Archives for category: Special Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

New Voucher Study by Federal General Accountability Office Finds Negative Results

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2017 //
7

A new study of voucher programs across the country by the federal GAO found that the voucher programs were deficient in providing federal rights for student disabilities.

The GAO report says:

“Almost all of the 27 private school choice program websites provide a directory of participating schools and some provide guidance on selecting schools. However, GAO estimates that no more than half of all schools participating in any type of voucher program mention students with disabilities anywhere on their websites, according to GAO’s review of a nationally generalizable sample of websites of private schools in voucher programs. Further, GAO estimates that no more than 53 percent of private schools in voucher programs designed for students with disabilities provide disability-related information on their websites.

“GAO found private school choice programs inconsistently provide information on changes in rights and protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when parents move a child with a disability from public to private school. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Education (Education) strongly encouraged states and school districts to notify parents of these changes, but according to Education, IDEA does not provide it with statutory authority to require this notification. According to GAO’s review of information provided by private school choice programs, and as confirmed by program officials, in school year 2016-17, 83 percent of students enrolled in a program designed specifically for students with disabilities were in a program that provided either no information about changes in IDEA rights or provided information that Education confirmed contained inaccuracies about these changes. Officials from national stakeholder groups, private choice programs, and Education told GAO that some parents do not understand that certain key IDEA rights and protections—such as discipline procedures and least restrictive environment requirements—change when parents move their child from public to private school. Ensuring that quality information is communicated consistently and accurately to parents can help address potential misunderstanding about changes in federal special education rights.”

The results of the study are summarized here.

This is ironic because Secretary of Education DeVos boasted about vouchers for students with disabilities when she spoke to Jeb Bush’s Privatization Summit.

The summary:

“Of the 27 programs studied by the GAO, only 8 of the programs required private schools to comply with annual financial audits, meaning that the states funding the schools often had no clear understanding of the programs the investments are funding.

“The GAO also found that many of the programs lack accountability and transparency when it comes to disability protections, education standards, professional standards and information distributed to parents.

“Findings from the GAO report include:

“Only about half of the private schools participating in voucher programs provided special education or disability-related information on their websites, creating a significant problem for families making a decision about where to send their children.

“Private school voucher programs are inconsistently providing information on changes in key protections and rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when parents move a child with a disability from a public to a private school.

“83 percent of students who were enrolled in a program specifically designed for students with disabilities were enrolled in one that either provided no information or inaccurate information regarding the changes in IDEA rights.

“One third of the 27 programs operating in school year 2016-17 had no academic testing requirements and officials in two of the programs interviewed indicated that some private schools were unfamiliar or unequipped to administer standardized tests.

“Only one-third of the programs require schools to publically report test results.

“Only four programs provided information on the graduation rates at participating schools.

“Only an estimated 13 percent of all private schools participating in voucher programs provide student and school performance data on their websites.

“Just 17 of the programs required background checks on all employees or on employees with direct and unsupervised contact with children.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Special Education, Vouchers

Stuart Egan, the Parent of a Boy with Down Syndrome, Responds to DeVos’ Cruelty

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2017 //
5

Stuart Egan, NBCT high school English teacher in North Carolina, describes what happened when he and his wife learned that the child she was carrying had Down Syndrome. They were advised that abortion was an option, even though it is not an option in their state, where it is illegal. They didn’t want an abortion. Now, they have a beloved son, Malcolm.

Egan will not judge those who made other choices. “I also will never carry a child in a womb. Neither will Donald Trump, Mike Pence, or all of the other “men” who stand to gain from their positions of power.”

But he is outraged by those who defend the rights of the unborn and take away the rights of children after they are born.

Betsy DeVos has decided to withdraw federal guidelines that protects Malcolm’s rights in school.

Egan takes it personally.

He has written a beautiful essay expressing his personal outrage.

“It seems that many of the politicians and policy makers like DeVos who claim to be hardline “pro-lifers” are helping to privatize the very institutions that are giving “life” to many individuals. And they are doing it in the name of free-markets, where people are supposed to be able to choose what they want hoping that the “market” controls prices and quality.

