Archives for category: Special Education
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Is the Tide Turning Against Corporate Reform in Los Angeles?

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2013 //
6

Something unusual happened at the most recent Los Angeles school board meeting. Even before newly elected Monica Ratliff was sworn in, the pro-privatization majority was in retreat.

Here is a fascinating account of the background and context:

So glad you are reporting this. I only wish that Zimmer had gone ever further on the class size issue and had reminded everyone that LAUSD has the largest numbers of charter schools. Every time a start up charter or independent conversion charter gets approved, money gets taken out of LAUSD’s budget. This has been brought up time after time, and even the budget director mentioned it at a recent meeting. So, it begs the question as to who Galatzan and Garcia are really supporting? Who is more important to them, charter schools or the vast majority of students in traditional schools?

I think the answer is obvious. After all, where does the big money come from when it comes time to collect campaign funds? The list of funders from Garcia’s recent board race reads like a who’s-who list of charter friendly corporations and charter operators.

Below is a paragraph from a recent IG report on how special education funding is negatively impacting LAUSD and thus contributing to class size increases. This happens because charter schools have a much lower percentage of special ed students and for those they do enroll, most have the least severe disabilities.

Click to access 13497FUNDINGSPECIAL%20EDUCATION%20PROGRAM.PDF

“An increasing number of charter schools is eroding the District’s ADA base for special education funding. The California funding system for special education is based on Census-Based funding model that funds special education programs based on school’s Average Daily Attendance (ADA) numbers. The establishment of charter schools takes away ADA numbers from the District resulting in less funding for the District’s special education program.”

Another item not discussed anywhere was the denial of a charter school.

From the LA Times:

“The board also voted to reject a bid from an independently operated charter school to remain open. Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory High School had sought a second, five-year charter, as well as permission to expand to offer a kindergarten-through-12th-grade program.”

This charter has two schools. The last time one of their schools came up for renewal, denial was also recommended. But, Garcia convinced her buddies on the board to overturn the charter division’s recommendation. After the vote, she got out of her chair and went into the street to celebrate with the head of the school, leaving behind her duties and missing out on voting on other issues.

This time, things were different. While the school was allowed to present their reasons for overturning the denial, when the board was asked to vote, NONE of the board members said a word. There was NO discussion…..ZERO!!! The vote was taken immediately and it was 6-1 in support of the denial. Of course, Garcia voted to overturn.

I suspect that this silence was pre-determined decision by the board. Perhaps it was because of the horrific report from the Inspector General’s office:

Click to access 12492ACADEMIA%20SEMILLAS%20CHARTER%20SCHOOL.PDF

The report above clearly states that, when an audit was requested, the school repeatedly refused to turnover any records. Perhaps the head of the school felt he had Garcia’s back and that, like before, the board’s charter friendly majority would ignore this “minor” problem. But not this time. Perhaps the board did not want an open discussion during which it may have been revealed that the board has been complicit in rubber stamping a charter that so blatantly disregards the rules.

Bottom line….the charter friendly board members took a major hit on Tuesday. Actions and statements by Garcia and Galatzan received numerous negative responses from the audience. Most certainly, this was only a precursor of what is to come.

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles, Special Education

How to Get Very, Very Rich While Providing Poor Services

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2013 //
22

This is a story about a private contractor who figured out how to make big money: open a center to diagnose and treat preschoolers with disabilities.

The state of New York pays for everything, and no one pays much attention to the quality of the services. The state pays for your beautiful new building and even your Mercedes.

So what if you misdiagnose children? Who will know? Then you order yourself to provide very expensive services, which you don’t really provide.

“Some children whose first language was Chinese languished in classes taught in Spanish or Korean. Others who were supposed to receive individual tutoring were thrown into groups of four or more children, all with different types of disabilities.” Some children didn’t have any disabilities but the state was billed for them too.

So what if your revenues grew over a decade from $725,000 a year to $17 million?

That’s business.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, New York, New York City, Special Education

Sarah Darer Littman: How to Create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
10

Sarah Darer Littman watches in wonder as the Gates Foundation uses its billions to reorganize public education in Connecticut.

Their goal: more Achievement First charters, regardless of their high suspension rates for children in kindergarten and their poor record relating to students with disabilities.

Gates wants close collaboration with AF and other “high performing” charters. It wants them to be treated equitably, as if the generous support of Connecticut’s equity investors was not enough of a cushion.

What do they want? A dual school system of regulated public schools and unregulated charters, free to exclude, expel, or suspend any child?

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Special Education

The Shame of Providence

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2013 //
6

Providence and the state of Rhode Island allowed a school to use developmentally disabled students to do manual labor for little or no pay.

