June 2011 Archives

Iowa learned this week that it cannot cut special education spending for the current school year by about $4 million—and if it doesn't find that money in its budget, it could lose a matching amount in federal special education aid.

The news for Iowa comes just days after the Department of Education denied requests by South Carolina to cut special education spending. In that state, $111 million in federal dollars are at risk. (Earlier this year, the federal government denied Oregon's request to cut special education spending, too.)

In all during the last two years, Iowa has cut more than $40 million from its special ed budget. But when any state shrinks its spending on students with disabilities, it must ask the federal government for permission or risk losing a matching amount in federal special education dollars. Only natural disasters and extremely poor financial circumstances are acceptable reasons. Until the recent recession, that deterred states from asking for a pass.

In Iowa, for the 2009-10 school year, the Education Department approved a cut of about $38 million the state needed to make to balance its budget. The state cut $1.5 million beyond that, however. For the 2010-11 school year, Iowa wanted to cut another $4 million from special ed.

In a letter Tuesday, Iowa was denied both the $1.5 million and $4 million cuts.

The Iowa Department of Education said it is working on a list of options to restore that money.

"We will find a positive resolution," chief financial officer Jeff Berger told me Friday. "We are currently developing a list of options and haven't completed that conversation yet."

Posted by Nirvi Shah at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

UPDATED

South Carolina may lose about $111 million in federal special education money for cutting its spending on students with disabilities for the last two years without the U.S. Department of Education's approval.

In a letter Friday, the state was warned that if it doesn't come up with the $111 million that it cut from special education budgets for the last two years, the federal government will penalize South Carolina by the same amount.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's "maintenance of effort" rule that says states must keep special education spending the same from year to year, or increase it, regardless of the condition of their state budgets. If they can't, they must ask permission from the Education Department to cut their special education budgets to avoid being penalized by the same amount in federal special education dollars.

Until the current recession, such requests were rare, because only natural disasters or the most dire financial circumstances were justification for states to cut special education spending. But with states still struggling to make ends meet, the requests have become more common.

South Carolina is the only state to request the ability to cut spending on students with disabilities for three years in a row. For the 2008-09 school year, the department granted the state's request to cut special education spending by about $20 million, or about 5 percent. For 2009-10, the state got a partial reprieve and was allowed to cut the budget by about $31 million, or 7.6 percent, although the state wanted to cut another $36 million and was turned down.

The state's request to cut another $75 million from its special education budget of about $334 million for the 2010-11 school years was denied altogether. Alexa Posny, assistant secretary for special education, reasoned in her letter to South Carolina that the 2.5 percent cut in the special education budget was a greater percentage than the cut to the total state budget—which was less than 1 percent.

Somehow, in still tight times, the state will have to show it restored that $111 million—the $36 million from 2009-10 and the $75 million from 2010-11—or face a matching cut from the Education Department, Ms. Posny said.

On top of that, she said the federal government will be closely monitoring whether students with disabilities in South Carolina are still being served well and receiving free, appropriate public education as required by federal law.

A committee in South Carolina's General Assembly today approved a proposal that would boost special education spending by $75 million, said Jay W. Ragley, deputy superintendent for legislative and public affairs. The money comes from a combination of an uptick in state revenue and a drop in state spending on diesel fuel for school buses, he said. Although the school year is over, the money would be transferred to districts by June 30, in time to count for the 2010-11 school year.

As far as the remaining $36 million, the state plans to fight the Education Department's disapproval of that cut, he said. It's too late to restore money to a school year long over.

"We respectfully disagree with their decision," Mr. Ragley said. "State Superintendent (Mick) Zais intends to exhaust all of his administrative, legal, and legislative remedies so we will not be penalized that amount."

He noted that because the waivers were rarely used until recently, there is room to interpret what IDEA says about them.

"Frankly, we think the department is braving new legal ground. We look forward to braving that new legal ground with them," he said. The state hopes the dispute will be resolved before Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year, to avoid the $36 million cut.

In her letter, Ms. Posny warned South Carolina not to count on permission from the federal government to cut its special education budget again.

"We also want to make clear to the State that, when making decisions about its level of State support for special education and related services in FY 2012, the State should not anticipate, or rely on, a waiver of the requirement to maintain State financial support for special education and related services," Ms. Posny wrote.

All of this may be little consolation to special educators, teachers, and parents in South Carolina, because the budget cuts already happened, and the school year is over. But if the state does restore some of the special education budget going forward, perhaps next school year might be more promising.

Posted by Nirvi Shah at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In my inbox today, I encountered a collection of stories about parents battling school districts for a change in how their children, who have disabilities, are treated.

In Philadelphia, parents of children with autism are suing the school district in federal court because their children are forced to change schools at the end of 2nd and 5th grades.

