House spurns private-school option in renewing special-ed law
By Ben Feller
ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 1, 2003
WASHINGTON – A Republican-led push to let parents send disabled children to private school with government money failed yesterday as the House passed legislation renewing a 28-year-old law governing special education.
Critics said the school-choice proposals amounted to a dangerous expansion of the voucher program. Almost every Democrat and about one-fifth of Republicans joined to reject the ideas.
The proposals were a major point of contention in the debate over reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The bill passed 251-171.
One plan would have enticed states to create private-school options so parents could use public money for tuition and transportation. A second intended to give certificates to children already enrolled in private schools so they could get extra services. Supporters said the amount – about $1,400 – is the share of federal money that would go to the students if they were in public schools.
“Federal funds should not be used for private-school vouchers for any children, but it’s particularly dangerous for children with disabilities,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.
Democrats said the changes would strip money from public schools and offer no accountability to parents or the public about quality of service to disabled students. But the sponsor of the main private school plan, Rep. James DeMint, R-S.C., said parents deserve a range of choices.
“I have concerns with special education today,” DeMint said. “Instead of meeting the needs of the children who are truly disabled, special education is becoming a label for every child who learns differently, or who has not been taught basic skills.”
Members of both parties agreed on the central points, including early intervention for children needing help and better identification of which students have disabilities.
The focus now shifts to the Senate, which expects to release its special-education bill by Memorial Day. Senators are negotiating a bipartisan bill that would leave contentious issues, including vouchers and mandatory funding, for debate.
The Bush administration, which has endorsed the House bill, said it would work with the Senate to strengthen some areas, including preparing disabled children for college or the work force.
“This bill will help reduce the misidentification of students with disabilities and relieve the paperwork burden on teachers, allowing them to spend more time doing what they do best: teaching our children,” Education Secretary Rod Paige said.
Advocates for the disabled say the bill weakens protections for students with special needs. They are concerns about expanded punishment for students who break school rules and reductions in the educational reviews given to each student.
“We have to do a better job of articulating what’s at stake for kids and their families,” said James Wendorf, executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “We will seriously reach out to the grass roots in order to make that message take hold.”
Democrats lost a bid to make Congress pay 40 percent of special-education costs, the amount it promised when it approved the education law more than 25 years ago. GOP leadership ruled out amendments that would have phased in mandatory funding over six to seven years.
The money issue is significant because states and school districts must pay for expenses Congress does not cover. That amounts to billions of dollars that school leaders say they need for teacher training and salaries, books, equipment and other expenses.
Federal spending on special education, which stood between $1 billion and $2 billion throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, has increased to $8.9 billion in recent years. The House plan would increase the federal commitment from 18 percent to 40 percent over seven years at the discretion of Congress.
Republicans said mandating yearly increases would reduce oversight of special education and limit lawmakers’ ability to respond to other needs.
Roughly 6.3 million children with physical or emotional disabilities receive special education.
Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Re: our nemisis is getting some heat; well it's about time!
Pandora! What an exciting read! I can only hope this guy doesn’t lose any steam and he takes it to the DA and establishes a case! This rat ba$^#rd has been beating up parents with tax dollars for an aweful long time. Still tastes bad and I haven’t thought of him for a while! Anyway, very glad to read the up date, please keep us posted. So very glad to hear he’s on the front burner somewhere.
best regards,
Andy
Does my child exist for the school district or does the scho
I am sick and tired of hearing about how my kid,if making the choice to obtain a better education,left the public school system for a private one, it would drain the violating,bearucractic,abusive and inadequate public school system of precious money.
It is not only untrue, but it is the most incredibly insulting thing I have heard in a long time.
1. The child on a voucher does NOT recieve federal funds. Guess who does? The public school keeps them. They don’t have the student to educate anymore,but they keep their federal and county funds. HELLO?!!! The school still screams about not getting the state funds,why? Got a BIG problem with this. The state funds are dictated directly from the services the school claims they give to the student. If they don’t have the student,then they don’t need the money! If they wind up not needing to provide the student with the services,IE violate their rights,then they can use it for other things,IE staff pay. Stop me if I am wrong,you want me to keep my kid in public school for what? Well hell Mrs. School administrator,let me allow you to abuse my kid and obtain a raise all in the same year.( yeah right)
2. The private schools are not held accountable.
The parent is not a good enough judge? Again,here we go,I need a legislator or better yet a public school system to tell me whether my kid is making adequate progress? Gee,and to think I spent years trying to convince the school,that my kid indeed made NO progress the whole time he was enrolled as a Sped student. Accountability is a big sore spot with me. Give me a damn break,when has it been an easy feat to hold a school accountable for not educating my kid? IDEA is NOT enforcable,but you going to insult my intelligence further by saying, I as a Parent, can not determine for my self whether or not my kid is making progress? Not only is the private school held accountable to the parent,but they are financially accountable. I pay them,if I leave,they don’t get paid. Now can the public school say that? Maybe they should….
one issue is separation of church and state(state funding of
In my state, Mass., in the state constitution there is a clause about separation of church and state…this bars my state from using vouchers because they could not go to parochial schools. This may well apply to other states. Also, in Mass. the cost of private schools is so high that many feel vouchers would not be useful.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
As you know, this has ticked me off for quite some time. All of what you fume about pisses me off too.
