South Carolina

IDEA Money Watch has obtained the information submitted by the South Carolina Dept. of Education to the U.S. Dept. of Education regarding reduction to local spending (maintenance of effort or  MOE) and use of federal IDEA funds for Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) for each school district for the 2009 fiscal year. Get South Carolina information here. (PDF,  15 pgs).

This information is important because it indicates if school districts reduced local spending in light of IDEA Recovery Act funds in FY 2009. IDEA does not require that local districts replace these funds when the Recovery funds run out, putting services for students with disabilities at risk.

In a letter dated June 17, 2011, the U.S. Dept. of Education (ED) informed the South Carolina Dept. of Education that it would not grant a waiver for a reduction in state financial aid to local districts for the 2010 and 2011 school years. ED did grant a waiver for the 2009 school year.

South Carolina must now restore the amount of state aid — If the state doesn’t allocate appropriate funds,

OSEP may withhold $75 million in special ed funds it should have spent this year as well as an extra $36 million it should have spent in FY 2010 — for a total of $111 million. The response letter is here.

IDEA Money Watch comments: We are pleased to see this response from OSEP! As OSEP announced its “Process and Criteria Used to Evaluate a Request by States to Waive Maintenance of Effort (MOE) Requirements under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)“ among the criteria for deciding on waiver requests is:

“The state’s compliance and performance record in implementing Part B of IDEA—the nature and length of any noncompliance, data in its state Performance Plan and Annual Performance Report, including data on performance and compliance indicators, the state’s determination under Section 616 of IDEA, whether there are outstanding findings of noncompliance, whether corrective actions are underway, and whether the department has placed special conditions on the state’s Part B grant award.”

South Carolina has received four consecutive “Needs Assistance” ratings from US ED on its implementation of IDEA as measured by its State Performance Plan and Annual Performance Report (All APR reports and OSEP responses are available here.). States that fail to comply with the most basic requirements of IDEA should not be granted waivers for MOE reductions.

For more information on SC’s performance see the Special Education Scorecard provided by the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

GREENVILLE — Thursday, May 28, 2009
“South Carolina Superintendent of Education Jim Rex said Thursday that he will ask the United States Department of Education for an exception in mid-June if courts do not rule by then on lawsuits involving stimulus money… South Carolina is slated to receive more than $25 billion in Title 1 and other special education funds through the federal stimulus package. This money is apart from the $700 million at the center of the court battle.” Full story here.

IDEAmoneywatch RESPONDS: Seems to us that $700 million is hardly worth arguing over! Meanwhile, the article reports that IDEA funds are “being put in school district budgets to help save jobs in Title One and IDEA programs.” Of course, IDEA funds can’t be used to save Title I jobs, and shouldn’t be used to save special education jobs that were previously paid with local funds – that’s called “supplanting” … Maybe the story has the details confused, or maybe not…

Here’s a tragic story from a local South Carolina paper … one that most certainly is repeated a thousand times across the state and the country ….
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/may/03/ridge80910/

And here is a look at Charleston County school district’s performance:

The district has failed to achieve adequate yearly progress as required by NCLB for four consecutive years.

According to the 2008 District Report Card:

• 60% of students with IEPs are below basic in READING (only 15% are proficient or advanced vs. a state objective of 46%

• 57% of students with IEPs are below basic in MATH (only 15% are proficient or advanced vs. a state objective of 43%)

• Yet only 5.6% of classes are not taught by “highly qualified” teachers (seems hard to believe!)

• The district received a growth rating in 2008 of EXCELLENT because of substantial improvement in the achievement of students belonging to historically underachieving groups of students.

Source: http://ed.sc.gov/topics/researchandstats/schoolreportcard/2008/district/Comprehensive/D1001999.pdf

According to the latest Annual Performance Report data (2005-2006, the latest available special education data!)

• Just 32% of students with IEPs earn a regular high school diploma

Source: http://ed.sc.gov/agency/Standards-and-Learning/Exceptional-Children/old/ec/documents/Charleston.pdf

Charleston County is the second largest district in the state. The district will receive approximately $12,592,000 in IDEA Part B funds from the Recovery Act.

South Carolina will receive $173,239,745 to improve services to its 93,259 students with disabilities.

We’ll be reporting on how South Carolina’s local school districts are using these funds.

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