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I don't understand everything I want to, but I do understand much of how services for children with special needs are funded in several states.
While private insurance and Medicaid may pay for some special assistance for certain students, usually specific assistive devices, the majority of services and support are funded through the school district. Even the nursing support that an earlier post referred to is generally funded by the school district.
Speech therapy, occupational therapy, classroom aides... are all funded through the school district. While a student may get speech therapy outside of school that is paid for by private insurance or Medicaid, if they receive these services in school, these therapists are school district employees, paid for out of school district funds.
I have yet to read any report or hear any school district administrator say that these services are reimbursed at anywhere close to the level of costs. If you have information to the contrary, please provide.
You missed the county and state support for special needs. In PA at least state and county provide additional funding. The scam school districts like to pull is renting out class room space to Intermediate Units. So a school district has a few empty classrooms. They offer to warehouse special needs students, Yes warehouse because that is all they really do. 15 years ago, I can't speak for today, the state /county provided the school district up to 16g for special needs students. Another school district has an empty class room so they offer to take additional special needs kids for say 12g each. The parent school district will then pocket the 4g for themselves.
Does the special needs student benefit? Not at all.
Remember folks if you are the parent of a special needs child, you are their advocate and the only person who really cares. Don't let a school district bully you or lie to you.
If that school district can afford a sports team, a football field, or a football coach whose other job is teaching drivers ed, they can afford to meet the needs of special education.
The primary problem however is that students with special needs absorb a disproportionate amount of teacher and classroom time.
Teachers spend a disporportionate amount of time dealing with the students on IEPs. Some need constant reminders to stay on task. Others need to have modified work and tests. ...As class sizes grow, this becomes an increasing problem.
Our children have all been in classrooms where children with EBD (Emotional and Behavior Disorders) disabilities constantly disrupt the class.
We put our kids in private schools for middle school. The main reason other parents said they were forking over the tuition was because so much time was wasted in public school classrooms.
While tracking students by functional level is not done in elementary or middle school, it kicks in during high school. The students enrolled Advance Placement English, math... are often in history and other classes with students who function at their level. The pressure is on for grades and class standings and the disruptive behavior is not tolerated.
This is where we really drop the ball with kids with disabilities. Funding is being cut all over the place for high school vocational/technical programs that in the past supported these students in finding their place in the work world.
So for eight years, we pretend they are all headed to college, everyone learns at a different pace... while some students struggle to keep up with concepts they can't quite grasp and classroom behavior expectations they can't meet.
Then in high school we drop the mainstreaming and just leave them behind.
The system isn't working well for any of the kids. Those families who can afford it are steadily pulling their children out. Vouchers will accelerate this process.
Nope. Any extra money spent on them above the cost per student for that school shortchanges others. Period. Every public school admin in the country will tell you the costs of Special Ed are killing their budgets.
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If a student is violent - whether they are disabled or not - they should not be in gen pop with the other kids and teachers. That is a no-brainer. I'm not talking about those kids and I support their removal from mainstream classrooms.
Well, unfortunately, neither federal law nor their parents will agree with you on that. Just try it. The parents shriek to high heaven that their child has "rights" (which non-disabled kids DON'T have, by the way), and they'll sue the school district if their child is removed from the regular classroom, aka "the least restrictive environment."
In my district, profoundly disabled children are in another classroom altogether. What do you propose we do with those children? Keep them at home and out of society?
"Background of Special Education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
...
"Ever since its initial enactment, the federal law has included a commitment to pay 40 percent of the average per student cost for every special education student. The current average per student cost is $7,552 and the average cost per special education student is an additional $9,369 per student, or $16,921. Yet, in 2004, the federal government is providing local school districts with just under 20 percent of its commitment rather than the 40 percent specified by the law, creating a $10.6 billion shortfall for states and local school districts.
"This shortfall creates a burden on local communities and denies full opportunity to all students -- with and without disabilities."
(My emphasis - more @ the URL.)
I'll look for more stats. However, note that the federal annual contribution per student is @ less than half what was promised in the initial legislation. Note too that average cost per student (per year, I assume) was $16,921 in 2004. This is a long way from $100K to $300K/year/Spec. Ed. student.
What I see in the articles I've pulled up is that - due to the national economic contraction & federal sequestration of funds across the board, education spending per student, including Spec. Ed., has been dropping over the last 3 or 4 years.
Averages do not speak to to the distribution of the curve. The 2/3's of my district's school spending being Special Ed comes straight out of the district's annual report and the 1/4 of the kids being classified as Special Ed came from the district too. Obviously where I live they use a very expansive definition of what constitutes Special Ed and are clearly including kids with any kind of behavioral problem or who are just slower learners than others. The $100,000 - $300,000 for individual kids came to me directly from School Board members that are friends of mine. These are typically out of district placements into residential programs for severely disabled children who when they age out of the school system will be wards of the govt. on SSDI and other programs for the rest of their lives. Parents of such kids sometimes show up with lawyers demanding services at that level. It is financially devastating for small districts.
