While parents wonder what will happen to their children with disabilities and their schooling due to the possibility of cuts to Medicaid, we’ve wondered, where’s Betsy?
As families try to make sense of the information provided online by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, it would be nice to see DeVos speak out in support of children on this issue.
Never fear. Betsy has been getting some lessons in her Special Education 101 class at Trump University. O.K. I made that up. I don’t know who’s coaching Betsy.
It couldn’t be Jason Botel, Acting Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. Botel came from Teach for America and KIPP.
I also don’t think DeVos ever appointed an Acting Assistant Secretary for Special Education and How to Cheat Students Out of Services person—probably she hopes special education and IDEA will go away without a director. I digress.
The point is many children who attend public schools have medical needs. These children are not going away.
She is Studying Law!
In Education Week, Christina Samuels writes, “DeVos to Special Educators: Families “Shouldn’t Have to Sue” For School Options.” Ouch!
But aside from her proclamations about civil rights, Betsy is focusing on the recent court case, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District.
In this case the Supreme Court claimed that programs for students with disabilities must be “appropriately ambitious.” They rejected the notion of schooling that is “De minimis” (too trivial or minor to merit consideration, especially in law).
According to Education Week she said, De minimis is preposterous. A unanimous supreme court—and that doesn’t happen every day—displayed common sense in interpreting [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] to apply a better standard to Endrew and all our students.
Wow! Many of us agree, Betsy DeVos! Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
Vouchers, Vouchers, Vouchers!
However, Betsy’s solution is vouchers. It’s not fair in her thinking. Why should only one family get $70,000 to send their student to a private school after the public school special education program hits the skids?
DeVos doesn’t mention how it came to be that the program and public schools in Douglas County were not doing well by this student.
Nor does she seem to understand that most charter schools don’t do special education. Nor do most private and parochial schools.
There would be a dearth of choice options for those with real special education needs. Only the wealthy would be able to use their vouchers for the best private education.
As we have seen in states with special education vouchers, most students still fail to get their needs addressed, as Anya Kamenetz noted in the NPR report “For Families With Special Needs, Vouchers Bring Choices, Not Guarantees.”
In Florida, for example, many parents use special education vouchers to send their children to religious schools or schools that provide little special education.
There aren’t many schools that want to take on the expense of a student with special needs. As noted in the report, Private schools that cater to students with significant special needs, like Woodland Hall Academy in Tallahassee, can charge $20,000 and up. Here’s a little background on Woodland Hall.
Perhaps DeVos thinks everyone is rich and can attend wealthy private schools. Perhaps she has a problem understanding reality, a learning disability of her own.
Or, maybe, in Special Education 102, the sequel, Betsy will learn about the problems that public schools, and more specifically, special education, face due to draconian funding cuts and the push for school privatization.
Special Education Problems in Douglas County and Colorado
Shouldn’t it be in Betsy’s job description to visit Douglas County and learn why the student in Endrew, called Drew, was not getting the services he needed? What went on behind the scenes?
What problems were the teachers in his classes facing? If Drew was getting a substandard education, so were other children. Shouldn’t we be worried about those children too?
Could the class trouble been due to a lack of special education funding or support? What was happening in that school district that could have affected Drew’s special education?
I have wondered about a 2013 article, published in The National Review, by Frederick M. Hess and Max C. Eden, titled “The Most Interesting School District in America?” It described drastic school reforms that took place there—in Drew’s school district.
The Douglas County School District is trying to do something truly new. An all-Republican school board has created the nation’s first suburban school-voucher program, introduced market-based pay, allowed its teachers’ union contract to expire, and developed a regimen of home-crafted standards and assessments in lieu of the Common Core (which superintendent Liz Celania-Fagen dismisses as the “Common Floor”). Former Reagan secretary of education William Bennett has opined that Douglas County is “trying to do all the good reforms at once.
Maybe those market-based reforms weren’t so great.
Drew seemed to do well in his special education classes until 4th grade. Did the changes in his instruction coincide with the reforms made to the school district?
What Impact Do Funding Cuts Have On Special Education?
Also, in 2009, a report “Without Funds, Colorado’s Special Ed Often Can Fall Short” by Karen Augé, appeared in The Denver Post. It painted a disturbing story about special education. Drew’s family first filed their case in 2010.
Here were the noted problems:
- Children with learning disabilities no longer received special education services.
- They were rerouted into general education classes where they faced teachers with little preparation to serve them.
- The use of restraints and seclusion increased.
- Colorado ranked 51st in state contributions to special education.
The report describes another child who, like Drew, also with autism, once did well in school but also in 4th grade, became out of control “aggressive, even combative.” What was it about 4th grade? Why was there a breakdown?
Get With The Program, Betsy!
Betsy DeVos needs to address the real needs of parents and children when it comes to disabilities.
She must quit promoting vouchers every chance she gets. There’s more to this job than that. Even if she believes in vouchers, they are not going to happen overnight, if ever. She needs to address the serious business that exists now!
And she needs to quit pretending she cares about special education. Everyone knows better.
Come back to reality, Betsy. Talk to real teachers teaching in underfunded special education classrooms. Visit some overcrowded inclusion classes.
Take a real special ed. course from a real university. Do whatever it takes. Families and children with special needs are relying on you.
You’ve got a critical job to do!
Reference
Samuels, Christina. “DeVos to Special Educators: Families ‘Shouldn’t Have to Sue’ For School Options. Education Week. July 17,2017.
The biggest problem is that the Feds mandate IDEA, but then they have never fully funded it.
Absolutely! It is the problem from which many other problems in special ed. and general ed. stem. Thank you, Lisa.
Betsy also needs to quit pretending she knows anything about education.
Yes! She has only one objective. She wants to end public schools with vouchers. It is frustrating that she has never been a teacher to understand the difficulties in the job, especially working in poorer schools that lack resources. Thank you.
So there are other options available in the charter school universe. My adopted daughter graduated from a charter school that very successfully caters to the individual needs of children with autism and emotional disabilities. Our school district fought kicking and screaming because they didn’t want to pay for it. But they also, despite extensive special needs programs, could not meet my daughter’s educational needs. And they first tried to push her into less costly programs for disciplinary needs – which would have been disastrous for her based on her issues, but of course they were much less costly.
Thanks to your article I now have the insight that our success was probably fueled by the fact it was right after that supreme court decision.
And now that I think of it, my daughter’s educational decline did begin about the fourth grade. In retrospect I would offer it may be that age is where students have a tremendous social change that is often cruel to individuals who don’t fit the “herd” mold, and also that is a grade where classwork becomes more challenging for those with who may have flown under the radar to be able to continue to do so. Their scholastic and social deficiencies compound more rapidly resulting in more frustration and lashing out.
Clearly I am not an educator, this is just my opinion based on my experience as a parent.
One last thought, while the federal education support is sorely lacking and Betsy clearly is not up to the demands, aren’t you also heaping a state level funding failure on her shoulders? The Colorado legislature made those funding choices for the citizens of their state.. They own that 51st ranking. But do you really want to take away state rights in favor of a federal mandate? Is that fair to the states who have worked hard to be at the other end of the list? (And my state is certainly not one of them). That works so well with one size fits all approaches in all sorts of other issues – not to mention their failures for the portions of education that they are responsible for that you are writing about.
This was a very thought provoking piece for me, thank you for your article. I certainly don’t want you to think, based on my comments, that I disagree with the vast majority of what you are saying or what our children need to be successful. And I do know how incredibly lucky we are things aligned the way they did for our daughter. I do think the tone of a couple of your comments are counter-productive to your mission and passion, even though I understand the place of frustration they come from.
I am glad my friend shared the link and I look forward to exploring more of your postings.
Best Regards,
Thank you for commenting, Christine. I am certainly for state and local rights, and never meant to imply I was not,
The Individuals for Students with Disabilities Act (IDEA) is a federal mandate. Therefore, I think DeVos has every reason to look into why Douglas County failed to meet the needs of Drew in his program.
It certainly sounds like outsiders influentially made market-based changes to the district.
Furthermore, and I hope you will read my other posts, more and more public schools are losing local, state and federal governance because of venture philanthropists. Local school districts rely on the money they give when they don’t have the funds to run schools well. Those dollars always come with strings attached.
Draconian changes to public schools mean more and more parents will go elsewhere for their child’s schooling.
I am happy your child got a good education in a charter. But the history of many charters is that they don’t do well or better than traditional public schools. And they are not always accepting of all children.