Both the city and state received a stern letter from the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice.

“Both Providence and the state allowed the Harold H. Birch Vocational School to operate a “sheltered workshop” that segregated kids with disabilities from other students and denied them the opportunity for integrated employment when they completed their schooling, according to a letter from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Birch obtains contracts with private businesses to perform work, such as bagging, labeling, collating, and assembling jewelry,” the letter stated.

“One former student stated that she was required to spend a much greater portion of her school day in the workshop, including full days, when the workshop had important production deadlines.”

Categories Special Education, Students

Charter School Rejects Student with Special Needs

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2013 //
59

Again and again, we hear the same story: charters excluding children with special needs. This is contrary to federal law. How do they get away with it? Where are the lawyers?

A mother writes:

My daughter is a mainstream student and has been attending Minnesota School of Science since they opened. For 2 years in a row I have been trying to enroll my son who is a special needs student but have been told by the school both years not to enroll him because the special education program is lacking and that my son’s needs will not get met and was told he is better off in a Minneapolis Public school not a charter school. This came straight from the mouth of the principal and two special needs teachers. I am glad they were honest enough to warn me that their special needs program sucks, but what does that mean for the children already enrolled? That their needs are not being met and that they are being under educated?

Categories Charter Schools, Minnesota, Special Education

Why High-Stakes Testing Is Useless For This Student

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2013 //
21

A teacher explains how useless high-stakes testing is for some students, and for this one student in particular:

He writes:

In response to a state standardized test question about analyzing the author’s use of hyperbole, a student of mine recently responded with one brief sentence: “I don’t know what analyze means.” This student (who receives special education services) sat with his head down for most of the testing session. I was struck by the fact that he felt compelled to finally lift his pencil and scribble this when he could have easily just turned in a blank test booklet. It tells me that, even at a school that does not emphasize the importance of these tests (like ours), they are stressful and demoralizing to students. Students’ self-esteem is damaged and they feel the need to explain why they can’t produce a satisfactory answer. Mainly, it reminds me that these tests are a huge waste of time and resources that could go toward engaging students in actual learning.

But what does it tell them?

A test scorer looking at this student’s response would conclude that the student’s response is “totally incorrect or irrelevant or contains insufficient information to demonstrate comprehension (0 points).” Same for most of this student’s other answers. So, he’s got a “below basic” achievement level in “literature,” according to the test. Most people could tell you that by listening to the kid read aloud for one minute. So what else can we gather from his poor performance? He’s probably not learning anything in school? Doesn’t keep up with the assigned readings? Doesn’t finish any of his writing assignments? His teachers must not be addressing his unique learning needs by teaching him all the state instructional standards… I bet he attends one of those “corrective action” schools that have failed to meet AYP measures over and over… (Hey, we should close all those schools!) …if he even attends at all.

The reality is that he attends an alternative high school that doesn’t believe in testing their students in the traditional way. Instead, this student demonstrates his learning through the completion of a multidisciplinary project each semester. His project is based on real world learning that he engages in at his internship at a reputable local motorcycle shop. Last semester, with the guidance and support of his internship mentor, he built a “go-ped” motor scooter from scratch using technical schematics that most of us would be hopeless at deciphering. He collected data on the cost of all the materials as well as retail pricing and crunched the numbers to determine how much he could reasonably charge for his product. He researched and wrote an essay on the inadequacy of driver education programs, presenting evidence from several studies that showed that teen drivers are largely unprepared for emergencies on the road. He developed a hypothesis and and analyzed the results of a science experiment that involved taking samples of and growing bacteria in a petri dish (How “dirty” are those go-ped handlebars anyway?). Instead of a final exam, he created and delivered an exhibition where presented evidence of all of this learning to a group of his teachers, mentors, and peers. Pretty amazing accomplishments for a student who is “below basic,” I’d say.

I keep this student’s response to the “analyze” question in mind as a good example of why these tests pretty much useless.

Categories Special Education, Testing

Yertle the Turtle and the Common Core

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2013 //
6

This post reminds us that literature speaks to us about life in ways that informational text can never do. That is why a story like Yertle the Turtle resonates with us long after we first read it and long after the informational text has been forgotten.

The post is about a kindergarten teacher. He is worried about how the Common Core will affect the children with the greatest needs.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, Special Education

Chicago Public Schools Sued for Discriminating On Grounds of Race and Disability

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2013 //
16

The Edwin F. Mandel Legal Clinic of the University of Chicago and a major law firm sued the Chicago Public Schools in federal court on behalf of students with disabilities and African American students. The closing of their schools, the lawsuit claims, has a damaging and disparate impact on these students.

