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Jay Greene, in the conservative Manhattan Institute's City Journal, speaks on giving parents of kids w/disabilities vouchers so they can put their kids in schools they feel will meet their needs. Jay says:
"In 1975, Congress passed legislation giving students with disabilities the right to an appropriate education at public expense. But having a right is only as good as your ability to enforce it. In New York City and elsewhere, public schools regularly delay and frustrate disabled students seeking appropriate services—everything from tutoring to speech therapy to treatment of severe disabilities—making their federally protected right all but meaningless. Rather than compelling families with disabled children to contend with obstinate public school systems, we should give them the option of purchasing the services they need for their children from a private provider. That is, we should give them special-ed vouchers—good for the same amount of money that we already spend on them in the public school system—that they could then use to pay for private school. Not only would this bring better services to disabled New York students; it could also save the public money." Continue reading here.
Patrick J. McCloskey is a journalist and the author of The Street Stops Here, about inner-city Catholic education also weighs in about how Catholic schools can help fill the gap. Patrick states:
"Catholic schools have long offered disadvantaged and minority children an alternative to New York City’s dysfunctional public school system. Under half of black and Hispanic students in the public schools graduate on time; when they’re from impoverished neighborhoods, they fare even worse; and of those who do graduate, only about half go to college. But students at inner-city Catholic high schools, who are mostly minorities, achieve nearly 90 percent graduation rates, archdiocese records show.
Tragically, the writing is on the wall for many of the Catholic schools, which have been closing in the city at an alarming rate. Costs are rising, and enrollments are in decline as a result. Individual contributors and foundations, suffering deep losses to their portfolios, are struggling to sustain the levels of assistance that they provided so generously before the Wall Street meltdown. Job losses have diminished many parents’ capacity to pay tuitions, further cutting into enrollments. Almost 500 Catholic elementary schools closed nationwide last year, the 2009 Official Catholic Directory reports, more than doubling the previous year’s number of closings." Continue reading here.
To hear the Podcast: Listen here.
Comments
It's very unfortunate, but when you talk to parents of kids with disabilities from around the country, you find that many have managed - somehow - to put their kids into non-public schools, or are home schooling, because their children were abused in public schools.
Dee Alpert, Publisher
SpecialEducationMuckraker.com
Being a San Francisco liberal, I would normally never agree with a conservative think tank , but, based on Robin’s take on their proposal, I would have to agree with them. I love the public school system and feels it needs to be supported. But I found that proper special education services are hard to come by, no matter what the law requires. Due to my daughter’s severe dyslexia, I found that even though she is in a fabulous public school, has an IEP and has had concerned and knowledgeable teachers, she was not able to learn to read. The school could not accommodate her literacy needs (analyzed as being a need for 5 hours a week support for about a year with a professional trained in multisensory reading techniques). We did not wish to go through the expensive, excruciating process of suing for the services (thus delaying her reading even more), so we opted to pay for the extra tutoring ourselves. It has been costing a great deal of money (though less than a law suit) and has been
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It has been costing a great deal of money (though less than a law suit) and has been very effective. However, I talk with parents regularly who cannot afford to do this and instead suffer with the little help offered by the public school. A voucher system would be a viable alternative to this suffering their children are currently going through.
RE: Vouchers. Yes, but...private schools have the ability to exclude children that they don't want from their student body population. And some(although not all) of them attempt to screen out kids with LD, either because they don't think they can serve them well or they mistakenly think they will negatively impact the school in some way. The voucher system only works if the private schools are actually willing to take your kid, many schools don't want them.
As a parent of two sons with disabilities, I have been a real struggle dealing with the DOE and getting appropriate placements. The only way I was able to do it was by hiring a private attorney from Upstate, Andrew Cuddy, who was the only one that I could find that would consider taking a case of a low income parent. It is very hard for families to find the support they need to advocate for their children.
Special Needs Socialization program available for children 4-14 years of age. Please contact Karina Burman, The Special Needs Coordinator at 718-331-6800 ext. 175.
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