“How ironic that many politicians who proclaim to be “pro-life” become “pro-choice” when it pertains to those who are already born.”

Betsy DeVos has earned her place on this blog’s Wall of Shame. As a Jew, I cannot Judge her religious views. As a human being, I judge her cruel. Uncaring. Indifferent to those in need. Mean.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Special Education, Wall of Shame

DeVos Withdraws 72 Regulations Intended to Protect Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2017 //
14

During her confirmation hearings, Betsy DeVos seemed unclear about the extent to which children with disabilities were protected by federal law.

Democratic senators challenged her knowledge–or lack of knowledge–of the federal law protecting these children. Many assumed her unwillingness to comment reflected her ignorance of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act and other legislation and court decisions.

Now, however, there seems to be a darker reason for her incoherence. She doesn’t think the federal government should intrude into decisions that she thinks belongs to states and localities.

She has rescinded 72 “guidance documents” about protecting the rights of students with disabilities.

The Education Department has rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services wrote in a newsletter Friday that it had “a total of 72 guidance documents that have been rescinded due to being outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective – 63 from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and 9 from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA).” The documents, which fleshed out students’ rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act, were rescinded Oct. 2.

A spokeswoman for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos did not respond to requests for comment.

Advocates for students with disabilities were still reviewing the changes to determine their impact. Lindsay Jones, the chief policy and advocacy officer for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said she was particularly concerned to see guidance documents outlining how schools could use federal special education money removed.

“All of these are meant to be very useful . . . in helping schools and parents understand and fill in with concrete examples the way the law is meant to work when it’s being implemented in various situations,” said Jones.

President Donald Trump in February signed an executive order “to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens,” spurring Education Department officials to begin a top-to-bottom review of its regulations. The department sought comments on possible changes to the special education guidance and held a hearing, during which many disability rights groups and other education advocates pressed officials to keep all of the guidance documents in place, said Jones.

DeVos is moving with all deliberate speed to eliminate the federal role in protecting the civil rights of groups of students who relied on the U.S. Department of Education.

This is not the first time DeVos has rolled back Education Department guidance, moves that have raised the ire of civil rights groups. The secretary in February rescinded guidance that directed schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity, saying that those matters should be left up to state and local school officials. In September, she scrapped rules that outlined how schools should investigate allegations of sexual assault, arguing that the Obama-era guidance did not sufficiently take into account the rights of the accused.

This should not come as a surprise. Betsy DeVos is a libertarian who does not believe in federal intervention to protect vulnerable groups of students.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education

Nancy Bailey on the DeVos Watch: Prepare to Fight for Special Education!

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2017 //
12

When Betsy DeVos was interviewed by the Senate Committee that was about to confirm her as Secretary of Education, she seemed never to have heard of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or anything connected to special education. Now that she has been Secretary for several months, Nancy Bailey is worried that she thinks IDEA is a burden and must be cut.

Watch her like a hawk watches his or her prey, she advises, because DeVos seems to want to deregulate special education and defund it.

Her conversation centers around “piled on regulations” in special education. Instead of paying for services, she wants to deregulate, thereby allowing for funding cuts.

This would also destroy IDEA and leave children with disabilities to fend for themselves. It’s stepping backwards to the time when children with disabilities had no rights.

What DeVos Deregulations Mean to Special Education

Policymakers should look at regulations, especially having to do with the enormous amount of paperwork and high-stakes test administration facing general and special education teachers.

But this is not what Betsy is talking about.

Her deregulations will open the door to privatization.

Currently, parents lose their child’s protections under IDEA if they accept voucher money. This makes parents pause when considering a voucher. Betsy DeVos wants to lessen requirements of those protections to push her loosey goosey choice plan.

By killing regulations, Nancy fears, DeVos is setting up special education to be killed.

Be alert. Compassion and responsibility for others are not her strong suits.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Special Education

Chicago: Special Education Funding Goes to the Whitest Schools

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
31

The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association examined district data and made a stunning discovery. The ten schools with the highest proportion of white students received over $1 million in special education funding. The ten schools with the lowest percentage of white students received $0 in special education funding.

