AN ANALYSIS OF THE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES OF THE STATE EDUCATION PLANS RELATIVE TO THE SERVICES PROVIDED TO HANDICAPPED CHILDREN VOLUNTARILY ENROLLED IN NON-PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act denotes an attempt by Congress to encourage and support Civil Rights for the handicapped population. However, the establishment of law does not necessarily guarantee the implementation of guidelines and procedures. This study, therefore, reviewed federal mandates and judicial decisions to determine the explicitness of guidelines relative to those handicapped students voluntarily enrolled in non-public schools. Then the policies and procedures provided for that population in the 49 State Education Plans were analyzed to see if they were in compliance with the language of P.L. 94-142 and whether specific operational guidelines existed to implement that law.;The present study clearly illustrates a dearth of operational guidelines in the various State Education Plans for handicapped children and a maze of applicable and often overlapping federal policies related to the provision of appropriate special education services for handicapped children voluntarily enrolled in non-public schools. In order to increase the probability that these children will be served in accordance with the mandate of P.L. 94-142 the investigator recommends the development and utilization of an administrator's handbook similar to the preliminary draft included in Appendix E. The investigator also suggests modifications and additions to the State Plan Checklist currently used by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs.;A standard list of questions was developed which provided the data for a comparative analysis of the State Education Plans. States' responses were categorized by geographic regions of the country, but this analysis failed to identify any observable regional trends in regard to the provision of services.