increase in special education spending in Scarsdale

Citizens Budget Commission data on increase in general education versus special education spending in NY 2000-01 through 2009-2010:

Scarsdale per pupil spending
2000-01 - 2009-10
Gen Ed: $10,513
Gen Ed: $17,324
% change: 65%

2001-10 - 2009-10
SPED: $18,202
SPED: $43,130
% change: 136%

I'm guessing this increase is related to No Child Left Behind's requirement that most students in special education pass the same state tests general education students pass.

On the other hand, most of Scarsdale's SPED students would have passed the tests without any increase in spending, same as the general education students. New York's tests were too easy.

So I don't know what to make of this.

Years ago, an education attorney told me: "No Child Left Behind is really a special education law."

AND SEE:
No Child Left Behind and Special Education Explained
Our Children Left Behind: NCLB and Special Education

palisadesk on full inclusion and funding

re: Do general ed parents really want 'relief' from special education mandates?

palisadesk writes:

When they went for a full inclusion policy here, the senior bureaucrats were quite frank (at least in-house) that it was for financial reasons. While providing appropriate support to kids with exceptionalities in general ed classrooms is in fact very costly, providing pseudo-support and platitudes is relatively cheap.

The move from the top was, perhaps synchronistically, aligned with a lot of pressure from parents and groups representing children with disabilities for full inclusion. I can remember a time when many parents fought to get their kids into special classes for LD, language impairment, Total Communication (for deaf kids) and so forth. Those programs had a record of long-term success in getting students caught up and capable of doing challenging academic work.

Fast forward to now.....the district stopped investing in PD for special ed teachers, most of whom nowadays have learned nothing at all about effective practices, specialized teaching curricula or methods (Orton-Gillingham, DI, Lindamood-Bell, etc. etc.) so results in special classes are no better than in general ed. No surprise there. If you aren't doing something different, why expect a different result?

OTOH, we still do have special programs for very violent kids, for kids with severe or multiple disabilities, and increasingly, for autism. To comply with the laws around least restrictive environment *some* special ed classes remain, even for LD or slow learners, but are hard to get into. That means many children who really need a segregated program may spend a number of years floundering in the full inclusion environment before any other opportunity presents itself.

At the elementary level, teachers are used to a range of development and ability -- but there are limits. If one classroom has several extremely disruptive students, or students 4-7 YEARS below the class norm, it makes effective teaching of the whole class problematic. Much teacher time is diverted to preparing individual lessons and materials for the outlier students (there is NEVER a budget for special materials for them), and these students need much more teacher attention -- which is taken away from other students. Aides also have been cut back so that often they are shared between a number of classrooms.

There are some positive effects of inclusion but the absence of the necessary supports for the learning needs of the included kids is a serious equity issue, IMO. The exceptional students are not getting the teaching theyneed, and the other students are inevitably deprived of some of the instruction -- and much of the enrichment for the high achievers -- that THEY need.

I see this as a false economy.

do general ed parents really want relief from special ed mandates?

from Eastchester School District's Letter to Representatives Regarding Mandate Relief

Mandate relief would provide districts with greater flexibility to meet student needs and to control spending without reducing the quality of education. A revised system without these costly (and in many ways outdated) mandates would better serve all of our students. Overall, enacting legislation to eliminate or modify mandates would provide much needed relief to taxpayers. [emphasis added]

In a town of 19,000 people, 4000 have signed this letter, many or most of them parents, presumably. (Simply because parents are more likely to know about the letter).

I'm guessing that few of those who signed know what the words "in many ways outdated" signify.

I don't know what the words "in many ways outdated" signify, either, but I can guess. And my guess is that differentiated instruction, team teaching, and full inclusion for the most disruptive students (kids like my own two) is involved.

Granted, Eastchester could simply be angling to increase class size for the most disabled children (New York state regs here). I'm pretty sure I myself support some flexibility in a school's application of the law.

But the word outdated is a flag. As far as I know, Westchester administrators don't particularly believe that small class size is "outdated."^*

Westchester administrators do believe that homogeneous grouping is outdated.

Do general education parents believe that special classes for children with severe disabilities, children who can tantrum and hit themselves for hours, are outdated?

^* I have the sense that many administrators are frustrated by parent insistence on the smallest possible classes, but that is a different matter.