Thanks to John L. of Teach Effectively Blog who pointed me out to this story: "Efforts to Rein In Special Education Costs in DC". I think it's about time that they do proactive changes in Special Education to maximize our students' potentials; teachers, students, parents have been suffering too long.
by: Sarah Hughes
July 07, 2006 - There's a new effort underway to rein in the amount of money DC public schools spends on special education.
Listen to this feature:
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1 comment:
Hey, T-SOL, thanks for the nod. I agree that it's important to provide appropriate services. I studied out-of-district (OOD) placements (the subject of Ms. Hughes' report) in the early 90s and, though that's a while ago, I think many of the issues are the same. Lots of factors influenced decisions to pay for students to attend residential programs outside the local education agency's area. Of course, the students who attend OOD facilities often (not always, to be sure) had very serious problems, but other factors are important; for example some administrators said they believed that other social service agencies (e.g., child welfare) sometimes pushed for OOD placements as a way to get a kid out of a very troubled non-school environment by using school $$ to send the student OOD.
Of course (putting on my Teach Effectively hat), students, parents, and teachers can benefit from schools' employment of evidence-based teaching methods. I'd have to guess that at least some of the students who are sent OOD could be served appropriately by the local education agency if that agency would make a concentrated effort to use effective practices and collaborate closely with parents to help coordinate other services (so-called "wrap-around" programming).
Thanks for the editorial space!
JohnL
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