08. Being accountable

• what is involved in providing special education services and support
• what students are achieving as a result
• the impact such services and support are having on children and their families and whānau.

Accountability for Māori and Pasifika children, their families/whānau and communities is particularly important because there is evidence that Māori and Pasifika peoples may not be getting access to the special education services and support they need.

If stakeholders have good information they can make better decisions about what is in the best interests of the children involved and how existing special education funding can be spent to produce the best outcomes. Information may be at different levels, for example, reports on individual education programmes relate to individual students. Other reports, like the annual reports produced by schools and the Ministry of Education, relate to organisational performance. There is relatively little information collected and published that relates to the effectiveness of special education supports, such as the Special Education Grant.

However, producing such information means someone has to collect it, someone has to distribute it and look at it. All this comes at a cost to those involved. This means we need to get the balance right; a lot of information helps accountability but at a high cost. Less information, or information provided less often, is easier to produce, but may not be so helpful to stakeholders.

Information supports accountability

View a larger version of this image.

Information for parents and whānau

At the moment parents get information from schools regarding how well their children are progressing against their individual education programmes. They can also read each school’s annual report for an overall picture of how the school is performing.

The Education Review Office also produces reports on special education provision and on the performance of each school, so parents can get an overall picture of how a school is performing.

The introduction of National Standards, and the reporting related to them, will also mean that parents have more information on how their children are getting on compared to their peers and the National Standards.

Parents, caregivers and their children are critical stakeholders and we want to get your views on whether they are getting all the information they need, when they need it and how they need it.

Information for schools

Schools are also important stakeholders for the Ministry of Education because the Ministry makes decisions about the services and support provided to schools and students and because the Ministry provides schools and students with specialist services, such as speech-language therapy.

At the moment the Ministry of Education produces an annual report, but without much detail on the special education services it provides. There is also little information available on the services and supports that work best.

Some of this information can be provided through teacher education and whole-of‑school programmes, as discussed earlier, but more could be done. For example, the Ministry could publish research information on how to best use assistive technology. Information could also be made available on what some schools do to be successful so other schools can learn from this.

Question 7

How can families and schools be better informed?

Information on special education as a whole

In addition to accountability for individual students, there needs to be accountability for special education as a whole, for the entire investment Government makes in it to ensure that there is accountability within the sector and ultimately, to Parliament. At the moment there are some gaps in the information on performance.

In its 2009 report on Ministry of Education special education services, the Office of the Auditor-General recommended that the Ministry improve its information systems^xxi.

Information gaps were found in the following areas:

• services for students with moderate needs
• the support provided and the progress made by groups of students. While there is good information about individual students, there is no overall picture regarding groups of students because the information is hard to aggregate
• outcomes for all students. There is good information about the services and support provided to individual ORRS-funded students. However, there is not good information about the services and supports provided to students with moderate needs or on the outcomes for those students.

It is not known how much addressing these gaps would cost, but the cost of finding out more about students with moderate needs would fall largely onto schools. The cost of finding out more about groups of students and outcomes would fall largely to fundholders and the Ministry. In all cases the information would be most useful to disability advocacy groups, schools, fundholders, the Ministry and Government, rather than parents, caregivers and their children.

Question 8

What does successful special education look like and how should we measure it?

When things do not go well

Accountability arrangements are designed to ensure that the system runs smoothly and delivers good outcomes. It is also important that there are arrangements in place to deal with situations when things do not go well and particularly when parents, caregivers, their children, families and whānau feel that their concerns are not being heard or addressed.

At the moment, if people are concerned about the services and support available to students with special education needs, they talk to a child’s teacher, principal, school board, fundholder or the Ministry. If the issue is not resolved then there are a limited range of options for parents and their children.

There is already a formal process for considering concerns regarding access to the ORRS programme. However, there are options for improving the process for dealing with other complaints, which would strengthen accountability and improve how problems are resolved. The Ministry is already working on gathering and analysing data on the complaints that it receives from parents.

This could be supported by introducing an expanded formal process and ensuring parents and caregivers know about it if they need to use it. An expanded process could involve:

• improved advice for parents, caregivers and children on their rights
• appointment of an advocate for parents, caregivers and children to support them, if they want that
• advice for parents, caregivers and children on the steps in the complaints process
• investigation, mediation and resolution
• independent review of decisions if parents and caregivers want that.

Question 9

When things do not go well, what arrangements should be in place to resolve issues?