Classes for students with autism are organized in groups of grades, such as kindergarten through 2nd, and 6th through 8th. However, schools with a support class for one group of students aren't likely to have support classes for the other grades. The constant game of switcheroo affects about 3,000 students.

Parents of two of the four children suing the school district have already won due-process hearings in which the district was found to have violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by keeping their children out of their neighborhood schools and by allowing the children's autism-support classrooms to become overcrowded, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

In New York, thousands of students with disabilities who should know where they will attend kindergarten are still waiting on their placements, thanks to a new, $79 million system for tracking children with special needs. One father of a boy with autism wants an investigation.

The deadline to place students was June 15. Kids who weren't assigned a school may be eligible for private school, at the city's expense. According to the New York Daily News, the city already spends about $100 million to educate about 4,000 kids with disabilities who are in private schools.

And in Mount Pleasant, S.C., a mother has filed a civil rights complaint against the school district for requiring her son and others like him—he has anxiety, sensory and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders—to take standardized tests. (Test-based accountability is the force behind a protest that is scheduled in Washington D.C. later this summer.)

The school district eventually agreed not to force Robert Mattox Johnson take state exams, but his school, Belle Hall Elementary, will be penalized twice, the Post and Courier reports, once for his not being tested and again for his score, which will be counted as a zero.

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North Carolina lawmakers on Thursday approved a tax break of up to $6,000 a year for parents to recover some of the expense of private school tuition or homeschooling for their child with disabilities.

According to The Associated Press, Republican House Majority Leader Paul Stam has worked on the tax credit for six years. A legislative analysis of the bill estimated up to 5 percent of the 200,000 families eligible would use the tax credit and the switch could actually save the state money. The AP report said North Carolina spends more than $8,000 per child and local officials spend another $2,000.

I've written before about private school vouchers for students with disabilities. Some advocates for these students say parents may not realize that they forfeit their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act when they accept the voucher and transfer their child to a private school.

The North Carolina measure, though not a voucher, would put parents in the same situation. But first Gov. Bev Perdue has to sign the bill into law. I haven't read anything that would give away her opinion on the bill. But she appears to be a fierce defender of the state's public education system.

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A new report from the Office of the Independent Monitor in the Los Angeles school district looks at whether charter schools ask parents up front—before they can enroll—if their children have disabilities.

Earlier this year, I wrote that in traditional Los Angeles public schools, about 13 percent of students have a disability, while in the district's 183 charter schools, only about 8 percent of students have special needs.

The district is working to balance those numbers, in part because so many schools in Los Angeles are charters that for many students, the only schools they live near are charter schools.

While traditional district schools are hard-pressed to turn anyone away, or must find a way to educate students regardless of cost or hardship, charters appear to be using a vetting process that may explain the stark difference in the percentages of students with disabilities enrolled in their schools versus district-run schools.

Looking at applications from 178 of L.A. Unified's 183 charters, the independent monitor found that about half ask whether a child received special education services or has an Individualized Education Plan. Many of those, in turn, requested a copy of the IEP.

As I still have much to learn about special education, I wonder, may anyone view a child's IEP? How private are these documents?

Some schools asked questions about students' discipline history, asked parents and children to write essays, or required a recommendation from a child's current teacher.

While the Independent Monitor's office didn't draw any conclusions about these requests, they did say some of the enrollment-form questions were "areas of concern."

Some charters asked about a child's custody, his or her Social Security number, parents' education level, whether a child received free or reduced-price meals, or when a child first enrolled in an American school.

In addition, the report noted concern about how in some cases, parents had to agree that if their child received special education services they would only be able to continue to receive such services in a full-inclusion program. My question to those of you who are experts on a free, appropriate public education as outlined in IDEA: Is offering only one potential setting for a child with disabilities OK?

Posted by Nirvi Shah at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A story by my colleague Sarah D. Sparks, who blogs at Inside School Research, wrote about some research in progress about the effectiveness of both in-class gifted programs and magnet schools.

She writes: "The University of Houston researchers who conducted the study found that students in these programs were more likely than other students to do in-depth coursework with top teachers and high-performing peers. Yet students who barely met the 5th grade cutoff criteria to enter the gifted programs fared no better academically in 7th grade, after a year and a half in the program, than did similarly high-potential students who just missed qualifying for gifted identification."

Read the complete story here.

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A school district in northeastern Massachusetts plans to save money on special education costs—even if it doesn't hire a private company to help it do so.

I recently wrote about some of the work that a private company, Futures Education, is doing to help school districts trim special education spending. In many districts, the portion of the budget devoted to students with disabilities has grown significantly over the years and is perceived as being untouchable. I can understand how even bringing up the subject of saving money on special ed expenses might terrify parents.

