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Greene and Foster wrote a Pajamas Media (PJM) article that alleges that the increase in special education enrollments is a result of a "bounty" schools get for SpEd students, rather than an increase in need.
Foster and Greene maintain that schools have a financial incentive to label kids as learning disabled. In fact, schools actually have a disincentive to diagnose kids. The money that they receive from the federal government is a fraction of the money that they actually spend on special education. The federal government only pays for 17%
of the expenses for special education. State and local governments must pick up the rest of the tab. In our town, nearly half of the local school budget is devoted to special education.
I agree with Laura's thesis that much of the rise in SpEd enrollment arises from disabilities that weren't recognized in earlier eras.
But, beyond that, yes, many things have changed since the 1980’s. The definitions of LD have been refined in the law, as well as the diagnostic criteria. In the 80's the criteria were primarily discrepancy based (performance below ability), which meant that a low IQ score (if it was too high to qualify for MR/DD criteria) excused low performance. There was also the two standard deviations below the mean criteria–also not current. And, as I pointed out, the incentives may have changed. Where labelling a kid was previously a way to move them out of the accountability system (as well as the classroom, or even the school), there are more protections now that disincentivize that option. In fact–wasn’t there a school in California that was relabelling kids as non-disabled to get below the “n” size for required reporting?
Previously at I Speak of Dreams:
3 comments:
My experience supports the contention that schools and school staff do not usually benefit from having children formally classified as Special Education students. The financial variables differ from state to state and district to district (even within districts) and resource allocation often has little to do with who is officially “special ed” and who isn’t.
What does happen at the school level is that teachers, paraprofessionals and office staff are often burdened with additional make-work projects (required reporting on many items, endless and often useless, poorly organized “professional development,” visits from district level “experts whose vaunted “expertise is nothing short of embarrassing to behold, IEP meetings and phone calls ad infinitum. Most of these things have (in my experience, hopefully exceptional) no direct bearing and limited positive effect on the student, his/her learning, or better instructional practices or results either for students with real learning issues or their peers (who may be drafted into being aides, whether they wish to be or not).
Money allocated at the district level may not, and often does not, actually reach the student for whom it is intended. Sometimes NONE of it does.
Thus, although the district goes through spasms of wanting to get sped numbers up, it rarely follows those hustles with resources or staff to match. Teachers, paraprofessionals, instructional material etc. are all allocated on formulae based on enrolment (rather than need); in my district, they officially deny that this is the case, but it IS the case. They are selective, however, at which school communities they will impose draconian restrictive measures. Communities with active parents – including lawyers;-)) – are usually much better served, even though their number of real sped children is typically smaller.
Schools in low-income areas are more likely to have higher numbers of children enrolled with disabilities such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, complex birth defects (spina bifida, cerebral palsy), cognitive impairment, and other problems. However, there are rarely adequate services to even begin to deal with the basic instructional and management issues these students may bring.
Once staff realized that the amount of work needed to get students formally documented as “special ed” did not give them any assistance in helping the child, most teachers lost interest in initiating, or according more than token compliance to, this process. Sped classification does give a child some entitlements that are valuable and worthwhile for those who need them, but usually nothing initially changes. Not here, nor in my last school, which had a “radical inclusion” philosophy.
I believe there is reliable data that some special ed categories are showing an increase while others are diminishing. PKU, for instance – one an uncommon, but far from rare, condition that caused mental retardation, is largely controlled now. Spina bifida and similar defects are less frequent, due both to increased nutritional support in pregnancy and to the availability of therapeutic abortion. Autism, however, is increased however you define it; the parameters of the definition set boundaries to the rate of increase, but it is “up” from 20 years ago no matter how you slice the data.
Speech/Language disabilities are also on the increase (probably a related phenomenon). “LD” is so variably defined that it is difficult to reach any empirical conclusion, but the raw numbers suggest that a larger percentage of students deemed “exceptional” are so for a variety of “learning disabilities” than in the past.
Many of these “LDs” are ones which we know a great deal about, and for which there are promising and proven effective instructional interventions. Schools are rarely given opportunity to learn about, much less implement, any of them.
Other underlying causative factors, like FAS (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) will soon be reliably diagnosed at birth (a screening test is already developed but not economical to use). Then we will see even more children in some categories that have not to date been recognized much.
So far, having spent at least several years each in about 5 low-SES schools with plenty of children needing (but not receiving) SPED services, I have never seen this alleged “bounty” ever reach its target
Your take is dead on and applies to what I see in Connecticut. Huge numbers of kids are being classified as SPED, but it doesn't seem to be coming from the teachers -- it is more the parents. If a child struggles with school, the knee jerk reaction is to blame the child, give him/her a label, and start the process. Rarely is poor teaching considered a reason for a child to struggle in school; so in the suburbs, parents look for other answers and usually turn to SPED.
The schools end up putting a tremendous level of resources into SPED, but little of it reaches the kids. We have 3 full time school psychologists, TAs for one on one support, OT/PT therapists, and reams of paperwork. These professionals rarely have any experience or knowledge that would be helpful in improving the educational situation for kids.
It is a huge drain on local budgets. I surmise that it is largely driven by parents desperately seeking answers for kids that don't succeed.
The drain for my district is the transport to/from and cost of specialized programs off site. We run 3% sped and app. 25% LD. App. 1/3 on -site for sped, and 2/3 off -site.
The parental wish for sped classification here stopped about 5years ago, when BOCES started putting sped classrooms in each district rather than transporting all students to their centralized facilities and the district started full inclusion. The LD parents wanted sped b/c they did not want their children in a large classroom (large here is 23 students in K-2, 30 in 3-8), preferring a 1:8 situation. Full inclusion took that choice away. Also, sped students can work at their own level, rather than the classroom pace...so a 2E children (LD + gifted) can subject accelerate, unlike in the reg. ed. or inclusion classroom. Full inclusion ended that one too.
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