The Association is not proposing to take money away from the schools that currently receive it. Instead, they ask that all schools receive the funding they need for students with disabilities.

Troy LaRaviere, president of the Association, writes:

The racially discriminatory behaviors of the Emanuel appointees at CPS uncovered in our analysis are profoundly disturbing. However I want to make it clear that although this report highlights disparities between resources allocated to schools serving white students and those serving black and brown students, this is not a call for people of color to protest the resources given to white students; it is a call for all people of good conscience – regardless of race and ethnicity – to voice our profound discontent with the race and class based decision-making of the Mayor’s appointees at Chicago Public Schools: In addition, the woefully inadequate base funding that created the need for the appeals process is depriving all schools of critical resources they needed to develop the full human potential of their students because it pits schools against one another to beg for a share of an artificially low pool of funds.

To say it more directly, majority white schools like Mount Greenwood and Edison Park should not be the targets of our discontent. On the contrary, it is my hope that the majority white community of Mount Greenwood will express its outrage at the denial of resources for majority black schools like Mount Vernon, and that the families at a majority white school like Edison Park will voice their discontent with the abject neglect with which CPS treats majority Hispanic schools like Hanson Park.

We must not let our political leaders pit us against one another. We must not let them set us up to fight over the scraps they throw behind for our children after doling out multi-million dollar contracts, tax breaks, and interest payments to the profit driven selfish corporate interests they serve. We must see our common destiny as families of Chicago and work to build a city and public school system that invests in the realization of the potential of every single child.

Categories Chicago, Funding, Special Education

Betsy DeVos Invests More Money in Neurocore, Which Claims to “Cure” Autism with BioFeedback

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2017 //
26

Michael Stratford of Politico reported that Betsy DeVos has enlarged her stake in a controversial company called Neurocore, which claims that its biofeedback methods cure a range of ills, including ADD and autism.

I don’t have a link to share with you. I read the story but don’t have a subscription.

On her financial disclosure form, DeVos acknowledged that she has an investment in Neurocore worth between $5 million-$25 million. In her latest purchase, she added between $250,000-$500,000. She stepped down as a member of the board but was not required to sell her shares. According to the New York Times, she and her husband are the chief investors in the company.

It is bizarre that DeVos was not required to divest her holdings in this company, which is a direct conflict of interest with her role as Secretary of Education. She oversees the spending of billions of dollars for special education. She signed an agreement that she would do nothing to affect her financial involvement in this company, but that is insufficient. The Secretary of Education should not hold stock in a company whose value will be affected by decisions she will inevitably make.

The reviews of the company and its claims by outside experts raise questions about DeVos’s judgment. Her refusal to divest her holdings raise questions about her ethics.

The New York Times contacted medical experts to inquire about Neurocore and determined that none of its studies have been peer reviewed.

A review of Neurocore’s claims and interviews with medical experts suggest its conclusions are unproven and its methods questionable.

Neurocore has not published its results in peer-reviewed medical literature. Its techniques — including mapping brain waves to diagnose problems and using neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback, to treat them — are not considered standards of care for the majority of the disorders it treats, including autism. Social workers, not doctors, perform assessments, and low-paid technicians with little training apply the methods to patients, including children with complex problems.

In interviews, nearly a dozen child psychiatrists and psychologists with expertise in autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., expressed caution regarding some of Neurocore’s assertions, advertising and methods.

The Washington Post sent a writer who had written a book on learning science to experience the program, then to check with medical experts. He was underwhelmed.

He wrote:

SO WHAT DOES IT SAY that our education secretary is backing Neurocore?

For one, it seems that feeble science doesn’t bother DeVos. The budget document released by her department on Tuesday emphasizes that education decisions should be informed by “reliable data, strong research, and rigorous evaluations.” But like her boss, President Trump, DeVos apparently isn’t one to let evidence get in the way of what she wants to do. A recent study of school vouchers by DeVos’s agency showed that one program dragged down math scores by as much as seven points. Still, DeVos champions voucher programs, dismissing her opponents this past week as “flat-earthers.”

