DC costs
By John Lloyd on Jun. 6, 2006.
The Washington (DC, US) local education agency (LEA) spent $118 million in 2005 on tuition for out-of-district placements for students with disabilities, according to an article by Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes of the Washington Post. Furthermore, the LEA has underestimated tuition cost repeatedly, transferred funds from other budget lines to cover the costs, does not have a trustworthy records system about students in special education, and does not maintain contracts with private providers of special education services.
D.C. school officials have promised repeatedly over the past decade to improve and expand public school programs for disabled students, which would cut the number of children placed in the expensive private facilities. But many administrators and teachers throughout the system say they fear that the spending trends are becoming self-perpetuating: As the tuition payments grow, there is less and less money to hire the teachers, therapists, social workers and other specialists needed to make the public programs more acceptable to parents and hearing officers hired by the school system.
That pattern has created some glaring inefficiencies in spending. At Lafayette Elementary School in Northwest Washington, for example, Principal Gail Lynn Main said 12 to 15 students have been sent to private academies over the past three years since she lost one of her two special education teachers during systemwide budget cuts and could no longer meet the students’ needs. Based on the average tuition bill, the school system could have avoided spending $600,000 to $750,000 a year if it had given her the $42,000 she needed to hire the extra teacher.
The coverage by Mr. Keating and Mr. Haynes is extensive (~2800 words) but well worth reading. Link to the article. Also, note that the Post provides connections to blogs that have commented on the story; some of those are quite intriguing:
- EduWonk: “WaPo’s Keating and Haynes turn in one of the paper’s periodic exposés on the scandal that passes for special education in Washington, D.C. More data on the kinds of students served, rather than just their cursory demographic overview buried toward the end of the story would be helpful but the article does a great job making clear the contours and severity of the problem….”
- DCEduBlog: “Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes of the Washington Post have a great, in-depth look at how DCPS manages (or, more truthfully, doesn’t manage) its special education program. From it, you will get a good sense of just exactly why the District’s school system is so dysfuntional.”
- Cato-at-Liberty: “School choice opponents love to declare that ‘unlike private schools, public schools have to teach everyone.’ Well it turns out that that’s not really true. As Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes expose in today’s Washington Post, when kids’ disabilities get too tough, the D.C. Public Schools turn to private institutions, where disabled students can finally get the specialized attention they need.”
- ToThePeople: “The US mandate to fund “appropriate” education for disabled students ironically has the impact of leaving the majority of students in classrooms that can’t afford chalk and erasers.”
- WhyIHateDC: “The Washington Post had a front-page, above the fold story on DC’s out-of-control spending on special education. (Fucking ‘tards. Give ‘em an inch and they take a mile!)”
Category: News