Beyond shallow accountability for parent involvement: investigating the influence of general education participation and family characteristics on parent satisfaction with special education using national data
Date
2021
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Parent participation in special education is a substantial contributor to students’ academic, behavioral, and post-secondary success. Parents are considered instrumental in preserving the educational rights of their children with disabilities and parent participation in their children’s Individualized Education Programs (IEP) is protected by federal law. However, decades of research show that many parents are not satisfied with their inclusion in the IEP process, especially parents who have less social and cultural capital. Nationally representative samples from the 2016 and 2019 Parent and Family Involvement in Education surveys were analyzed using multinomial logistic regressions to determine if family characteristics predicted satisfaction with aspects of their children's special education. ☐ Findings generally reflect results from other research, with Black parents and parents with less education more likely to be satisfied with aspects of their children's special education, while parents of older children were less satisfied than parents of younger children. Parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to be dissatisfied with communication from the school. Diverging from other research, results showed that parents who worked more than full-time were more likely to be satisfied with their children's special needs teacher or therapist, and parents who were high income were more likely to be satisfied with communication from the school, the special needs teacher or therapist, and the school's ability to accommodate their children's special needs. Dissection of variations within families of children in special education contributes to a more thorough understanding of the phenomenon of exclusion from and frustration with the IEP process expressed in the literature, as these differences could signal embedded bias with the expectation and evaluation of parent participation in the IEP process. ☐ Additionally, parent participation and input are seen across the literature to be a significant predictor of satisfaction with their children’s special education. However, literature about parent satisfaction with the IEP process mainly focuses on parent participation related to special education practices, not general education. This research attempts to bridge the gap between the general and special education literature about parent participation by investigating the influences of parent participation in general education on parent satisfaction with special education using the same national datasets. Results show that parents who met with the guidance counselor and who participated in fundraising were more likely to be dissatisfied with most aspects of their children’s special education, while parents who attended a school event or volunteered were more likely to be satisfied with the school’s ability to accommodate their children’s special needs. Findings indicate a need for continued research about the experience of families across school environments. ☐ Policy implications are discussed, including more detailed accountability measures to ensure parents' participation is happening as expected for all families to safeguard the educational rights of children with disabilities. Research also points to the need for increased communication to families from school, particularly positive reports about child progress and invitations to parents to facilitate participation.
Description
Keywords
Disabilities, Education Policy, IEP Process, Parent Involvement, Parent Participation, Special Education