.
12
References
Illinois State Board of Education. Evaluation of the Illinois Due Process Procedures,
January 1 2001 – December 31, 2001, August 2002.
National Council on Disability, Back to School on Civil Rights, 2000.
U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, A
New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families, Washington,
D.C., 2002
13
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1