We don’t yet have any indication that DeVos intends to introduce neurofeedback into the nation’s public schools. But her enormous investment in Neurocore is ethically inappropriate. It means she has a financial stake in a particular approach to education. Some brain training companies promote themselves specifically for the classroom, and a few K-12 schools have begun partnering with brain training companies. Oaks Christian School in California provides neurofeedback with the help of an outside vendor, and Universal Academy in Dallas recently signed a contract with the firm C8 Sciences (which promises that it “can close the achievement gap in low performing schools and enhance focus, memory, and self-control to greatly improve academic outcomes!”). For his part, Murrison denies that Neurocore has any plan to go into schools. But the company’s marketing clearly targets children — and their distressed parents.

And certainly the DeVos family has used its connections before to open doors for Neurocore. DeVos’s father-in-law owns the Orlando Magic, and the basketball team has hired a division of Neurocore “to reach performance levels not previously achieved,” according to the company. Quarterback Kirk Cousins’s brother works for Neurocore, and the Washington football player swears by neurofeedback. “I see brain training as being that next thing, the next frontier,” he says on one of the company’s promotional pages.

At the very least, DeVos appears to be dangerously naive about what it takes to help people learn — especially children with special needs.

He concluded that Neurocore is “a Trump University for people with cognitive struggles.”

Jan Resseger wrote in plain language that DeVos had invested in “quack medicine.”

It is a curious that a woman who is a multi-billionaire is still investing, still looking to get even richer. Five billion or so is not enough.

But it is downright alarming that the ethics officer at the U.S. Department of Education did not direct her to divest herself of her financial stake in this company, whose net worth is directly affected by the actions of the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Special Education

A Letter to Secretary DeVos from a Special Normal Public School Student

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2017 //
19

Stuart Egan teaches high school in North Carolina. His son Malcolm was born with Down Syndrome. He is in third grade in public school and is thriving. Stuart helped Malcolm compose this letter to Secretary Betsy DeVos. Malcolm wonders if she cares about kids like him.

The letter starts like this:

“Dear Secretary DeVos,

“My name is Malcolm and I just finished third-grade in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School system. I have vibrant red-hair and blue eyes like my mom, wear cool glasses, have a wicked follow through on my jump shot, and am quite the dancer. My dad also wears glasses, but he does not dance very well nor has much hair. My sister is in high school. She is very smart and she helps me with my homework.

“I also have an extra chromosome because of a condition called Trisomy 21. You may know it as Down Syndrome. It does not define me. It just is, but I do need a little extra help in school and in learning other skills on how to be independent.

“I am having my daddy write this letter for me. He is a teacher in a public high school. In fact, I spend a lot of time at his school going to games and functions. A lot of people know me there like they do at my own school. My having an extra chromosome doesn’t seem to scare them so much because in the end we are all more alike than different anyway.

“But I am worried about some of the things that have happened in public schools since I have started going. I am also worried about how students like me are being treated since you and President Trump have been in office.

“My daddy has noticed you like this thing called “school choice” and that the budget that you and Mr. Trump like puts more money into this. Yet it really seems to have done a lot to weaken public schools like not fully give money to them or give them resources so that all kids in public schools can be successful. It seems that some money went to this thing called “vouchers” and some has been used to help make other types of schools – schools that will not accept me.

“When I got ready to go to school a few years ago, one of my grandparents offered to pay tuition at any school that could help me the most, but none around here would take me because I have a certain type of developmental delay. Doesn’t seem like I had much choice.

“But the public schools welcomed me with open arms. And I am learning because of the good teachers and the teacher assistants. Imagine what could happen if my school could have every resource to accommodate my needs…”

I hope she reads it.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Special Education

Texas: House Republicans Say “Hell, No,” to Vouchers, Again

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2017 //
6

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session of the Legislature to deal with school finance and once again to push vouchers. Once more, he will try to bribe legislators to endorse vouchers if they want more funding. No vouchers, no funding. The state cut more than $5 billion from the education budget in 2011 and has never fully restored the cuts, even though the enrollment has grown.