The failure of the beaurocracy to level the playing field is offensive.
They have a due process system where by if they feel the child is not recieiving the “appropriate education”, then the burden of the due process would then fall on the district to take the parents to hearing to prove that the non-public school is failing to provide that “appropriate education”. The problem is all the case law, which has been established by districts and their high priced attorneys and consultants, is in favor of keeping the child in the placement (of the district, until the table would be turned).
Furthermore, the failure to allow for this type of voucher would also keep the beast complacent for there is no need to improve (other than individual teachers who do a wonderful job, and I am not speaking about them, but the system as a whole). Without outside competition, there is no incentive to improve the product for the customer. They will get what we serve.
I could go on and on, but your rant speaks well enough for the both of us socks!
Andy
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
Go socks!
You know what I find it extremely interesting that some excellent teachers I know already consider themselve accountable.
I too go balistic if someone tries to tell me only some test can tell if my son is learning. Rubbish & puppycock.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
You go girl! In my county there used to be many private special ed options the public schools had to pay for because they didn’t have the special ed services available. The public schools started providing appropriate services so they wouldn’t have to fork over the money to the private schools. At first the services were decent enough that parents no longer fought for the private school placements. The private schools went out of business and the public school services went steadily down hill from there. Bait and switch! Now the public school services have gotten so bad that a few private special ed programs are starting up again.
Socks someone is looking for you
Socks someone is looking for you in the Teaching Kids with LD board.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
Andy, Oh how I know that I am preaching to the chior,you hit a nerve.
I was asked to testify in front of the Minn. House of representatives the begining of this month,regarding the McKay Scholarship. They are looking at possibly developing a program or a special ed voucher. There is a House Bill. These people had their minds made up before I even stepped in there. A real frustrating situation. Why are parents considered poor judges of what their kids need? Ironicly the rep got my number from my DOE,go figure. Thought they lost it a LONG time ago.
I am incredulous,and god hath no fury then a Lder without enough caffiene.Next time maybe I will drink a whole cup of coffeee before I vent:-) Maybe not.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
It’s a good question. Who do society’s institutions serve? Us or themselves? What is the intention of those institutions? Is it to keep people in jobs or actually to provide a service to the public?
I’ve grown disillusioned over the years and I’ve come to believe that institutions first serve themselves.
In regard to vouchers, districts cannot speak the raw truth which is there is no good reason for there not to be vouchers but that vouchers risk diminishing the power of the public schools and it always seems to be about power.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
In public funding of schools, all the taxpayers’ dollars are comingled and used to fund education; when you choose to take out tax dollars for private school payment you are taking out the public’s money, and I for one don’t want tax dollars used to pay for church-sponsored schools. In my state(Mass.) it would take a constitutional amendment to allow for vouchers. There already is public funding of approved special ed. placements thru the IEP process, and some of these placements are upwards of $100, 00 a year for students whose needs can’t be met in our local schools. I think this is a state issue, and needs to be decided state by state.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
and may you and your state remain very happy with the mediocre education that your state forces down the throat of thousand and thousands of innocent kids,simply because you do not want a parrochial school to get any of your money. But yet,let us not forget,your money is also my money,and I just might be a parent who is wanting another choice. And should YOUR money be more important then MY money?
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
Where I come from in Canada the provincial governments have been funding parochial schools forever and ever, in fact in my province of Quebec until the 1980’s parochial schools were all there was — no such thing as secular schools, still true in Newfoundland, and the sky hasn’t fallen in. There are pros and cons to both systems.
I am a little concerned about some more radical religious groups that don’t want to teach anything about the modern world; here the schools that get government funding are required to cover specific curriculum goals, and I think this is a good plan.
Something that is far more worrisome is the issue of parental neglect. Here we are grizzly-bear mothers who will do anything to protect our cubs, and we see the bureaucracy as interfering with our far more intense efforts.