In one lawsuit, the lawyers state:

“In violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the defendants propose to carry out the closings of 53 elementary schools in a manner that does not permit a timely and orderly process either for the proper review and revision of the individualized education programs (IEPs) for the plaintiff children and over 6,000 other children in special education programs or for the extra services and counseling such children require to make the difficult transition to unfamiliar schools and unfamiliar teachers and students. By putting off their decision on the closings to the eleventh hour, or the very end of the school year – for the largest closing of public schools in American history – the defendants place the plaintiff children and other children in special education at far greater risk than their non-disabled peers. The late date makes it impossible to conduct the closings without significant disruption to the programs in which these children participate and without adequate provision for the special safety risks faced by children with disabilities. In violation of federal law, this late, ill-timed, and ill-prepared program for the closing of 53 elementary schools will have a discriminatory impact upon the plaintiff children and other children with disabilities, compared to their non-disabled peers.”

The second lawsuit charges the school board, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, and the city not only with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, but engaging in racial discrimination:

“I]n violation of Section 5 of the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003 (ICRA), 740 ILCS 23/5, and by repeatedly selecting African American students to bear the costs of the closings, the defendants have unlawfully used “criteria and methods of administration” that have the “effect” of subjecting the plaintiffs’ children and other African American children represented by the plaintiff parents to discrimination because of race. In conducting closings since 2001, the defendants have used various shifting criteria that they allege to be race neutral but that always have the effect of singling out poor and marginalized African American children to bear the educational and human costs of the closings. For the 72 schools that defendants have closed to date, African American children make up more than 90 percent of the displaced children; and in currently proposed closings, they make up more than 80 percent of the displaced children. Yet African American children constitute only 42 percent of the children in the public schools.”

Categories Chicago, Emanuel, Rahm, Special Education

Marcie Lipsitt: Making Michigan Charters Obey the Law

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2013 //
19

A reader in Michigan insists that the for-profit charter operator in Muskegon Heights obey the law protecting students with disabilities. If every activist did the same, it would force the charters to serve all children. She should get the ACLU to help her.

“If you look up Michigan legislator in the thesaurus it directs you to “stupidity” with a footnote to see the Term Limit fiasco of 1992. That being said, for those against the Charter movement MI charters were delivered a fairly major setback this past Thursday.

“I filed a formal complaint this past January against the Mosaica-run Muskegon Heights Public School Academy (first all-charter district) pursuant to alleged violations to the IEPs of every student age 3-26 and on 10 substantive violations. The soup to nuts (or rotten eggs) of special education violations. The MI Dept. of Ed found NONCOMPLIANCE for ALL 10 allegations. The director of special education was fired 6 weeks ago over this complaint (and a second for children, birth to age 3 that will be out in several weeks) and corrective action that includes compensatory education for the students has been ordered.

“This complaint highlights (or lowlights) the complete failure of Mosaica and these Charters to deliver even a semblance of a free appropriate public education. I will next file a complaint with the U.S. Dept. of Ed Office of Civil Rights and allege the denial of FAPE. So while I have never met a parent in this regurgitated emergency manager-run district…score a victory for the children…and those of us fighting for public education.”

Categories Charter Schools, Michigan, Special Education

May 17 in Our History: How Soon We Forget

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2013 //
11

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregation of the races in public school was unconstitutional. At the time, segregation was the law in 17 states and many districts.

For years, the states where segregation was outlawed resisted the court decision. Their favorite ploy was school choice. They knew that school choice would preserve racial segregation because whites would choose to stay with whites, and blacks would be fearful of applying to white schools, where they would face a hostile climate, harassment, and even violence.

The Supreme Court and lower federal courts overturned the many strategies enacted to evade the necessity of desegregation.

But that was then,and this is now.

Now, billionaires proudly sponsor segregated schools. Now, cities and states authorize all-black, all-Hispanic, all-white charter schools without embarrassment.

The UCLA Civil Rights Project says that racial resegregation is on the rise, for blacks and Hispanics.

The federal government–most especially, the U.S. Department of Education–doesn’t care about racial segregation any more. Nor does it have an active interest in discrimination against students with disabilities. When the ACLU recently won a ruling against voucher schools in Milwaukee that excluded students with disabilities, it went not to the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, but to the U.S. Department of Justice. When the U.D. Government Accountability Office issued a report criticizing charter schools for their mall proportions of students with disabilities, James Shelton of the U.S. Department of Education said something like, “we’ll have to look into that.” That was the last heard from this Department.

Those who care about the resegregation of public education and discrimination against students because of their disabilities will have to wait for another administration that also cares about fairness, equity, and the principles enunciated on May 17, 1954. This one does not.

Categories Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education
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