WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Endless rounds of tests and meetings ordered by city hearing officers are blocking special education students from needed help and costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, The Examiner has learned.
About 1,400 children asked the hearing officers for help getting services for their disabilities between November 2006 and October 2007, according to a court-appointed monitor’s analysis obtained by The Examiner. But in 72 percent of those cases, school hearing officers put off a decision and instead ordered new rounds of tests or meetings, the analysis showed.
Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has promised to make special education her top priority and has been given a nearly unlimited budget to do so, but the legislation that created her job shifted most of the responsibility for special education onto the state superintendent’s office, which has only a fraction of Rhee’s budget and even less of its political support. The Examiner
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