New Bill Will Degrade Special Education in Wisconsin

Following is a call by the parent group I Love My Public Schools.

SPECIAL NEEDS VOUCHERS BILLS ARE BEING FAST-TRACKED NOW IN MADISON. DISABILITY GROUPS CONTINUE TO OPPOSE MODIFIED BILLS ­— CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS NOW!

New education bill AB110 takes funding for special-education services and educators from public schools, allows voucher schools to hire non-certified special-education teachers and services, and does not provide suitable funding to address the needs of moderately to severely disabled students. Skip to the bottom of this message for a call to action, or keep reading for more details on this fast-tracked legislation. AB 110 degrades the quality of special education for students in public and voucher schools.

Background: This past fall, AB110 was introduced in the Wisconsin Assembly. During the public hearing, all disability groups in Wisconsin opposed the bill. Legislators from both sides of the aisle recognized that this bill would not pass. Rep. Litjens, the sponsor of AB 110, has submitted a rewritten version. Disability groups in Wisconsin continue to oppose it for many reasons – described below. The biggest problem: the bill does not require private schools to have any special educators or related services expertise (e.g.,therapists) on staff. Sen. Vukmir has introduced the same bill in the Senate as SB 486. AB 110 will be voted on by the Assembly Education committee TOMORROW @ 10 AM. No testimony is taken during this hearing. Although no official announcement has been made, it looks like SB 486 will have a hearing during the afternoon of Feb. 28th.
The funding mechanism in AB110/SB486 is highly problematic:

• Wisconsin does not fund special education students on a per pupil basis. AB110 does does, withdrawing per-pupil funding for collectively used services such as teachers, aides and therapists, from public schools, making it more likely that special-education students in public schools will no longer receive the services they need.
• The bill does not provide a tuition cap: students with moderate to severe needs will not receive a voucher that covers the full cost of their education.

This will have three negative effects:

·         These students will be unlikely to find voucher schools that will serve them for the amount of their voucher.

·         The voucher program will likely appeal to families whose children have less complex disabilities, leaving increasingly underfunded public schools with a higher proportion of students with the most complex needs.

·         Low- and possibly moderate- income families who seek to attend a private school which has a tuition higher than the voucher amount will be unable to use the voucher, resulting in vouchers simply serving to subsidize families who can already afford to send their children to private school, rather than giving the monetary choice to families who cannot afford to do so.

While disability groups appreciate the reference to implementing the child’s most recent IEP, that reference becomes less relevant the longer the child remains in the private school (which the bill gives them a right to do through graduation or age 21 whichever comes first). In addition, there are no legal rights that go with that obligation. In other words, what happens if the child’s IEP is not implemented? The bill provides no remedy for that. Finally, as pointed in in point 4, below, without special educators on staff, how can parents have any confidence that private schools can actually implement their children’s IEPs?
This new bill does not require private schools to use DPI certified special educators or service providers.

TAKE ACTION! Please contact your member of the Assembly immediately to express your concerns about AB 110. If you do not know who your Assembly member is, you may call: 1-800-362-9472 or go to www.legis.state.wi.us  Also contact every member of the Assembly Education Committee and tell them why this bill does not meet the diverse needs of special-education students in Wisconsin. You can find a full list of committee email addresses here: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/w3asp/commpages/IndividualCommittee.aspx?COMMITTEE=Education&HOUSE=Assembly

We will alert you about the Senate Education Committee hearing that is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 28th in the afternoon, when the official announcement comes out. Please attend and testify if you can. If you cannot attend, please submit any concerns you may have to the chair of the committee, Sen. Luther Olsen at: Sen.Olsen@legis.wisconsin.gov or if your Senator is on the committee, please contact your Senator. The other Senators on the committee are Senators: Vukmir, Grothman, Darling, Vinehout, Larson and Cullen.
Thank you for your attention and intervention on behalf of ALL Wisconsin children with special-education needs, in ALL Wisconsin schools.

Best,

ILMPS parents

Major Complaint Filed: Discrimination by Voucher Schools Against Special Education Students

A complaint has been filed with the US Dept of Justice, Civil Rights Division on behalf of children with disabilities because  the voucher system has  “discriminated against students with disabilities” and “segregated those students in one portion of the publicly funded educational system.”

This Complaint is brought against the State of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (“DPI”), Messmer Catholic Preparatory School (“Messmer”), and Concordia University School (“Concordia”) by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Racial Justice Program (ACLU), the ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation (ACLU-WIF), Disability Rights Wisconsin (DRW), individual parents D. E. and D.J. on behalf of their children with disabilities.

Civil rights and disability rights organizations are currently investigating the lack of

services for students with disabilities in the Milwaukee Parent Choice Program (MPCP,

also known as the “Voucher” program).

We’d like to speak to parents about their experiences.

DO YOU HAVE A SCHOOL-AGED CHILD

WITH A DISABILITY?

DOES YOUR CHILD HAVE SPECIAL NEEDS?

HAS AN MPCP (VOUCHER) SCHOOL

REJECTED YOUR CHILD’S APPLICATION?

HAS YOUR SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD BEEN TOLD NOT TO

ATTEND AN MPCP (VOUCHER) SCHOOL?

HAS YOUR SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD BEEN FORCED TO

LEAVE AN MPCP (VOUCHER) SCHOOL?

IF SO, WE’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOU

ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE.

PLEASE CALL

DISABILITY RIGHTS WISCONSIN

TOLL FREE AT:

1-800-928-8778

 

To see the full complaint go to:

Voucher Special Education Complaint

Proposed Legislation: Vouchers for Special Education Students?

Bill would give special ed students aid to switch schools

LINDSAY FIORI Racine JournalTimes.com |

There will be a hearing on the Wisconsin special education scholarship bill Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the State Capitol in Madison.

Special education students may someday be able to switch schools through a state voucher program.

The program would call students’ ability to switch “scholarships,” not vouchers, but it would operate much like Milwaukee’s voucher program for low-income students. Special education students, regardless of income, would be able to switch schools by applying per-pupil state aid from their home district to another participating public school district or private school of their choice.

The program would become a reality in Wisconsin if a state Assembly bill introduced this week becomes law.

“The group that often has difficulty finding the right school for their child is parents with special needs kids,” said the bill’s lead sponsor Rep. Michelle Litjens, R-Vinland. Litjens said the bill is intended to help parents no longer able to successfully work with their home school district and in need of a way to put their child in an alternate school.

But Disability Rights Wisconsin opposes the bill because they worry special education students entering private schools could have their rights violated since private schools do not have to follow the same special education laws as public schools, said Jeff Spitzer-Resnick, managing attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin, a non-profit public interest law firm that advocates on behalf of people with disabilities.

“If that (private) school wants to discipline you, kick you out, take your money and not offer special ed, that’s just fine under this bill,” Spitzer-Resnick said.

The bill could also move special education away from a more recent trend of including special education kids in regular education classrooms as often as possible.

“There’s only a handful of (private) schools that are designed for kids with disabilities,” he said, explaining those might be the only ones willing to participate in the program. “So we’ll be going backwards and putting kids with disabilities a in highly segregated school just for them.”

For those reasons, the local Arc of Racine nonprofit disabilty advocacy group will likely follow Disabilty Rights Wisconsin in opposing the bill, said Arc Executive Director Sandy Engel.

Litjens said Thursday she was not aware of such reasons for opposition and officials in Florida, one of a handful of states with a similar program, said they’ve not had problems or seen segragation of students.

“The parents love it,” said Michael Kooi, executive director of Florida’s Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice. “It hasn’t led to a mass exodus out of our public schools. Only 6 percent (of students) are in the program but it’s that group of students whose parents felt there was a better opportunity for them somewhere else.”

The Special Education Disparity Between MPS and the Voucher Program: A More Accurate Comparison of Student Performance

Given the significant disparity between the proportion of students with disabilities in MPS and Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) schools, it is necessary to disaggregate the results of MPS as a whole by disability status in order to more accurately compare student performance in MPS and the MPCP. 19% of MPS students have an identified disability compared to only 1.6% of MPCP students.

For the first time, on March 29, 2011, school by school test scores for students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program were released to the public. In its press release, the Department of Public Instruction included a table that compared the test scores of MPS economically disadvantaged students to the scores of students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

Given the current income requirements that govern participation in the MPCP program, it is correct to compare the MPS economically disadvantaged population to the MPCP population. In the same fashion, and again given the significant disparity in the number of special education students in the two programs, 19% compared to 1.6%, disaggregating the results by disability status provides the most accurate picture of student performance when comparing the two groups. Not surprisingly, and as shown in the table below, when results are disaggregated the gap between MPS and MPCP scores is further increased.

2010-11 Wisconsin Student Assessment System Results
All Grades Percent Proficient or Advanced
	Mathematics	Reading
MPS Economically Disadvantaged, Students without Disabilities	49.9	64.3
MPCP, Students without Disabilities	34.8	55.8

MPS takes seriously the responsibility of educating all of the district’s students. And although the data above is presented in a manner that most accurately compares the scores between MPS and the MPCP, it is clear that much more needs to be done in order to ensure that all Milwaukee students reach their academic goals.

To see a comparison for each grade level go to:

MPCP test scores and MPS

Overhaul of Special Education in New York City Public Schools

New York City Public Schools: Enrollment in special education programs has climbed to some 177,000 students, or more than 17 percent of the system, up from roughly 13 percent in 2003. Experts in special education say it is difficult to know what has caused the increase. Theories include better identification of students with learning disabilities, particularly autism; parents being less reluctant to see their children identified as disabled; and the possibility that more children might actually have difficulties than in years past.

The city now spends $4.8 billion annually on special education, up from $3.8 billion five years ago. That includes $1.2 billion to send students to private schools.

City Pushes Shift for Special Education

By JENNIFER MEDINA Published: April 28, 2010

The Bloomberg administration, struggling to address the needs of a growing number of students with learning disabilities, is overhauling special education by asking every principal to take in more of the students and giving them greater flexibility in deciding how to teach them.

This fall, more than 250 schools will be asked to accept more students with disabilities rather than send them to schools that have specific programs for special education, as has been the case for decades. By September 2011, principals at each of the system’s 1,500 schools will be expected to enroll all but the most severely disabled students; those students will continue to be served by schools tailored exclusively to them.

The shift echoes one of the central philosophies of the administration, giving principals more responsibility and control over their schools. It is also an effort to bring New York more in line with the nationwide trend of allowing special education students to benefit from regular classroom settings.