My 4 town school district has about 80 kids per grade at the 7-12 Middle/High School thanks to many School Choice kids coming there from nearby towns, and only about 50 kids per grade K-6 spread across 4 elementary schools. With so much money going to Special Ed it is very difficult to offer the extent of AP and Honors level courses for the brightest kids that you might find in a large suburban district. This is not a wealthy area yet we spend $16 - $17,000 per kid per year with virtually all of our property taxes going to the schools. We don't have police, public water or sewers, parks, garbage pick up, or senior services. We have volunteer fire depts, libraries and Town Halls open maybe 20 hours per week, transfer stations open about the same for us to bring our own garbage to, and a couple guys that will plow the roads and provide basic road maintenance. A substantial portion of our roads aren't even paved. Kids are clearly the priority but there are real limits as to how high the property taxes can go. If we are to do better for the brightest of our kids, there has to be some give on the other end. What currently happens instead is Special Ed gets everything it needs first as a result of mandates, and the rest get what's left over.
as far as disruptive kids etc well if they REPs had not come up with the COMMON core and NO- critical thinking fits all scrap - some of these students as my 2nd grand with the reading issues--(now H roll) could be taught right --in sections or classes to fit their learning needs-- you all put the teachers in a squeeze- my daughter when her brother passed also found her self in pickle and also was held back -- she too is HONOR ROLL-- dumb system! LET the TEACHERS TEACH!! and let each student receive the right tools to better their lives - some who fall by the wayside where you see them later?? IN JAIL_ you will pay more then!!
When it comes to disabled children, I'd like to think people on either side of the aisle wouldn't stoop so low as to insult them and their families and say they are a drain on society. I really had high hopes and held others here in high esteem in regards to disabled children. Its absolutely disgusting how some people have spoken about these kids.
They are not getting a disproportionate share. They are getting the share they need in order to get the free, adequate, public education to which they are entitled.
To care for a disabled child, it's not uncommon to incur millions of dollars. My friend's baby, in his short 1 year's life, incurred over 1 million dollars that must be shouldered by the taxpayers. Should he lived, each year he would incur over 1 million dollars because the major issues with his brain and heart.
Call it what you want but please explain to me how that is NOT a drain to the society as he would always be in intensive care and wouldn't pay a dime tax?
Looking from economics point of view, because there's so much money to be made in the taxpayer funded caring for the disabled, there's not much incentive to prevent them from being born. It's sad that more and more disabled children are born into the society. Should we put the responsibility back to the parents so that they can do everything in their power to ensure their children are born healthy, it would become a much better world for all of us and the children.
Last edited by lifeexplorer; 01-20-2017 at 07:27 AM..
I tend to agree that education should be decided at the state level but I do think we need federal funding to keep our schools running. In my area, the tax base continually shrinks. I don't know what our schools would do without federal funding. But there must be a compromise between states and feds when it comes to education decisions.
Unfortunately, we need federal mandates to assure all children have access to a free, public education. I say unfortunately because, as evidenced on this thread, there are many Americans who would happily wash their hands of those children with disabilities as ineducable.
No, we do not need federal mandate to ensure all children have access to a free public education.
How to educate the children is their parents' responsibility not the taxpayers'. If it has to be the taxpayers' responsibility, the parents should be prohibited from having more children or voting.
You missed the county and state support for special needs. In PA at least state and county provide additional funding. The scam school districts like to pull is renting out class room space to Intermediate Units. So a school district has a few empty classrooms. They offer to warehouse special needs students, Yes warehouse because that is all they really do. 15 years ago, I can't speak for today, the state /county provided the school district up to 16g for special needs students. Another school district has an empty class room so they offer to take additional special needs kids for say 12g each. The parent school district will then pocket the 4g for themselves.
Does the special needs student benefit? Not at all.
Remember folks if you are the parent of a special needs child, you are their advocate and the only person who really cares. Don't let a school district bully you or lie to you.
If that school district can afford a sports team, a football field, or a football coach whose other job is teaching drivers ed, they can afford to meet the needs of special education.
Sounds like a scam to me, I've never heard or seen such a thing in the states we've lived.
Mandated services are provided by school districts, not some Intermediate Units. Perhaps they are unique to PA.
What I've seen and read about is what a previous poster pointed out. States and districts have certain services they are "mandated" to provide for students with disabilities. They get additional funds to support these mandated services but only about a fourth of what it costs to provide these services. The rest of the money comes out of the general school district funding.
IEPs absorb considerable time to develop, update, monitor, and carry through. This is time that is not available for all students.
As to encouraging parents of children with special needs to advocate for them, I don't think you need to worry about that. Most of these parents seem to be well aware of their legal right to demand additional services for their children and often threaten to sue if they think their child is being short changed.
Sports programs are often where children with special needs, particularly those with a diagnosis of ADHD, find they can compete on an equal footing with other children. If you want to do away with them, fine by me. But you will be doing a lot of children with IEP's a disservice.
What I care about is that all our children get the education they will need to be competitive in an increasingly accelerated world.
More and more parents are realizing that their children are wasting precious time in schools that are not focused on all children achieving their potential.
DeVos believes states shouldn't have to adere to IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). If states don't adhere to it, then schools won't be able to provide a basic education to fit individual needs.
That's not what she said.
You seem to have a habit of reading what someone actually said and turning it around to fit what you think they believe.
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