Special Education Gets Special Attention

There is a noticeable backlash these days against special education in many areas of the country. Money is at the root of it.

An increasing number of people have become more vocal in their belief that special education (SPED) programs have gone awry, draining resources from regular education budgets and failing to educate children with special needs — the very reason they were begun. In one Westchester County, New York, school district, for example, the SPED population has remained relatively stable, yet the special education budget has increased from $4 million to above $8 million over the past decade.

As a result, spending on regular education has dropped to $10,000 per pupil while hovering around $40,000 per pupil for special education students. To one Westchester school administrator, “Effectively predicting future special education costs is like capturing smoke.” But these exponential costs are asphyxiating school budgets.

Where it all began. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the first comprehensive federal law acknowledging the educational rights of students with disabilities. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, since amended and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), highlighted the inadequate or nonexistent services for millions of students with special needs.

Related: The Hidden Challenges for Special Needs Students

Since that implementation, the goal of special education has been to enable students to develop to their fullest potential by providing a free appropriate public education. However, “appropriate” has become very divisive in recent years.

The problems. In his 1993 book, “Special Education: Good Intentions Gone Awry,” Dr. Edward Moscovitch of the Pioneer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, revealed that more students are placed in separate educational settings based on their clinical diagnoses rather than according to their individual needs. As detailed by a New York City special education advocate, “No two kids with autism are the same, but because of the costs associated with developing and maintaining special education programs, they are lumped together, resulting in less successful outcomes.”

At several schools in Westchester County, there has been an increase in students with autism, which has led to many out-of-district placements because home districts are unable to deal with associated behavioral issues. This is very costly for school districts and can be heartbreaking to families. Out-of-district placements mean these children will have additional challenges to integrate into their new communities, resulting in a long-term impact on friendships, overall belonging, and support.

Students who are most affected are those with less significant needs. Many districts do the bare minimum for kids who can “get by” because they have no choice but to spend on children who need residential care or have medical needs.

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To many, the problem with special education is that it is treated as a civil right rather than as an educational issue. Through the years, parents have become more knowledgeable about the law — and parental advocacy has increased. As a result, SPED lawsuits have exploded, and districts would rather give into parental demands than go to court.

One Westchester County parent said, “Districts must provide special education services to students with disabilities regardless of the cost.” Several school districts in New York have spent over $1 million on special education settlements in the past year alone. These settlements stem from disagreements about the level of service the district provides; the district usually winds up paying for students to obtain special services outside of the district.

Fiscal mismanagement. Many districts receive funding from the state for special education costs. However, some districts do not take advantage of reimbursements that are available to them due to the overwhelming paperwork. Several districts in New York City have failed to recover tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements for services they provided — and such unclaimed funds have become more common than people realize.

Related: What You Never Knew About Raising Special Needs Kids

Ways to improve. Districts can save money by hiring a few key players and offering much-needed special education professional development. As detailed by Lorin Gold, a member of a special needs subcommittee of a local Parent Teacher Student Association in Westchester County, districts should consider hiring an experienced board-certified behavior analyst. This person is not only qualified to create behavior plans and reward systems for students, but can also collect data and formulate plans to address many of the challenges faced by special needs students connected to learning and behavior.

For many special needs students, the ability to infer and apply learning is a huge challenge.

Districts need to provide behavior-based teaching training to staff. Rather than continue with traditional instruction that distances many students on the spectrum, teachers need to learn how to teach by breaking topics down into bite-sized pieces that address these students’ need for tangibility over abstraction. For many special needs students, the ability to infer and apply learning is a huge challenge.

One of the least expensive yet effective ways to improve instruction for special education students is to provide more structured social opportunities for them during lunch and recess. These students are frequently left on their own at exactly the time that they need the most support. Gold believes “these unstructured times, filled with social expectations and tremendous social pitfalls, can become meaningful opportunities for children to interact and relate with their peers.”

Special education may see a rise in federal funding under a bipartisan agreement to avert a government shutdown. Grants to states under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act will increase from $90 million to $12 billion as part of the deal reached over the weekend, which still must be voted on by Congress, according to media reports. The federal contribution would account for 16 percent of special education costs overall.

Daniel Riseman, founder of Riseman Educational Consulting in Irvington, New York, has been counseling students and working with families for more than 17 years.