The Los Angeles Unified School District is trying to offer more special education services at public schools rather than paying to send students to more expensive private schools, but parents are fighting the change. District officials want to serve more special ed students in-house as a way to cut costs and also to comply with a federal consent decree requiring the district to accommodate more special ed students in regular classrooms instead of placing them in special schools and centers. Since superintendent Roy Romer began implementing the plan, the number of requests for special legal hearings to resolve disputes doubled to nearly 1,000 annually. Romer complains that some parents misinterpret the district's obligation under federal law to provide "a free and appropriate public education" to mean they can garner all the services they want for their children. "Parents fight changes in special ed," by David Pierson, Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2002.
