Mercedes Schneider has been reading the written responses that Betsy DeVos gave to the Senate Committee’s questions. One question was whether all schools receiving federal funds should be required services for children with disabilities. Her answer, in many words, can be boiled down to one word: no.
Betsy DeVos Responds to Senator Patty Murray’s Question about SPED and Private Schools
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Devos —- or more likely one of her staff who wrote this — totally ducked the question.
DEVOS’ response: (my paraphrasing … i.e. “STFU” 😉 )
“Not every public school currently provides — or can provide — for the needs of EVERY disability. This forces that school — a school which may at the same provide for other special ed categories different from the child who is in need — to recommend a nearby traditional public school that does have a teacher / facilities that does provide such services, or, in a small minority of cases, the solution may involve sending that child to a private service provider.
“So that makes those traditional public schools exactly like tax-funded, privately managed charter schools WHICH HAVE NEVER — AND WILL NEVER — PROVIDE FOR ANY SPECIAL ED. SERVICES FOR ANY SPECIAL ED. CHILD EVER.
“Why they’re exactly the same, don’t you know! They both refuse special ed. kids, who then have to go elsewhere, so STFU about requiring privately managed charter schools that are funded by taxes — the vast majority of which have never or will never provide for special ed kids — to provide for the needs of special ed. students.”
That’s total nonsense, of course.
The difference is when the charter school refuses to provide for that child and turns him/her away, THEY DON’T HAVE TO SHOULDER THAT COST OF EDUCATING THAT CHILD THAT WILL TAKE PLACE ELSEWHERE, and special ed services can be very expensive — smaller ratios, sometimes 1-on-1 for the most severe, teachers with extensive education and training, facilities for kids with physical disablities..
The traditional public school who sends a child to a nearby traditional public school, however, MUST take on the cost of that meeting that special ed. child’s needs, and pay for this out of its budget, not the nearby school who takes on that burden. The same goes when the special ed. child goes to a private provider to have his/her needs met.
That leaves less money for the traditional public school to educate all of its students, and more money for the privately managed charter school. If both traditional public schools and private charters were on a level playing field — they both had to take on the cost of education a special ed student’s education … either on that school’s premises, or pay for it to take place elsehwere — that would disincentize profiteers from getting into the charter school racket.
Take charter guru Eva Moskowitz of SUCCESS ACADEMY charter school chain, for example. (Eva has written two op-ed’s backing Devos’ confirmation … big surprise.)
Based on prior comments to the press, some of the folks at SUCCESS ACADEMY don’t even believe in the concept of “disability,” or that there is such a category known as “special ed,”. Nor do they believe in bringing in specialists, or in implementing IEP’s.
Indeed Eva has sometimes even said as much, expressing her belief that such innate deficiencies may exist, but she doesn’t deign to take those unfortunates on … dumping them back into the public schools for those folks to handle.
This, in turn, places heavy financial and manpower demand on those public schools, as special ed. kids require highly-trained, highly paid special ed. teacher, a small class size or student-to-teacher ratio, etc. … and of course, lower test scores that prompts Eva to blather, “We’re putting the public schools to shame with our scores.” … because all the low scorers from Eva’s schools have been systematically purged..
Essentially, Eva, Betsy Deos and the charter school industry view children in general as commodities… valued on two criteria:
1) cheapest to educate — no expensive special ed kids draining your budget
AND
2) potential for high test scores — again, the special ed kids are unable to deliver those.
According to one SUCCESS ACADEMY staffer, Eva responds to kids who possess any low-test-score-causing handicap, including those based on disability with the following comment:
“SUCCESS ACADEMY is not a Social Services agency.”
SUCCESS ACADEMY’s former leader Paul Fucaloro is on the same page with both recently-departed Secretary of Ed. Arne Duncan. To both of them, there’s no such thing as “special ed.” In her opinion — as expressed by one of her top administrators (JUST BELOW) — is that what the traditional school approach categorizes as “special ed,” is nothing more than a lack of “maturity” as a result of “mama” failing to her her job. Those whose fail to “mature” — or have the effects of poor parenting reversed — under Eva’s system are kicked out… err… “counseled out.”
