How Massachusetts can make special education more equitable

These disparities don’t have to persist: Experts say there are steps the state can take to level the playing field, from expanding civil legal aid to strengthening the special education workforce.

Here are five options the state could pursue placements outside the district more just:

Dan Heffernan, an experienced attorney representing families with special education for the Newton-based company Kotin, Crabtree & Sterke LLPknows that more parents need his help – and that of his colleagues – than the company can provide, especially to those who cannot afford the hourly rates.

He wondered if the state could do more to make lawyers available to families with fewer financial resources.

One way to expand access to lawyers is through the state’s civil legal aid programs, which received $51 million in the 2025 budget.

Amy Dion is the senior supervising attorney for the education unit of Community legal aid of Central and Western Massachusetts. The lawyers in her unit do their best to meet demand, but that’s not always possible, Dion said, adding that additional government funding for civil legal aid would allow programs like hers to hire more staff.

“With more money we can help more people,” she says.

To prove that a child needs a private placement to get a good education, parents need evidence that their children’s school environment is failing them. That evidence often comes from extensive academic and neuropsychological testing.

If parents dispute a district’s test results, they have the right to request an independent educational evaluation, which can cost thousands of dollars.

These evaluations must be paid for by the district, depending on a family’s income level. However, lawyers and advocates told the Globe the state rate because such evaluations are not large enough, causing doctors to turn away needy families. For example, the hourly rate for a comprehensive neuropsychological examination is €1,15.67, with a maximum coverage of €2,780.88.

An increase in this rate would result in more children being evaluated – and faster, said Ashley Straker, supervising attorney for the Education Unit. Southeastern Massachusetts Justice Centeranother legal aid program.

“A lot of assessors don’t adhere to the state rate,” Straker said. “Right now we’re seeing six-month wait lists, and time passes and the student doesn’t get the services and support they need.”

Craig Horning, a father from Newton, founded in 2020 In addition to children’s readinga Needham-based nonprofit that helps families with struggling readers advocate for better services. The nonprofit hopes to empower parents early on with detailed neuropsychological and academic assessments they can take back to their children’s schools.

With such diagnostic information, schools should be better equipped to support the unique needs of individual children. For Horning, the method resembles proactive healthcare.

“In the long run, it’s going to save the state money,” he said.

It is often not enough to have the test results at hand. To influence districts’ decisions, many families find they must pay for evaluators to provide personal testimony on behalf of their children.

This costs even more money, with some neuropsychologists charging hundreds of dollars for an hour-long performance, for example. Straker said increasing access to experts is a matter of equity.

“If parents can get their own evaluator, they can level the playing field because districts already have their own experts,” she said.

The state has no data whether certain groups of students in Massachusetts disproportionately benefit from out-of-district placement settlements.

What little information exists suggests differences among federally protected groups. A 2014 state-commissioned report found that low-income students were five times less likely to be placed in private special education schools at public expense than their more privileged peers. In Massachusetts, as elsewhere in the United States, black and Latino students, including those still learning English, tend to come from lower-income households compared to their white and native English-speaking peers.

“Increased transparency is absolutely critical for us to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all students in Massachusetts and that we are not leaving any students behind,” said Pam Nourse, executive director of the Federation for Children with Special Needsa Boston-based organization that supports parents of special education students.

A spokesperson for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said the state is “committed to promoting equitable access to special education services for all students with disabilities” and “continues to work with districts, schools and families to address all barriers to this access to take away. , especially with regard to students’ race and family income.”

Experts say one area that needs to be addressed is special education staffing levels, both within public and private schools. There are simply not enough special educators, including teachers and therapists, to adequately serve Massachusetts students.

A new program in partnership with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development’s Division of Apprentices, which provides on-the-job training that allows participants to earn income while working toward their teaching license, will help the state expand its special education pipeline increase, according to the education department.

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Mandy McLaren can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @mandy_mclaren.