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I worked at a school very much like the one noted. If the district can meet a student's needs, then they are not mandated to provide an alternate setting. It's mindboggling how many districts will pay sky high tuition at private placements, versus getting the necessary supports in place to meet the needs of disabled children.
In fairness, the necessary supports are usually pretty darn expensive themselves. I mean right off the bat, if the district were to emulate the 1-on-1 supervision that the child would receive in the private school setting, that's at least $30,000 in salary and maybe more in benefits. That money alone is excessive to me.
In fairness, the necessary supports are usually pretty darn expensive themselves. I mean right off the bat, if the district were to emulate the 1-on-1 supervision that the child would receive in the private school setting, that's at least $30,000 in salary and maybe more in benefits. That money alone is excessive to me.
You may want to investigate further into the average amount that 1:1 personnel are paid in private ABA and similar settings. Based on your assertions above, I think you'll be quite surprised. Sp. Ed. paras in public districts often make more. The tuition rates of private behavioral schools is absolutely NOT due to the salaries involved of the 1:1 instructional personnel (or group home staff, for those sites that are residential). There are assuredly people making money at private behavioral placements, it's just not the staff who is working hands-on with the students.
In all honesty, based on my time as a special education teacher, and working intensively with the families and referring districts of children with severe autism, etc. who are referred to specialized settings, it's sometimes less often about how much it's costing the district as it is about getting students deemed "difficult" (and, in no small numbers, parents deemed "difficult") out of sight and out of mind legally. What's more, depending on how each individual state handles state testing when a student is referred to a private placement, there are schools that will put their low-scoring standardized testers in private schools to avoid reporting low test scores, particularly in high-performing, well-to-do districts. In the state I worked in, they still were responsible for "owning" the testing scores of the students they referred, and typically had to come to our facility and administer the assessments themselves, but some states do it differently. While it's not a primary reason for shuffling off disabled kids, it's nonetheless an unintended result.
In the vast majority of the situations where I was a case manager over the years I worked in this type of setting, the students served were receiving absolutely subpar services in their home district. Kids with minor intellectual disability that were numerous grade levels behind in literacy, basic math skills, even ability to attend to simple activities, when there was no developmental reason they should have been that far behind. Quite plainly put, their academic and social development needs were not being met, because all attention was focused on responding to various behavior with which the public school staff was not trained or equipped to deal. The majority of schools (particularly those that are small, rural, limited budget, etc., versus large, wealthy suburban districts and the like) would likely be better off, financially, hiring an in-house behavioral intervention specialist (or even contracting one on a part-time, consultant basis), trained and certified to equip support staff to perform the necessary behavioral interventions and assist as needed. The added bonus is that children with disabilities would not be put in settings where they have limited-to-no access to nondisabled peers (a chief flaw in private behavioral placements, which otherwise have some very positive attributes). Hiring a behavioral intervention specialist represents an additional salary, but at far less cost than years of privately contracted ed. And behavioral intervention specialists' skills would be well-used in any public setting.
The law does not say that. It says that a special education student should get a free appropriate public education (that is in no way the same as the best possible education). Students must be served in the least restrictive environment they can do well in.
But the reality of the situation is that children with special needs have the ability to demand accommodations from school districts that far exceed the type of education that all of the rest of the students get. For the vast majority of students what they get is what the school district decides they should get. Their parents do not have the ability to sue school districts to provide what the parent thinks the child should get.
So while you are correct in saying that they law says special ed students should get a free and appropriate public education, the reality is that special ed students get whatever their parents can ram down the taxpayers throats and every one else has to make due.
It's a mess all the way around. I feel for parents, too. Having a special needs child can be an incredible hardship. Over and above the emotional roller coaster, the financial aspects can easily bankrupt a middle class family.
With more mainstreaming of the SPED students there is an increase in 1:1 aides and co-teachers since the SPED students are no longer contained in one or two rooms but spread throughout the school in the regular classes.
Last year I subbed in a class where there were 3 other aides in them. That's 4 salaries right there in one room for 45 minutes.
And yes, the SPED students did need those aides as it was a Math class. That was middle school. In the high school they had one aide, co-teacher per class that had SPED students so the max at any time is only 2 teachers.
But they really don't co-teach the class; they are there specifically to help the SPED student.
You may want to investigate further into the average amount that 1:1 personnel are paid in private ABA and similar settings. Based on your assertions above, I think you'll be quite surprised. Sp. Ed. paras in public districts often make more. The tuition rates of private behavioral schools is absolutely NOT due to the salaries involved of the 1:1 instructional personnel (or group home staff, for those sites that are residential). There are assuredly people making money at private behavioral placements, it's just not the staff who is working hands-on with the students.
In all honesty, based on my time as a special education teacher, and working intensively with the families and referring districts of children with severe autism, etc. who are referred to specialized settings, it's sometimes less often about how much it's costing the district as it is about getting students deemed "difficult" (and, in no small numbers, parents deemed "difficult") out of sight and out of mind legally. What's more, depending on how each individual state handles state testing when a student is referred to a private placement, there are schools that will put their low-scoring standardized testers in private schools to avoid reporting low test scores, particularly in high-performing, well-to-do districts. In the state I worked in, they still were responsible for "owning" the testing scores of the students they referred, and typically had to come to our facility and administer the assessments themselves, but some states do it differently. While it's not a primary reason for shuffling off disabled kids, it's nonetheless an unintended result.
