Beverley Holden Johns is a nationally recognized expert on special education. She is alarmed that the new “Every Student Succeeds Act” permits states to engage in “pay for success” plans, where investors earn money by not referring students for the services they need. Get on the phone to your Senators and Congressmen at once to stop this money-making scheme.
Johns writes:
As we just passed its 40th birthday, special education faces perhaps its greatest threat since the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA), now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was signed into law.
The new No Child Left Behind bill, S. 1177, as reported by the Conference Committee between the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House includes the permissive use of Federal funds by States and by local school districts of Pay for Success.
Title I, Part D
‘‘(A) may include—
‘‘(i) the acquisition of equipment;
‘‘(ii) pay-for-success initiatives;”
Funded by Goldman Sachs, Pay for Success in Utah
denied special education to over 99 percent of the
students that were in the early childhood Pay for Success program.
Goldman Sachs has received a first payment of over
$250,000 based on over 99 percent of students NOT being identified for special education.
Based on these results, Goldman Sachs may receive
an over 100 percent return on its investment as it
will receive yearly payments based on students
continuing to NOT be identified for special education (multiple yearly payments for one student).
“If special education is reduced to less than 1 percent of students, for all practical purposes it will cease to exist,” says Bev Johns, Chair of the Illinois Special Education Coalition.
Goldman Sachs has also funded a Pay for Success
program for the Chicago Public Schools based on
paying Goldman on the number of students NOT
identified for special education, but results for Chicago from that program are not yet available.
“Success is not the elimination of special education.
Success is not failing to identify students as needing
the specialized and individualized instruction required by IDEA,” states Johns.
“We simply cannot expect the general education teacher to do it all, to know it all, and to achieve academic excellence for each and every student,” says Johns.
“Pretending we can eliminate disability, pretending
that almost every student with a disability and their
parents will benefit WITHOUT the legal rights of IDEA which are only granted when a student is identified for special education, is to turn us back over 40 years to the time before we had State laws and then the Federal law requiring special education for each and every student with a disability,” states Johns.
It is possible that Pay for Success is also in other
parts of the 1,059 page S. 1177.
The section quoted above is in SEC. 1020 of S. 1177,
PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH WHO ARE
NEGLECTED, DELINQUENT, AT-RISK
which amends Part D of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Section 1415.
For more information: 217-473-1790
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Classic ‘fox watching the hen house” scheme. First step for the denial of special ed services was RTI, (response to intervention ), now we are going turn over our most vulnerable to profit making entities with misleading names. Pay for success will have nothing to do with success, unless of course you happen to be a stock holder.
I note where pay for success is an option in ESSA:
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
The Every Child Succeeds Act is an OXYMORON. It’s about making $$$$$ off the backs of our youngest. Are we no better than ISIS, ISIL, and the other repressive societies and what they do to the most vulnerable?
I believe the “pay for success” schemes included in ESSA bill puts all vulnerable and under served groups such as special education, ELLs, compensatory reading and math services in the line of fire from exploitative corporations. It may allow school district to subcontract services to these students at a reduced rate, thus, eliminating more middle class teaching positions. In the case of special education, school districts may opt to turn large numbers of severely impaired students and send them to the equivalent of a “privatized prison” system without accountability and impunity. We know from experience most states are poor managers of accountability. It may be my imagination, or maybe I am thinking like a corporation. I see lots of potential for abuse, and it perverts the intent of the original Title 1, direct service to the neediest students from qualified, certified staff.
Here’s the White House take on “Pay for Success” (Social Impact Bonds)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet/paying-for-success
I read the explanation of the “social impact bonds.” While they sound harmless on paper, they are in fact a license to provide service to vulnerable populations by, in some cases, unqualified overseers. When there is profit to be made, there is potential abuse. I consider privatized prisons as a prime example. There have been cases of extreme overcrowding, ignored medical treatments (especially expensive ones like cancer) and mysterious deaths in privatized systems. In fact, there was a recent death at a privatized prison near where I live that is “under investigation.” We privatize that which we don’t care about. Social impact bonds sound like a way for the government to off load their expensive obligations to private companies. Corporations can then return to a nineteenth century level of service of vulnerable populations, and the government can play dumb. “We had no idea of the abuse!” After all, former military in charge of the severely impaired, what could go wrong?
“Pay for Success”?
Do they need a law for that?
I thought people were already doing that in NY — paying (with their dollars and children) for (Eva’s) “Success”.
I’m a bit unclear on how exactly Goldman Sachs makes money. So if a kid isn’t identified for services, what happens? Is pay for success an online program that they provide?
I’m also confused. I’ve never heard of this. Can someone please explain?
Here’s an article about a preschool program in Utah that’s already doing this.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/3032598-155/preschool-paying-off-for-goldman-sachs
Here’s the progression in short:
1.Goldman finances a Pre-K program. Gets paid interest on the bond issue
2.The kids in that Pre-K are tracked through elementary school.
