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Never quite grasped this. WHERE is all of the money coming from to pay for the therapy, psychologists, case managers, interpreters, etc. in a public school setting? And is there incentive or disincentive to have many/few kids in the district with an IEP? I wonder.
The money comes from the same place the rest of the school gets it's money. In our district that is property taxes and funds from the State.
Not sure what state YOU are in, but in 3 states I've taught in, SPED money comes directly from the Federal Government. It is the only content area that is funded this way. IDEA? Our SPED teachers have much bigger budgets and we never hesitate to hire personnel because it is reimbursed $ for $ from the feds. Still our tax $$, but not our property taxes, rather our FIT.
In my small rural district, we have a one million dollar shortfall from what the Federal government mandates that we do in special education(psychologists, etc you asked about above) and what we get in funds for special education from the Feds and the state to do the job. This shortfall is picked up by local school and property taxes.
This is part of the vast amount of unfunded mandates that have to be handled by local taxes.
There is not supposed to be an incentive to reduce special ed. We are subject to federal audits of Special Education services. And parents have the right to request evaluations. Psychologists are under very strict controls with nasty consequences for failing to identify kids who are not eligible under the guidelines. But, I'm sure there is pressure from various sources to reduce the number of kids in special ed. In fact, the magic number in PA is 40 in the group. Any group of 40 or more in a school that fails to make AYP will cause the entire school not to make AYP. Since special ed kids also have to be 100% proficient in reading and math by 2014, most districts failure to make AYP first starts with the special ed kids who for some odd reason can't seem to make the proficiency requirements(WHO KNEW THIS COULD HAPPEN?).
But all of these things are heavily monitored by the state. Its really hard to cheat, and if cheating is found, the Superintendent and the administrators can have their certificates lifted, which is a pretty good disincentive to cheat.
However, lots of things happen in the large cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh where things are so bad that nobody cares much about any consequences from the state anymore. Like when you threaten a child with loss of recess, when at home they beat him with a belt. ???Like what child cares about anything we can do in a punishing realm when their home life is a hell we can barely imagine?????
Not sure what state YOU are in, but in 3 states I've taught in, SPED money comes directly from the Federal Government. It is the only content area that is funded this way. IDEA? Our SPED teachers have much bigger budgets and we never hesitate to hire personnel because it is reimbursed $ for $ from the feds. Still our tax $$, but not our property taxes, rather our FIT.
SPED money WAS supposed to be funded through federal dollars but it is NOT. Originally it was mostly funded that way but over time the burden has shifted to individual districts. Look up your district budget online and there will be a line item for special ed-then do the math and see what percentage of the overall budget SPED eats up-you will be shocked. SPED hasn't been funded by the federal gov't for at least 20 years.
Thanks all for the replies. The cost of funding such programs with the various well compensated staff has got to be huge; psychologists, speech paths, OT's, and interpreters at IEP meetings that may last for many hours. Especially with so many districts, at least the ones I know about in the larger cities, having so many kids with IEP's. I wasn't sure if there was a separate federal government pot or what.
Never quite grasped this. WHERE is all of the money coming from to pay for the therapy, psychologists, case managers, interpreters, etc. in a public school setting? And is there incentive or disincentive to have many/few kids in the district with an IEP? I wonder.
......with the various well compensated staff has got to be huge; psychologists, speech paths, OT's, and interpreters at IEP meetings that may last for many hours.......
Yeah.... it would be a lot cheaper if districts would only hire the bottom of the class in under grad and grad school. I'm sure they might be able to offer different salary scales to the poorly qualified, and get the price for this down to the bottom level. You know, the heck with these magna *** laude grads. Get some good hard working grads with C's and D averages in school.
Works for me. Why does such an obvious money saver not get chosen by our educator administrators? Go Figure!!
Yeah.... it would be a lot cheaper if districts would only hire the bottom of the class in under grad and grad school. I'm sure they might be able to offer different salary scales to the poorly qualified, and get the price for this down to the bottom level. You know, the heck with these magna *** laude grads. Get some good hard working grads with C's and D averages in school.
Grades aren't everything. The people with the most passion, whether they are magna *** laude grads or not, are who will do the best job and stay the longest. They are the ones with nothing to prove and more to give to the job.
Grades aren't everything. The people with the most passion, whether they are magna *** laude grads or not, are who will do the best job and stay the longest. They are the ones with nothing to prove and more to give to the job.
This response makes no sense, especially when mine was clearly sarcastic.
Z
P.s: you can always tell tr@ll like behavior on a forum. Its when someone, without any sarcasm, takes a view which is completely off the wall and tries to present it as something real, only to get wild discussions going. Its then you can see the heretofore invisible stripes of the poster. My dad used to do that to me when I was young, and he was a piece work, and not a good piece.
Last edited by Zarathu; 05-23-2010 at 02:25 PM..
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I'm sure they might be able to offer different salary scales to the poorly qualified, and get the price for this down to the bottom level. You know, the heck with these magna *** laude grads. Get some good hard working grads with C's and D averages in school.