In the vast majority of the situations where I was a case manager over the years I worked in this type of setting, the students served were receiving absolutely subpar services in their home district. Kids with minor intellectual disability that were numerous grade levels behind in literacy, basic math skills, even ability to attend to simple activities, when there was no developmental reason they should have been that far behind. Quite plainly put, their academic and social development needs were not being met, because all attention was focused on responding to various behavior with which the public school staff was not trained or equipped to deal. The majority of schools (particularly those that are small, rural, limited budget, etc., versus large, wealthy suburban districts and the like) would likely be better off, financially, hiring an in-house behavioral intervention specialist (or even contracting one on a part-time, consultant basis), trained and certified to equip support staff to perform the necessary behavioral interventions and assist as needed. The added bonus is that children with disabilities would not be put in settings where they have limited-to-no access to nondisabled peers (a chief flaw in private behavioral placements, which otherwise have some very positive attributes). Hiring a behavioral intervention specialist represents an additional salary, but at far less cost than years of privately contracted ed. And behavioral intervention specialists' skills would be well-used in any public setting.
I may have been off on the numbers, but the point is that the cost of creating the 1:1 environment is still very costly. I can't really disagree with much else that you've said, but after reading you post it does make me think that special education services probably need to be funded (and in the more extreme cases, perhaps administered) by the state because there's clearly not an even distribution of special education students across districts. The responsibility for educating the vast majority of special education students in this country falls overwhelmingly on the shoulders of our urban/inner-ring schools and districts, the exact institutions that are already facing other serious challenges.
Of course it is costly. However, districts are starting to figure out that it is less costly for them in the long run to provide it in-house than to ship the kids out (particularly when this involves residential placement at a non-local facility). Where I am, enrollment in specialized schools is declining, and trained BCBAs being placed in the public school (full-time or on an as-needed basis) to guide and support 1:1 paras with realistically usable individualized behavior intervention strategies is up, because, among other valid reasons, it is cheaper. I foresee a time approaching when the only students in high tuition private behavioral settings are those referred from very affluent districts (i.e. wealthy suburban ones), and privately paying clients, i.e. the ones who are enrolled without a school district referral. I saw this trend beginning at the time that I left a setting like this, a little under a year ago.
The tough reality is that there are obviously students who, due to disability/special needs, are MUCH more complicated and in some cases, difficult to educate than their typically developing peers, require more support, accommodation, and program modification to do the same things as typically developing peers. Providing this additional support obviously requires additional funding (which is a reason for the involvement of federal funds). Most things in these students' lives is going to come at a significantly higher cost than it will for their nondisabled counterparts.
It is unfortunate that there are those who feel that it is not fair that children with disabilities are legally afforded the accommodations necessary to enable them to receive the same access to an education as any other child.
Last edited by TabulaRasa; 08-24-2014 at 08:53 AM..
It is unfortunate that there are those who feel that it is not fair that children with disabilities are legally afforded the accommodations necessary to enable them to receive the same access to an education as any other child.
The problem is that they aren't being afforded the same access as any child. At my last school the special ed kids in self-contained classes got to go on three free field trips during the school day a year, no one else got a single one. Students who received discipline referrals or were not passing classes were not allowed to participate in various non-academic activities, that is unless they were on an IEP. Parents whose students are on IEPs can make demands of the school system that other parents can't.
Things like class size and class load laws and regs are broken frequently for budget reasons - unless it is special ed. I has a parent, whose child was in my class with 38 kids, flip out when she discovered the school hired a new teacher when her neighbor's kid's resource class got 15 kids, and they now had 8 kids in his class.
People aren't upset about access to education, they are upset the few are being served at the expense of the many. Special education laws, and more importantly the term free appropriate education, are going to eventually need to be addressed. Special education is bankrupting school systems. According to the latest stats, 7-13% of the students are having between 25-40% of the education budget of most school districts spent on them. That is an issue.
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The problem is that they aren't being afforded the same access as any child. At my last school the special ed kids in self-contained classes got to go on three free field trips during the school day a year, no one else got a single one. Students who received discipline referrals or were not passing classes were not allowed to participate in various non-academic activities, that is unless they were on an IEP. Parents whose students are on IEPs can make demands of the school system that other parents can't.
Things like class size and class load laws and regs are broken frequently for budget reasons - unless it is special ed. I has a parent, whose child was in my class with 38 kids, flip out when she discovered the school hired a new teacher when her neighbor's kid's resource class got 15 kids, and they now had 8 kids in his class.
People aren't upset about access to education, they are upset the few are being served at the expense of the many. Special education laws, and more importantly the term free appropriate education, are going to eventually need to be addressed. Special education is bankrupting school systems. According to the latest stats, 7-13% of the students are having between 25-40% of the education budget of most school districts spent on them. That is an issue.
I have to agree with this assessment. It's something I've watched creep on Long Island, as mostly middle and upper-middle class parents have become more sophisticated at maximising returns from the system (mostly due to more accommodating standards and better access to information).
A major problem, as I see it, is the lack of cost controls. With a diagnosis and some smooth talking, it's not too difficult (relative to the pay-off) to secure tens of thousands of dollars in special education/assistance through the district. In my area, this assistance often includes at-home services.
I don't see how much longer this can go on. At the moment, it is political suicide to suggest even the slightest hint of limitations/regulation, but eventually something will have to be done. The tax base just can't support the burgeoning commitments to SpecEd services, especially considering that the most expensive students often are the ones least likely due to the severity of disability of "paying back" the cost of education. (Publicly funded education is of course modelled on an investment. The costs to educate a populace are nothing compared with the lost potential of an uneducated population)
What do you suggest as a solution? The costs associated with raising a special needs child can easily bankrupt a middle class family. Where do they go for help?
Last edited by randomparent; 08-27-2014 at 06:17 AM..
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