3. If the numbers of SPED students drop in that cohort Goldman gets paid again & keeps getting paid as those kids go thru school. WIth SPED money, no less.
The US could have universal Pre-k by simply expanding Head Start to every community- all directly funded by the federal government. The infrastructure is already in place.
There is no reason to have a Wall St Bank in between OUR federal money & school programs.
This was entirely predictable. Special Ed requires a huge chunk of money. Less Special Ed means more money to spend on technology, common core edujunk, charter schools, etc.
Privatizers want SPED kids to go away. Rahm told Karen Lewis he wasn’t going to waste money on 25% of the kids who would not amount to anything.
Bunch of greedy sociopaths.
My daughter went through regular education with supports. She was identified and had supports. This was in the 80’s and 90’s. We had to fight for it then as well, for all her services and quoted the law at every meeting and IEP. We were treated to silence many times. I wrote so many letters to the Civil Rights office and our State offices every holiday as the teachers would load up on complaints and hand them off at holidays. After we asked in writing on the IEP to get issues as we went along. It was a bloody battle. That was in Ann Arbor MI. Especially as my daughter daughter moved to middle school and high school. I can’t imagine what it will be like with this initiative.
I predicted this move to end special education a about 3 years ago when Florida’s legislature passed an ALEC-written law that required all teachers in the state to obtain a new certification add-on in spec. ed. and the state DOE started making moves to end standalone classes and began mainstreaming most ESE students.
IDEA was never fully funded because we let congress get away with that. Now they are saying it is far too expensive and not cost-effective from a business perspective so it will go the way of primers and chalk.
Amazingly we are still talking about supporting ESSA instead of storming congress and demanding sane educational law.
Oh well, so what if we sacrifice another generation of the neediest children if we act polite, are always civil, and follow the rules like good teachers always do . . . .
Not one person here has commented on the fact that the teachers in the classroom are not effectively teaching our children to read and write with grade level proficiency, nor holding anyone accountable for the lack of literacy skill sets being provided to our children which results in fueling the school to prison or welfare pipelines. Amazing that this is not part of the discussion.
Maria, what you say is not true. Read my last book “Reign of Error.”
Maria…you made general statements denigrating teaching and teachers. Please back them up with facts. What schools have you personally viewed that do not teach reading skills? What percentage of public schools students in your community are not literate? Where do you get your information?
She is a follower of Literate Nation, a corporate dyslexia advocacy group that claims most teachers are incompetent and uncaring and don’t teach reading and writing “correctly.” The CEO tells a compelling story of her own sons’ struggle with literacy and now pushes model legislation and telling education experts how it should be done because she is the savior of all the illiterate kids being neglected in public schools nationwide, etc. Same old stuff we saw from The Code people a decade ago. Rather cultish and discomfiting.
Maria,
I speak to you with respect. I’m sure that your direct experience (what you’ve seen, heard, and read both personally and through the media) is what causes you to take a position on this important subject.
If I might add my own two cents, based on personal experience:
I’ve taught children and teens with severe emotional problems/learning disorders, and/or autism for over 2 decades. The “spectrum” is very, very wide in all categories. The vast majority of my colleagues and I work beyond “hard” at our craft. We take the job very seriously and are always looking for new and better ways to meet the needs of our kids. Both socially and academically.
The fact is that children need to be met and allowed to feel comfortable at their own functional levels before anything of real substance can be taught and learned. Both individually and within a group setting. There are some extremely effective methods available for children and teens at all levels (scripted and not), but none of them will work unless you have a teacher who knows how to convey the message with both caring and discipline. An experienced teacher will take it a step further by adding his or her own personal methods, learned through trial and error over the years, to the mix.
Unfortunately, over the past 15 years, the line between general and special education has been “smudged” to the point of absurdity. Special ed teachers have been told by upper administration (both within and, all to often, outside of the field of education) to “differentiate”, using the same text curriculum as is being employed in general ed. In all subject matters. As though, with the waving of a magic wand, we’ll be able to get our kids up to grade level by exposing them to “age appropriate” material.
“Make the kids jump higher by raising the bar” is the mantra. This is what’s called “junk science”. There is no research showing that a wholesale mandate of this philosophy will reach anything more than a very, very small minority of students that it’s imposed upon.
I could go on and on, Maria. I’m no happier about the birth (not school) to prison/welfare pipeline, either. But don’t blame it on the teachers. Please don’t spread the blanket statement of a lack of accountability as the principle culprit. Diane asked you to read her book, “Reign of Error”. It’s an excellent read…if you’re willing to put in the time and approach it with an open mind.
This is the message I sent to my Senator: Senator Baldwin, When ESSA comes up for a vote in the Senate, please challenge the “pay for success” provision in which private firms are rewarded financially for keeping children out of special education. Decisions about children’s education belong with educators, not Goldman Sachs. Thank you.
This is so horrible.