Epic Notes · Special Education Boss

Where Are All the Special Education Attorneys? A Straight-Talk Conversation with Diane Dragan

There are millions of children in this country with an IEP. And by attorney Diane Dragan's count, maybe a thousand lawyers nationwide are willing to take these cases to court. Read that again.

This week I sat down with Diane Dragan — special education attorney, founder of Dragan Law Firm in St. Louis, and host of the Litigating Literacy podcast. Diane didn't plan to do this work. She was a federal public defender until her own three children were diagnosed with dyslexia and she hit the same wall every parent hits: "Your diagnosis means nothing. He's doing good enough." So she did what almost no one does — she became the attorney she couldn't find.

Here's what came out of the conversation. Because you don't know what you don't know — but you need to.

1. There aren't enough special education attorneys — and it's not a mystery why

Under IDEA, there are no damages in a due process case. Families often can't afford hour-for-hour representation, and a single case can take 200-plus hours. In some states, the parent win rate is in the low double digits or lower, and an attorney only recovers fees if the family prevails. On top of that, parents usually need two or three experts — that's thousands of dollars before you ever count attorney time. As Diane put it, the people who need these lawyers the most are the very people who can least afford them.

This is why so many families feel like the system was built to exhaust them before they can ever hold it accountable. It's not in your head.

2. The reading crisis is a training crisis

Somewhere along the way, teacher-prep programs traded systematic, explicit phonics for the idea that children learn to read by osmosis — the "just right book," the cozy reading nook, "loving kids to literacy." Diane doesn't mince words about it, and neither will I: reading to a child does not cure dyslexia. Roughly 40% or more of all kids need explicit, systematic instruction to learn to read. Call it "drill and kill" if you want. It works. What doesn't work is pretending otherwise.

The teachers who had strong training are retiring. Many buildings are now staffed almost entirely by educators trained in approaches that were never going to get struggling readers there — through no fault of their own.

3. Educators are sent in as generalists

Special education teachers often graduate as generalists — heavy on behavior and classroom management, light on the specialized instruction their students actually need in reading, writing, and math. Then they're handed a room of students with very different needs and asked to serve all of it, sometimes in the same 30 minutes. And almost none of them are trained in the law. When the only "legal training" a district gets comes from counsel who bills more when the district gets it wrong, you start to see the shape of the problem.

4. Watch the goals

Present levels that don't match the goals. Goals that aren't measurable. Sight-word goals for a child who doesn't know letter sounds yet. Reading specialists who don't know what an oral reading fluency norm is. A ten-year-old reading 13 words per minute when the expectation is closer to 138 — and being told, "well, it's progress, you just don't like it." It's not that we don't like it. It's that these numbers tell you whether a child is on track to be successful. This is exactly why we sit at the table prepared, with the data in front of us.

5. Enforcement is the quiet part

Here's the uncomfortable truth: schools tend to comply with the law when it becomes more expensive not to. And even a due process win can go unenforced — a family prevails, the decision says the district has to change, and then... nothing. State agencies say it isn't their job. Superintendents decide "this is good enough." A win on paper is not the same as a win in your child's classroom. Know that going in.

6. Get current data — and know your right to a second opinion

Diane's first question to families is almost always: what data do you have, and how old is it? Too many kids are evaluated once in kindergarten and never again. In any other field, we'd expect a second opinion — and IDEA gives families the right to an Independent Educational Evaluation, a free second opinion, after the school's testing. Use a strong evaluator who does a full assessment, not a recycled version of the same report. Without current, comprehensive data, you're not going anywhere.

7. How to build a "suspicion of disability"

Schools love to say they "have to suspect" a disability before they'll test. Fine — suspicion isn't a proven diagnosis, and you can build it. Pull your state's learning standards for your child's grade. Go line by line and mark everything your child can't yet do. Can't add two-digit numbers. Can't spell grade-level words. Reading well below the fluency norm. That's your suspicion, in the school's own language.

And you don't have to name the disability. Describe the characteristics. A good evaluation identifies or eliminates — and you want both.

8. The tutoring trap

This one is hard. When you tutor your child privately, you may be doing exactly what your child needs — and also skewing the data the school uses. Now the school takes full credit for progress you paid for, and your child looks "fine enough" to never qualify for help. If you're going to tutor, assume you're in it for the long haul as the only one who's going to help your child. If you need the school to do its job, you may have to stop masking the gap. It's a genuine conundrum, and no one warns parents about it.

9. Advocate or attorney?

Not every situation needs a lawyer, and Diane sends plenty of families back to advocates. The line is roughly this: you go to an attorney when you're seeking something that costs the school real money — a private placement, private tutoring, an eligibility they refuse to grant, a suspension reversed. You lean on an advocate for the preparation, the meetings, the documentation, and the day-to-day navigation. Both roles matter. Know which one your situation actually calls for.

10. Don't "fix" a bad IEP on your way to due process

This surprised a lot of people, so hear it clearly. If a district isn't going to service an IEP anyway, dressing it up with beautiful SMART goals can actually hurt a case — because now it looks good on paper, and you have to wait for it to fail before anyone can act. When you're heading toward a decision-maker, a mess that reflects the truth is more useful than a tidy document that hides it. Cleaning it up is sometimes the wrong instinct.

11. The "good relationship" myth

The hardest thing I hear from a family is, "I have a really good relationship with the district." You don't — you happen to live there. The thank-you notes, the class parties, the volunteer hours: none of it survives a hearing, where families are often stunned by what the district says about them, and by the internal emails they never saw. Be kind. Be prepared. But don't mistake pleasantness for protection.

More from Diane Dragan: Dragan Law Firm, LLC in St. Louis, or find her Litigating Literacy podcast.

"When we get it right for the child, we get it right for everybody."

— Karen Mayer Cunningham

This post and the accompanying episode are educational and are not legal advice or legal representation. For guidance about your specific situation, consult a qualified attorney licensed in your state.