Tuesday, July 26, 2011

More on School Vouchers: the Religion Red Herring

As promised/threatened, there's a lot more to say about private school vouchers and whether or not state methods of implementing them work for students with special needs.

Just some quick background: school vouchers permit students to basically go to private schools on "scholarship", using public funds designated for each child's education.  The public school district pays the private school an allocation of funds per student enrolled via voucher, usually dependent on a formula concocted by dividing the number of enrolled public school students into the general education fund.

A lot of folks like the idea because it promotes competition between public and private schools, and provides choices and opportunities to kids who might not have very many options.  If you think about the problems of underperforming public schools in poor, urban areas, vouchers could allow kids in such areas (often, minorities) to access better education.  There's been quite a bit of research in this area, much of which supports the idea that competition breeds improvement, and better educational choices for underprivileged kids.  (See, for example, the wikipedia on school vouchers, which is actually very good and fairly balanced.)

Now, a lot of folks do not like school vouchers because they do muddle the line between public and private schools. And these folks have their own research arguing that vouchers lead to a lack of accountability, and not necessarily even improvement in test scores.  Furthermore, when the private schools are also religious schools, questions arise about whether public funds ought to be spent on religious education (the whole minor issue of separation of church and state, you know). 

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Special Ed Basics - Parentally Placed Private Placements

You might be getting the sense that special education law and policy is more complicated than you originally thought.  Boy has it been a learning curve for me, and I am still on that curve.  One of the interesting little wrinkles that we need to cover (so that I can post about some recent developments) is the situation where a parent is unhappy with the public school services that her kid is receiving.  Maybe she disagrees with the amount of services, or doesn't think the service providers are effective.  She finds a local private school, enrolls her kid in the school, and then notifies the public school of her decision.

Assuming the simplest case (the school had provided FAPE, and there's no due process hearing, no litigation about that issue), the public school system is basically done with this kid.  The LEA has no obligation to provide special ed services to the child, and no obligation to pay the tuition for the private school.  On the side of the private school, the private school has no obligation to provide any special ed services because they're not a public school, and not subject to the requirements of IDEA.  (Charter schools are tricky.  They are usually public schools, and so are legally subject to IDEA, but the fact of the matter is is that they rarely offer adequate special ed services to students, even though they receive funds from the LEA to do so.)

So this situation can put parents in a difficult position.  On the one hand, they might feel their child's education is suffering in the public school - but at least the kid is getting some kind of special ed services, at no cost to the parent.  On the other hand, if they want a (presumably) better education at a private school, there are no included special ed services, and all this is coming out of the parents' pockets.

The IDEA does provide an outlet, but one that's a hard road to travel.  In order to get the public school system to reimburse for a parentally-placed private placement, the parent must prove that (a) the public school did not provide FAPE, and (b) the parents provided notice of their intent to remove their child.  To do this, the parent generally needs to file for due process (in order to prove the first prong).  This is hard - due process hearings can be long and drawn out, and meanwhile, the parent is paying for this private placement.  A lot of parents simply can't take on this financial and emotional burden.

So, some states have tried to offer alternatives.  In Florida, the McKay scholarships are offered to students on IEPs that want to attend private schools.  In Colorado, Douglas County is offering school vouchers on a pilot basis to kids that want to attend private schools.  In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee school district had a similar voucher program - that became the subject of a complaint filed with the DOJ.   Sadly, in all of these cases, there have been serious flaws in the implementation, and how the programs support (or, more accurately, don't support) kids with disabilities.  And that, my friends, will be covered in my next post on this topic.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Digital Textbooks Round II - Not what they're cracked up to be?

You know that I'm impressed by schools using iPads in the classroom, and hopeful about the potential of e-textbooks to radically change the delivery of educational content.  But lately, I've been reading a string of articles that are pointing out some of the real challenges to actual adoption of e-textbooks in our classrooms.  And it's worth considering some of these issues - better now than later.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Online Education - An Introduction

I've been following the growth of online education for awhile.  As you (faithful readers of my blog) well know, I definitely support the use of technology in the classroom to support varied learning styles and varied levels of development.  But online education has been a mystery to me.  On the one hand, it seems like the ultimate in individualized education.  But on the other hand, isn't some kind of general education, in a general classroom, with peers, the whole point of public education in the United States, and the entire idea behind IDEA?? (forgive the pun!)

Let's discuss. 

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

12 Years after Olmstead

Twelve years ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Olmstead v. L.C., a case about two women in Georgia who were institutionalized despite their preference for community-based living.  The Court held that the ADA prohibits the unjustified segregation of individuals with disabilities (meaning, public entities have an obligation to provide community-based living, not institutions, for individuals with disabilities wherever possible.) 

Just this past week, the Department of Justice - charged with enforcing the ADA - issued a statement re-enforcing its position on Olmstead's requirements that individuals with disabilities be integrated into community living as fully as possible.  You can read the report here, and I've summarized some of the key points below:

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Does your child have dyslexia? Teach him Japanese!

I just read an article in the WSJ on this fascinating topic called Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese.  In case you can't read it (I know it's subscription only), here's the gist:

A mom noticed that her 12-year old son, who had spent the past two years at a specialized school for kids with learning disabilities, was excelling in one class in particular at his new, mainstream school - Japanese.  Even though he could barely write legible English words, his Japanese characters were sharp and distinct.

Researchers have hypothesized that Japanese and Chinese - both languages where single characters represent entire words or ideas - may be easier for kids with dyslexia to learn.  Kids with dyslexia tend to think visually, and to rely on memorization to get through reading challenges - both skills that serve them well in decoding Japanese and Chinese.  Now, there's no getting around the fact that English-speaking kids with dyslexia are going to need to learn to read in English.  But teachers and developers of curriculum could design reading and writing programs to help develop methodologies that are more effective - working on repetition, memorization, pattern recognition, etc.

I love this story for several reasons.  First, I love that his mom didn't give up on him.  Yes, he was having difficulties in school, but she didn't assume that was irreversible, or somehow his fault.  She kept trying different ideas, and kept believing in him.  Second, the fact that a child with dyslexia may have an advantage in learning Japanese or Chinese characters is just yet another example of how we need to support a variety of brains!  Our kids learn differently because their brains are literally wired differently.  Let's support them, not try to change them.  Third, I'm fascinated by this school that offers instruction in Japanese.  Maybe instead of teaching kids French or Spanish (French being really only useful in restaurants, sorry Parisians), we should be focusing on Japanese or Mandarin Chinese.

And perhaps most importantly, this story shows just how far we have yet to go in understanding neuropsych disorders like dyslexia.  We need more research dollars, we need more creative thinking, and we need to raise awareness that these kids have amazing untapped potential.