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Closing centers

By JohnL on Jul. 19, 2007.

The Maryland (MD, US) state department of education is moving to close special education facilities, requiring students to attend neighborhood schools instead, according to a story entitled “Special-ed backers scramble to save learning centers” by Marcus Moore. In his article, published in Gazette Net, Mr. Moore reported that Maryland Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has accelerated the time line for closing the special education centers.

The initial plan was to close the centers in two years. Weast tweaked his idea in January, and now wants at least 80 percent of the school system’s special education students included in regular classrooms

The centers ‘‘don’t work” and are racially out of sync with the school system’s population, Weast said earlier this year..

Using data that some would likely consider prima facie evidence of discrimination, Mr. Moore reported that more than 60% of the students in the centers are African-American or Hispanic. Whether these students have special educational needs that can best be met in the centers, regardless of their ethnicity, is not known.

‘‘Currently, students with disabilities are not meeting high academic expectations,” Weast wrote in a Tuesday memo to the school board. ‘‘One of the most compelling reasons for phasing out the secondary learning centers is the lagging academic performance of secondary learning center students.”

Proficiency rates of middle school learning center students were more than 50 percent lower than those of their special-needs peers in the same schools, meaning that special-needs children who attend regular classes do better in school, according to the school system.

That students attending these centers would have lower levels of proficiency is not surprising. Given 100 students with varying levels of special education needs, it seems likely to me that those with the most substantial needs would be likely to attend schools where they can receive the most substantial supports. It is illogical to turn this around and say that that those students’ outcomes are lower because they’re attending special schools.

I searched for further information about this memorandum, but I didn’t find it. If someone has a copy, please post relevant content or pass it along to me.

Meanwhile, please refer to Mr. Moore’s article. He’s to be commended from bringing up this important issue.

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