This is from PAGE 5 of the 2010 NEW YORK MAGAZINE story on Eva and her schools:
http://nymag.com/news/features/65614/index4.html
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NEW YORK MAGAZINE:
“At Harlem Success, disability is a dirty word.
” ‘I’m not a big believer in special ed,’ (SUCCESS ACADEMY’s instructional leader Paul) Fucaloro says. For children who arrive with individualized education programs, or IEPs, he goes on, the real issues are ‘maturity and undoing what the parents allow the kids to do in the house—usually mama—and I reverse that right away.’
“When remediation falls short, according to sources in and around the network, families are counseled out. ‘Eva told us that “the school is not a social-service agency,” ‘ says the Harlem Success teacher. ‘That was an actual quote.’
“In one case, says a teacher at P.S. 241, a set of twins started kindergarten at the co-located HSA 4 last fall. One of them proved difficult and was placed on a part-time schedule, ‘so the mom took both of them out and put them in our school. She has since put the calm sister twin back in Harlem Success, but they wouldn’t take the boy back. We have the harder, troubled one; they have the easier one.’
“Such triage is business as usual, says the former network staffer, when the schools are vexed by behavioral problems:
” ‘They don’t provide the counseling these kids need.’ If students are deemed bad ‘fits’ and their parents refuse to move them, the staffer says, the administration ‘makes it a nightmare’ with repeated suspensions and midday summonses.
“After a 5-year-old was suspended for two days for allegedly running out of the building, the child’s mother says the school began calling her every day ‘saying he’s doing this, he’s doing that. Maybe they’re just trying to get rid of me and my child, but I’m not going to give them that satisfaction.’ ”
“At her school alone, the Harlem Success teacher says, at least half a dozen lower-grade children who were eligible for IEPs have been withdrawn this school year. If this account were to reflect a pattern, Moskowitz’s network would be effectively winnowing students before third grade, the year state testing begins.
” ‘The easiest and fastest way to improve your test scores,’ observes a DoE principal in Brooklyn, ‘is to get higher-performing students into your school.’ And to get the lower-performing students out.”
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However, Eva must put SOME credence in a special ed. disability diagnoses. Indeed, whenever any parent of a diagnosed special ed. child (i.e. one who has an I.E.P. — Indivudualized Education Plan for a special ed. child) shows up at her door — after winning the Success Academy lottery — Eva or one of her underlings turns away both the parent and child.
“We can’t accommodate your child.” or in other words, “Get lost!”
For example, this video from a parent describing such an experience is telling:
JAYE BEA SMALLEY: “My name is Jaye Bea Smalley. I’m a parent, yes. I have two children with special needs. I have one child who I applied to the Harlem Success Academy through the lottery process to see if she could be… would be accepted.
“When she WAS accepted through the lottery, I reached out to them (Harlem Success Academy) before I attended any sort of a orientation to see if they would be able to accommodate her I.E.P. She has a 12-to-1-to-1 I.E.P. for a year-round program, with four different related services.
“They didn’t respond to me through email at all.. and finally, after the second meeting had come, I called them —- I had a very difficult time getting through to them —- Before I could get the words ’12-to-1-to-1′ out of my mouth, they immediately told me that they would absolutely not be able to accommodate that sort of child in their school.”
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The fact that public schools only place 2% of classified students in a private placement is a testament to the degree of accommodation and adaptation the public schools can make to meet diverse needs. When students with special needs receive service from a public school or public school consortium, parents can be assured that the teachers are certified and qualified to teach students with a particular disability. While IDEA requires teachers to be appropriately certified, it is a lot less likely the teacher in a voucher school or charter will hold a certificate and have the same level of training. In fact, it is unlikely many disabled students would be selected and retained by many private or charter schools. Many disabled students are repeatedly suspended and ultimately rejected by charters. These more expensive students often return to a public system that has lost funding due to providing for charter students.https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/childrights/content/articles/winter2014-0114-charter-schools-upholding-student-rights.html
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I recall a line of questioning during the DeVos hearing, when Senator Kaine asked her what she thought about voucher schools that require students with disabilities to abandon their constitutional rights. She responded with praise for Florida’s McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities. Kaine responded, that is an example of a state where students give up their constitutional rights to go to voucher schools.