As usual, the camel’s nose under the tent is vouchers for children with disabilities. Note that these children have federal rights in public schools but not in private voucher schools.

The State Senate, corralled by voucher fanatic Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, supports vouchers. The House, also controlled by Republicans, has turned them down repeatedly. Republicans representing rural areas and small towns don’t want to destroy their public schools. They are conservatives: they conserve, they don’t tear down their traditional institutions.

“The top House education leader said Sunday that “private school choice” is still dead in the lower chamber.

“We only voted six times against it in the House,” House Public Education Committee Chairman Dan Huberty said. “There’s nothing more offensive as a parent of a special-needs child than to tell me what I think I need. I’m prepared to have that discussion again. I don’t think [the Senate is] going to like it — because now I’m pissed off.”

“Huberty, R-Houston, told a crowd of school administrators at a panel at the University of Texas at Austin that he plans to restart the conversation on school finance in the July-August special session after the Senate and House hit a stalemate on the issue late during the regular session. Huberty’s bill pumping $1.5 billion into public schools died after the Senate appended a “private school choice” measure, opposed by the House.

“Huberty was joined by Education Committee Vice Chairman Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, and committee member Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston, on a panel hosted by the Texas Association of School Administrators, where they said they didn’t plan to give in to the Senate on the contentious bill subsidizing private school tuition for kids with special needs.”

Dan Hubert is on the honor roll of this blog already. Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick are today listed on its Wall of Shame.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Honor Roll, Special Education, Texas, Vouchers, Wall of Shame

Nancy E. Bailey: How Florida Developed Its Voucher Plan for Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2017 //
5

Nancy E. Bailey was there at the beginning, when Florida first embarked on a voucher program for students with disabilities. Now that program is recognized as the Official Camel’s Nose Under the Tent, the entry program that in many other states is followed by vouchers for foster children, vouchers for military children, vouchers for low-income children, then vouchers for everyone. Florida has not been able to build out vouchers because voters turned them down in a 2012 referendum, and the state courts rejected Jeb Bush’s effort to pass a voucher program because it was contrary to the state constitution.

Bailey discovered that the person who pushed the program through was uncredentialed. She expressed great concern for children with disabilities, but she had no experience or training.

She writes:

This is… about eliminating real options parents have with students who have disabilities. Starving public schools where teachers must abide by IDEA mandates, but are incapable of enforcing them due to inadequate funding, is unethical and cruel.

With McKay vouchers, parents flee to schools with no proof of success. How many parents are conned into believing such schools will provide the positive changes their child deserves and that they so desperately seek? Without oversight and rules no one knows—until it’s too late.

Bear in mind that Florida is Betsy DeVos’s model state for charters of every variety, vouchers, tax credits, online schools, and every imaginable way to break down public schools.

Categories Florida, Special Education, Vouchers

Gene V. Glass: An Ugly Look Inside a Charter School in Arizona

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2017 //
18

Gene V. Glass, one of the nation’s most distinguished education researchers, posted a blog about the experience of parents applying to a charter school in Arizona. Arizona is unusual in that it has no laws against nepotism or conflicts of interest. The Challenger Charter School is unusual in that it is owned by the former president of the State Board of Education and run by his wife and daughter. The family pays itself $400,000 a year for its services.

The post tells the story of parents who registered their child early for kindergarten in this school. They received a letter of acceptance. They had to fill out another form in March. On the second form, they noted that their daughter had had speech therapy, which they neglected to say in the first application. They were called into the school’s office where daughter and mother told them their child was unaccepted and would have to apply again through the open lottery. The administrators basically accused them of lying. Harsh words were exchanged. It was clear the school did not want their daughter.

Some of this interaction is captured in a video the family made during their interview.

The school’s message seems to be, children with any kind of disability, no matter how mild, are not wanted here. The IDEA laws don’t apply to charter schools in Arizona.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Privatization, Special Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »