Special Report
A small think tank of local community consultants, assembled by the Lockport Home Page, has estimated that the Lockport School District could save over $3.5-million annually (reducing current expenditures) if it were to streamline its special education program. The Lockport Page plan is expected to encounter strong opposition from current administration, teacher and psychologist groups, along with some parents who have been using Special Education to get extra welfare payments. The plan, if effected, would lead to substantial reductions in the number of special education teachers, aides, and school psychologists employed by the Lockport School District.
Special Education in Lockport Schools impacts most of some 733 "disabled" children (January 2001 figures) of which 625 are educated in district facilities, many through the use of "Special Education" teachers and aides. Our consultants find the number of children who are labeled "special" has dramatically increased in Lockport over the past thirty years. Most of these are not physically disabled but rather allegedly suffer some type of "learning disability." Our think tank has identified the reason for this: mis-diagnoses of children's learning problems and parental insistence that their children be so classified so that they can reap additional allotments of government payments.
The Lockport Page group consensus estimates that as many as 80% of those now involved in Lockport Special Education programs could be phased out of those programs within a year if the children were given proper and intensive reading instruction. Using a guide that the costs of teaching a "Special Ed child" is about double that of "non-special," the potential cost savings to the district would amount to $3.5-million per year, repeated, year after year. After the first year, that's a continuing and repeating savings---not a one-shot as with capital expenditures. Such savings could be directly translated to more than a 10% cut in total school taxes. Some special education costs in Lockport are known to exceed $50,000 per year (for one student)!
Inadequate reading skills is the prime reason for the large numbers of Special Ed students we have today, the group found. However, there are "significant" incidences of parent fraud going on. In these cases, parents who are already on some form of public assistance have found that their monthly cash grant is greatly increased for every "learning disabled" child they have. Shockingly, parents have been found to put pressure on schools to declare their children "learning disabled" and to place them in Special Ed classes so that they can get the extra government money for their own wants. School assessment committees, without backbone or proper reading skill assessment data, have given in to these parents' demands in numbers that translate into millions in additional taxpayer expense over the years.
The facilitator for the think tank group, Lockport Home Page Editor, Robert Rooney, said that the huge savings for taxpayers, as substantial as they would be, would not be the major saving:
"The prime saving would be the education of thousands of children in the Lockport public schools. First would be re-tracking hundreds of students labeled for failure because their real problem with learning has been improperly diagnosed. Within a year these "failures" can be turned into various degrees of success stories. Some "specials" turn into behavior problems because they are bored with their instructional program and are disruptive to other students. The current vogue to "mainstream" special Ed students causes a new "learning hardship" for other students in the classrooms. Thus in a drastic re-do of the Lockport Special Ed program there would be multiple winners---the Special Ed students themselves (80% of them), other students they are "mainstreamed with," and the Lockport School District taxpayers."
Special Education, commonly referred to as "Special Ed." was initiated
approximately 30 years ago by a group of parents in Michigan who didn't like the
designation "retarded" or "slow learner" for their children who were
experiencing difficulty in learning in the normal classroom environment. The objection was
perhaps well taken, for being labeled "retarded" or "slow
learner" at that time condemned a child to ridicule by his peers, but more seriously,
condemned the child to an environment that was little more than care-taking at school.
Thus, Special Ed. was born. Today, in response to difficulties they experience learning to
read and write, some children may be classified as "learning disabled" and
receive these special education services. Reports by the U.S. Department of Education note
that the number of children classified as learning disabled more than doubled in the years
1980 - 1990 and continues to increase at an alarming rate. It has since grown all out of
proportion and is largely a very expensive failure, with a per student cost at least
double, and often more, than that of the conventional student. The essential failure of
Special Ed. is not addressing perhaps the number one problem most such identified children
have in common. They CAN'T READ!
Not being able to read means not being able to participate in normal class room learning.
This in turn may lead to behavior problems and general learning problems. It is probably
safe to say that 95% of Special Ed. students have a reading problem and, of these, 90%
could have the problem fixed by a reading specialist. With the reading problem fixed, the
child likely would not need to be in Special Ed. Since remedial reading services are far
more cost effective, this would be a great savings to the taxpayer and, more importantly,
would give the child a good shot at becoming a productive citizen in society rather than a
drain on the local, state and federal coffers.
So why is Special Ed. not fixing the reading problem? The answer to this question is
deceptively simple. Teaching reading has not been included in the core curriculum of those
specializing in teaching Special Ed. Reading is seen by these teachers as something almost
mechanical, to be fixed using a bottom up approach such as a "phonics first"
design and not including the other important strategies for increasing meaning vocabulary,
sight vocabulary, word analysis and comprehension skills. Special Education teachers are
not reading specialists and generally fail in this most important task. This failure means
there is no hope of a labeled child succeeding in reading and other curricular areas, no
matter what approach to behavior modification is used, be it reward and punishment or
using drugs such as Ritalin. This means the expense continues and real learning does not!
There is great difficulty in trying to separate those very few children who have true
organic learning disabilities from those whose reading difficulties stem from
"external influences," such as ineffective instruction or low literacy use in
the home environment. Although educators have no reliable way to distinguish between
children with true organic learning problems and those who simply need more and better
instruction, the federal and state funding requirements for special education make it
necessary for schools to expend extensive resources attempting to identify and label
children as learning disabled. This is required before students can be given special
assistance and almost two decades ago the cost of this assessment was estimated at around
$1,300 per student.
How is selection made for inclusion in the Special Ed. program? There are two common
routes. The first step is referral. One route is to have the teacher recommend the child
for such inclusion. This may happen if the child is perceived as disruptive in class or
experiencing learning problems. Another common route is by parental request. Teacher
recommendation is perhaps as much a measure of the tolerance of the individual teacher as
it is the disruptive nature of the child. A child recommended by one teacher would never
be recommended by another for the same behavior. Parental recommendation is equally
capricious. Parents vary in their perceptions of what constitutes appropriate behavior and
how well their children are achieving in school. An additional problem is that some
parents on social assistance may qualify for a special and substantial subsidy if their
child is admitted to Special Ed. This can be a substantial "money in pocket" for
such parents. There have been more than a few cases where parents prevented their child
from attending school and learning to read so as to have the child put in Special Ed.,
just to collect the subsidy!
Of course, it isn't the say-so of just one person that places the child in the program.
The referral by teacher or parent goes to school psychologists for evaluation. Two tests
types are administered by a school psychologist. One of these tests, often the WISC
(Weschler Intelligence Test for Children), assesses verbal ability and past learning but
is touted to measure the "potential" of the candidate. We do not have the tools
to measure "potential" despite the emphasis this is given on I.Q. tests.
Administration of this measure takes about an hour. The other test type, which usually can
take somewhere between 5 minutes and 30 minutes or more, depending upon the selection of
the psychologist, is designed to measure achievement on reading and arithmetic skills by
comparing the test taker to a national norm. If there is a significant difference in the
scores on these two tests types, the candidate is deemed not to be achieving their
"potential" and has a very good chance at being admitted to Special Ed.
A fallacy inherent in this testing approach is that both tests measure the same thing:
achievement. No test for the "potential" of a child actually exists!
It is probably the report of the psychologist, based on results of the two test types,
that is the deciding factor in admission, despite the window dressing of having a
committee decide on admission to the program.
There are, of course, children with special needs; those with Downs syndrome, fetal
alcohol syndrome, behavioral disorders and those with infantile autism, but the vast
majority of Special Ed. students suffer none of these disabilities.
Once children are classified as learning disabled, few ever attain academic achievement
comparable to their peers. Few schools have developed special education interventions that
accelerate the literacy development of children classified as learning disabled. Few
school districts evaluate special education programs in terms of accelerated student
achievement. What little evidence is available suggests that most children classified as
learning disabled fall further behind their peers even after participating in special
education programs.
A study in 1989 found that many children diagnosed as learning disabled were not really
organically disabled at all, but were only having difficulty learning to read. (At this
time, New York State certification requirements do not include even one course of study in
reading for Special Education certification. When these students were placed in a far less
expensive tutorial program, it was found that a high proportion (73.3%) developed balanced
reading strategies and were reading at the average levels of their classmates after an
average of thirteen weeks of assistance.)
Many researchers find that children classified as in need of special education are often
placed in programs that present children with a limited set of reading strategies, with
progress targeted to move at a slower pace. All too often these interventions provide no
educational advantage to the children who participate in them, even though the added costs
are often substantial.
It is clear that by avoiding unnecessary special education placements and special
treatments, not only do children benefit academically but money is saved, whether at the
national, state or local level. Substantial savings in educational dollars can be achieved
when early, intensive intervention programs reduce the number of children who are
incorrectly and unnecessarily
diagnosed as handicapped. Early intervention programs that decrease the numbers of
children retained in grade or placed in transitional grade programs or are retained in
grade produce real dollar savings.
About Our "Think Tank" Membership
Members agreed to work on writing this consensus report on the condition that their identities would not be revealed. They cited the smear campaign that was launched at two dissenting members of the Lockport Board of Education as an example of what happens when one dares to question, let alone expose, failures in educational administration and policy. The two lead members of the panel are life-long employees of the Educational Establishment, both with doctorate degrees. The facilitator and front for the group is Lockport Home Page Editor, Robert Rooney (not an education expert). "If the educational establishment orchestrates community outcries about our work ---claiming falsely that we are targeting legitimate disabled children --- I will be available to take smears," Rooney said.
For those who wish
further information or have questions about the program being proposed, you may have your
inquiry forwarded to a member of the group qualified to respond by sending E-Mail to:
Thinkers@Lockport-NY.com
2-26-01
A True Community Website - Lockport Owned & Operated
The
Lockport Home Page: www.Lockport-NY.com
THE PICTURE OF LOCKPORT