Historically, state departments of education, or SEAs, have--for the most part--been compliance-focused organizations that managed federal education policy. Over the past several decades, these agencies have been education policy implementation entities. Today, while their compliance responsibilities have remained, they are taking on more…

This dissertation examined the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) noncompliance complaints filed against school districts in commonwealth states with noncompliance determinations. To achieve the intent of this study, a content analysis of IDEA noncompliance determinations made by the participating state…

The report--40% of which consists of appendixes--presents the state of Kentucky's 1980 plan for special education and related services for handicapped children: the annual program plan amendment for Part B of the Education of the Handicapped Act as amended by the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142). The plan documents…

This report profiles the state departments of education (SEAs) in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, and North Dakota. These SEAs reported in 1996 that they had changed from a departmental structure (e.g., separate units for special education), into cross-cutting teams in the previous five years. Findings indicate that since…

This study used state plans from 50 states to collect and analyze descriptive information on child count verification procedures used in implementing Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Content analysis suggests that verification procedures can be organized under five broad categories: on-site monitoring (used by 41 states),…