But there are parents who don’t want education for their children and parents who actively fight off help when it is offered. Right now on the Teaching Reading board there are two cases under discussion, one a grandmother and one a teacher, who want to get a kid evaluated and helped and a parent is absolutely refusing. There are parents who would not send their kids to school at all without mandatory attendance laws.
The school bureaucracy and the laws and rules have to be set up to try to protect those kids, too. Not to say that choice and vouchers are impossible, but consequences should be thought out in detail before opening up the system to abuse.You cannot assume that all parents are caring and supportive and hard-working and will do the best; many will try to skim the cash and profit fromm the system. So will some dishonest and irresponsible people try to profit from setting up charter schools. Baltimore is one city that has had some bad experiences with this and had several thousand kids’s chances of an education hurt when an unproven system was used in several schools.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
it really is a matter of choice. Yes,there are unscrupulous schools and people out there in this world. This by the way includes public schools. Whole school district’s.
A parent must be an informed consumer and decide where is best for their child. Why is this such a hard concept? A parent making the choice?
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
Choice is fine. But you didn’t address my concern (and the concern of those people in the school bureaucracy who aren’t totally self-serving)
What do you do about the parents who choose not to educate their children at all but to keep them home to help with the drug dealing, or who choose not to expend the effort to get kids to any school and just abuse them when they make noise?
What do you do about the parents who choose to teach their girls to be totally submissive and marry polygamously at age 14? (Recent documentary with facts and names and places — this is still going on in western US and Canada)
Wht do you do about the parents who choose to teach their children that their small group is the only right thinking group on Earth and it’s OK to shoot others?
What do you do about the concerned and caring but misinformed parents who are convinced that their children need the lates snake oil advertised?
These are not easy questions and there is never going to be any perfect answer. But having seen kids in most of these sorts of situations with my own eyes, I’m sort of relieved when the educational bureaucracy actually does something right and tries to guarantee a certain minimum.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
OKay,I agree,terrible situations,but what does this have to do with voucher’s?
You can not homeschool with state funds? You can not obtain the monies for yourself. A voucher is giving the funding to another SCHOOL and allowing them to educate your child. Now are you suggesting there are schools out there that do these kinds of things to children for their parents?
As a matter of fact a voucher can be used to go to another public school if you choose.
I am still confused as to your point,regarding parents who do not care? Their definitely out there.
If your saying you still think the government should has some say in terms of making parents send their kids to school,I totally agree. I would LOVE to see the government actually enforce IDEA. Since they do not seem to agree,I am happy I have at least the choice of rescuing my kids until they do.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
I’m actually on the fence concerning vouchers; can see strong arguments on both sides.
But the problem I am mentioning is that of parents using vouchers to send children to fly-by night places run by irresponsible and/or fringe elements. This is not an imaginary problem; I used to live near Washington DC and when charter schools (in-system schools of choice, no fee, not required to follow regular curriculum) were brought in there around ten years ago, there were a couple of flagrant cases of abuse. The cases that got in the news were shut down, but a lot of money was wasted and a lot of kids lost even more years of education
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
Flagrant abuse happens everywhere. Do not misunderstand me,I respect your opinion and I do agree with you,but everywhere this happens,public or nonpublic situations. I would not want to go out on a limb and say public schools do not have this problem.
Re: Does my child exist for the school district or does the
Don’t misunderstand me; I can curl your hair with tales of abuse in public systems. But public systems do have some kind of checks and balances that make it possible to point out the abuse and work on getting rid of it, once somebody makes up their mind to stand up and take the flak.
The question here is that non-public systems are their own little worlds, and how do you manage those necessary checks and balances?
seems like some people who have been running for the school board learned the hard way about how RRoyce works, you know posing as an advocate for districts all over creation…to settle DP hearings.. but he hasn’t taken the bar……This gentleman went to the school board meeting to complain about Rob Roy’s $35K illegal contact that the district in question had approved with RR, as it is stipulated in the contract that he is provicding legal services. State law requries legal services to be provided only by licensed attorneys.. In addtion, it is further alleged that there is a continuing conflict of interest between the non-attorney and his wife who is the administraator for the very area of business in which the non-attorney is providing his “legal” services. Seeking to avoid a complaint to be filed with the DA office, this gentleman tried to alert the school board regarding the alleged illegality of the contract at a public forum of the district and he was not allowed to state his case. He then put it in the paper…for everyone to read….LOL hmmmmmm???? ‘Bout time someone aired his closets….
Also this gentleman was seeking to recover any/all public funds every paid to this non-attorney, Rob Roy because of his alleged illegal contract. as an advocate but is getting paid as an attorney without a license…and to expose the conflict of interest with his spouse in the system he was hired as an advocate to defend… Will see what else comes up in the papers over the next few weeks..