One district, Amesbury, Mass., has discussed hiring Futures to take over the work of special education paraprofessionals. The move could save Amesbury, which has about 2,400 students, about $130,000. (If you listen to the audio report at the link above, you'll hear just how angry some Amesbury residents really were about the idea of outsourcing paras.) The switch could lead to about 60 employees losing their jobs.

Districts and states have long struggled to save money in special education, although some don't think it's possible. I wrote about one recent report on the topic—which also discussed broader changes to teaching students with disabilities.

Yet another recent piece also explores the past and future of special education, including its finances.

This week in Amesbury, the union representing the paraprofessionals proposed a solution that could preserve district jobs. The union chief didn't disclose the details, but it was a strong enough offer to keep the outsourcing idea off the table for a couple more weeks.

Stay tuned.

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The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have filed a complaint that accuses the state of Wisconsin and some private schools that accept vouchers of creating a system of segregated public schools.

Data reported by the private schools shows that 1.6 percent of the students they enroll using vouchers have disabilities, while almost 20 percent of Milwaukee public schools have special needs. The schools that accept vouchers had to participate in state testing for the first time this school year. The data reported by those schools was one of the catalysts for filing a complaint, said Karyn Rotker, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU in Wisconsin.

"This is something we've heard about for a long time; it was hard to get a grip on it," Ms. Rotker said.

The complaint, filed on behalf of several students, accuses the state's department of public instruction of not policing whether the private schools that receive public money to instruct Milwaukee students are discriminating against students with disabilities. Although Milwaukee students have had access to vouchers for about 20 years, the program is administered by the state, not the city school district.

With the voucher program poised for expansion, as early as the coming school year, Ms. Rotker of the ACLU in Wisconsin said her organization has asked the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights to address the complaint quickly.

Earlier, I wrote about vouchers and students with disabilities and some of the issues parents should be aware of before making that choice.

But regardless of whether private schools are accommodating to students with disabilities or whether parents of those students even want them to use vouchers to attend those schools, Ms. Rotker said Milwaukee's 81,000 student public school system is losing its diversity.

"The entire structure of the system is almost inevitably leading to the segregation of children in Milwaukee Public Schools," she said.

Posted by Nirvi Shah at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Exposing deaf or hard of hearing children to signed or spoken language early is critical to their ability to learn a language. That's one of the findings of a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

But there are some obstacles to providing quality early intervention for all children with hearing problems as well as determining whether those programs are effective.

One of those challenges is that early intervention service providers and schools have trouble attracting and retaining qualified staff. Schools and service providers have difficulty retaining teachers, interpreters, and other staff because these professionals can receive better pay outside of the education system.

The report comes on the heels of the renewal of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program in December. The program provides grants to help states develop programs to ensure that children referred from state screening programs receive prompt evaluations, diagnoses and appropriate interventions. The GAO points out that there is a disconnect between the detection program and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Many early intervention programs are provided under IDEA but the states can't use their early detection and intervention grant money to evaluate those programs. That's because they may not be able to access student data for privacy reasons. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies are working on ways to connect the grant programs and IDEA, the GAO said.

Also, the report found, parents don't always have access to information on the full range of available communication options. As a result, the first service provider with whom parents consult often can heavily influence the decisions parents make. "For example," the GAO report says, "if the family is first referred to an audiologist, experts were concerned that parents would choose a cochlear implant for their child rather than continue learning about other options such as sign language." (A recent news story explored how cochlear implants are changing deaf education.)

Early intervention is so critical because, the report notes, citing a 10-year-old study, the median reading comprehension score of deaf or hard of hearing students at 18 was below the median of fourth-grade hearing students. Another recent report found that higher percentages of youth with hearing impairments scored below the mean across subtests of academic achievement compared with students in the general population, although that study also was based on data nearly a decade old.

Does it matter that the data is from a while back? Yes, Jeanne Prickett, superintendent of the Iowa School for the Deaf told me a few months ago. But maybe not for the reasons you think.

"Regarding 'old' data—not only is the experience probably not different now than previously, it could be worse since more students are being tested on regular education normed tests than at any time in history. We have dropped the specially normed tests for deaf and hard of hearing students and use the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and Iowa Test of Educational development—our state proficiency tests. Do our students achieve proficiency? Not as much as we want. Do they show progress? You bet."

But early intervention and appropriate testing aren't enough for students with hearing impairments, many of whom have other disabilities, too. They need unique support as long as they are in school, Barbara Raimondo, government relations liaison for the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf, told me

"Even a slightly hard of hearing child, in a classroom of 25 students, with background noise and a teacher who does not face the class as she writes on the board, will miss huge amounts of classroom information," Ms. Raimondo says. "No wonder deaf and hard of hearing students are behind in reading! Further, research out of the Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that deaf children learn differently than hearing children. Few, if any, regular education environments work to accommodate this."

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