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For the sake of argument, let us assume that children afflicted with learning disabilities or physical ailments like broken arms have no constitutional rights at all. Public schools will still make an effort to help them as they have for so many years. Granted that constitutional provisions are often required to make administration at a state level fund these efforts, it is by far the local school that must push against this huge problem.
The reason the schools do this is that teachers themselves are almost all part of the Judeo-Christian tradition that puts value on the lost sheep. Within most classes, even at the risk of their own scores, I see teachers every day doing what they can to get students who do not understand to see what is being explained or discussed in class. They do this not because it is constitutional but because it is morally right. These teachers have read the old teastament prophets warning the chosen that they must take care of the poor. They know the parable of the lost sheep. The only reason we had to make this an issue of law at all is that a lack of funding on the local level led local officials to clam up when they needed more money. Who wants to fight the local populace, which does not like to pay taxes, but wants all the services when they are needed?
If constitutional requirements are for the congressmen, whose tendency is to lower taxes to buy votes, then why do wealthy people support systems that rob the school of its sustenance? Only two reasons come to mind: ignorance of and willful disregard of the situation. Both are probably party to this misguided reform effort that has given you so much to do in your retirement. You have sufficiently documented the willful disregard for years, and the others on this page have added to the list.
So what of the basic lack of understanding? I had a friend who was a fly on the wall in a conversation between two very wealthy people. Neither had ever had to do with public education, but both were sure they had answers to the problems in that field. One opined that Dan Quayle was possibly the answer due to his youth. This after he had lit up late-night with his misspelling of potato. The rationale seemed to be that Quayle was young, and would incite young people to want to study. Granted this is just an anecdote, but a real study of what you call the billionaires boys club would no doubt reveal that they know very little about anything other than making money. And we all know what the prophets thought about that.
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I think DeVos’ answer is also misleading when she says “almost 2%” of students with disabilities are sent to private schools because it makes it sound like they are just any private school. In reality, students are sent to therapeutic programs that are very costly because of the severity of the child’s disability. These are highly specialized schools that address very specific problems. And, honestly, the number is quite small – remember it’s 2% of the students with disability population, which is roughly 15% of all students, if not less. She made it sound like there are a lot of kids who are privately placed. In the school district where I am a special ed teacher of about 17,000 students, less than 50 students are privately placed. At my high school of 4500, roughly 20 students are placed in therapeutic day schools in a given year.
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2% of 15% is precisely 3 of each 1000 students
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With the charter school industry that’s favored by nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos bleeding vital funds from the public’s schools, the thoughtful person will ask: “Why are hedge fund people the main backers of the private charter school industry? After all, hedge funds are not known for a selfless interest in educating children.”
Well, the answer, of course, is MONEY.
For example, look at DeVos’ home state of Michigan: There are 1.5 million children attending public elementary and secondary schools and the state annually spends about $11,000 per student which adds up to pot of about $17 billion that private charter school operators have their eyes on. If these private operators succeed in getting what DeVos wants to give them — the power to run all the schools — these private profiteers could make almost $6 billion in profit just by firing veteran teachers and replacing them with low-paid inexperienced teachers, which is what the real objective of so-called “Value-Added” evaluations of veteran teachers is all about.
But wait! There’s more!
In fact, there are many more ways that big profits are being made every day right now by the private charter school industry. Here are just some:
The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of the financial fraud, the skimming of tax money into private pockets that is the reason why hedge funds are the main backers of charter schools.
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Courts, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL” because no charter school fulfills the basic public accountability requirement of being responsible to and directed by a school board that is elected by We the People. Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money.
Even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
NO PUBLIC TAX MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC.
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