aasa-idea-report-2025-v3
This AASA policy report (2025) reviews the U.S. special education dispute-resolution system on IDEA’s 50th anniversary, arguing the existing due process framework has become increasingly adversarial, inequitable, and financially unsustainable. It synthesizes legal shifts (Endrew F. 2017; Perez v. Sturgis 2023; Loper Bright 2024; A.J.T. v. Osseo 2025), national dispute-resolution data showing large increases in complaints, mediations, and due process filings (2013–2023), and research on costs, delays, and equity gaps. The authors document harms to students, families, and school systems—higher litigation costs, educator burnout, geographic and socioeconomic disparities in access—and propose reforms: expand preventive/early-resolution mechanisms (IEP facilitation, pre-mediation review, data transparency), establish state expert-panel or consultant-driven resolution models, raise hearing-officer standards and oversight, require equity-focused data disaggregation, and reauthorize IDEA to codify modernization while preserving OCR/ADA/Section 504 backstops. The report frames reforms as rights-affirming and urges federal-state alignment and funding for pilots and CADRE expansion.
Questions this document answers
December 19, 2025
2004
Endrew F. v. Douglas County (2017); Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools (2023); Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024); A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools (2025)
Nearly 90%
From about 5,500 annually to nearly 10,000 in 2023 (≈79% increase)