Monthly Archives: October 2009

Ensuring the Education of Special Needs Students

Everyday there is a parent somewhere in the state fighting for the educational rights of their child with special needs. That parent’s fight might have just gotten easier.

Eighteen years ago, a group of parents of students with disabilities filed a lawsuit against the state charging that the state system for funding their education violated state and federal law. Over time, the lawsuit became a class action on behalf of all students in the state with a disability. At issue were both the funding for and the method of providing services to students with disabilities.

Finally, last week, a consent order agreed to by both parties and approved by Federal Judge John D. Holschuh was announced that partially resolves the case. The settlement changes the way that the Ohio Department of Education implements the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which is designed to ensure that students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate education. The department is required to improve the way it monitors school district special education programs, to handle complaints in a timely fashion, and to ensure the law’s procedural safeguards are met.

While this partial settlement is a victory for the parents trying valiantly to provide their children a proper education, it is going to take awhile for districts to become fully compliant with the law in order to meet the individual educational needs of each student. In addition, the case has not settled the way Ohio funds special education for students.

The consent order, highlighting the important role of the Department of Education, provides that in the event that school districts are unwilling or unable to comply with IDEA the department must “…provide or arrange for the provision of services directly to the student.” Until such time as all schools are compliant and the funding issues are resolved, parents will need the flexibility to find the school that best meets the educational needs of their child.

There is another way to provide students the individualized services they need. Ohio could create a scholarship for students with special needs that empowers parents to find the educational setting that works for their child.

This is not a new idea. In fact, parents of students with disabilities in Florida have had this option now for ten years. The popular program, known as the McKay Scholarship, is being used by over 20,000 students in the Sunshine state.

Here in Ohio, the Autism Scholarship already recognizes that a one-size fits all educational system has left some students with special needs behind. It offers parents the ability to find programs that provide specialized instruction from certified teachers and focus on the social and academic needs of students with autism.

All parents of students with special needs should have that ability. There is pending legislation, Senate Bill 6, which would create a special education scholarship and allow up to 3 percent of students with disabilities in grades K-12 to attend alternative public or private special education programs.

If this legislation becomes law, parents would for the first time be on an equal footing with school districts when important educational decision affecting their children are made. A scholarship, along with the important changes mandated by the recently decided lawsuit, could dramatically change the educational environment for students with special needs.

During the past18 years, we lost a generation of students that could have benefited from an early ruling and a special education scholarship. Ohio should act quickly to ensure all students truly have access to an education where their needs can be met.

Chad Aldis

Number Crunching and School Options

Can We Transcend Local Control to Achieve World-Class Academic Standards?

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Our educational system is a never ending quagmire. An oddly built web of ever changing local, state, national notions of what students need to know in order to be successful for their nebulous future and for all intents and purposes the future of our country.

Currently we are striding purposefully across the misty marsh armed with the intent of implementing not only world-class standards, but quality national standards, as states simultaneously develop individual core state standards. But if every individual state gets to decide which standards are to be adopted and implemented, it throws the terms “world-class”, “national” and “quality” perilously into question.

What happens? Education reform always meets the vigilant unchanging and formidable walls of state discretion and local control. States have the discretion of defining proficiency and standards, while local boards struggle to remain true to their areas while simultaneously implementing complicated state and federal mandates. Add to the mix that local control often allows teachers’ unions to maintain power and the idea of any kind of national or quality set of standards has washed down the drain leaving a badly fragmented system even more fragmented and perhaps a little bit more decayed than it was before.

Last week, I attended an education conference that was focused around the question of whether world-class academic standards could be achieved for Ohio. Ohio is well on its way to implementing its new core standards devised during the budget. Oddly enough, Ohio is also one of the 47 states helping to write a set of national common standards with the NGA/CCSSO Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Although Ohio is helping to develop national common core standards that are research based and benchmarked to outdo other top performing countries that will give our students that competitive edge they need in a global economy, Ohio will not, repeat will not, use those standards. We will revamp existing standards according to ODE in a Columbus Dispatch article.

If we are in a world of global competition, we have to truly challenge the ideas of state discretion and local control which has existed by constitutional tradition that allows each state and each hamlet to devise its own individual set of standards. Despite all efforts to develop world-class academic standards, if we do not face the questions of state discretion and local control head on, our children will not be able to compete state to state, let all alone in a global world. The devil is truly in the details.

Tisha P. Brady

1% of Students Nationwide Have Autism

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A study released yesterday in the Pediatrics journal reports on survey data suggesting that the number of students with autism in the US is just over 1%, with 1 in 91 students on the autism spectrum. This is higher than previous CDC estimates of 1 in 150 children.

Whatever the exact number, one thing is for sure: autism diagnoses are quickly increasing in Ohio. The number of school-aged children with autism has doubled in just the past five years, and these families are looking for resources to address their specific health and education needs.

Commenting on the Pediatrics article, Autism Society President and CEO Lee Grossman said:

Families today are asking: how high must these prevalence rates rise before the nation responds? Significant resources must be directed toward screening and diagnosis, affordable interventions that treat the whole person and comprehensive education plans to foster lifelong skill development so that people with autism will have the ability to work and live independently.

While autism advocates are fighting for better insurance coverage, Ohio is on the forefront of fostering skill development in at least one critical area: educational options.

The Ohio Autism Scholarship provides parents with a choice in the critical education and early intervention services they think will best serve their children.

And what do Ohio parents think about the scholarship? Parent Lori Walter shares her family’s experience:

The Autism Scholarship saved my daughter’s life. Honestly, I don’t know where she would be without this scholarship. For the first time, we believe that she will eventually be able to live on her own and we couldn’t be happier.

Ohio has responded proactively to rising prevalence rates. Will other states follow suit?

- Sarah Pechan

Parents Rally in DC For Their Children

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Parents leave a lasting impression on children. Everything that we do leaves a mark on their little minds and their little souls. They know that we love them in great and small ways; with spoken and unspoken words. Children know that as parents we will go out of our way to protect them from all harm and that protection assumes various forms.

Those parents that rallied in D.C. yesterday to save the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program have left a lasting impression upon their children about how far they are willing to go to ensure that their children receive the best education available. What is amazing is how the Obama administration continues to completely ignore these parents, that by all accounts he continually asks to become “actively engaged” in their child’s education. They have, they are and their decisions should be honored. The program should be reauthorized.

The D.C. public school system has long been an embattled system of underperforming and failing schools. Since 2004, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has provided 3,300 low income students the ability to attend the private school of their parents’ choice and as far as parents are concerned the program has helped their children to succeed academically. Furthermore, a report released by the U.S. Department of Education confirmed parents’ beliefs of academic gain.

Why then would the government actively seek to end a program that does not leave children behind and helps to bridge the ever widening achievement gap? Why ignore parents who are actively involved in their child’s education? Why put the educational future of these children at risk?

If we are to actually put children first, then all avenues that lead to academic achievement must be made available. Why is it that the discussion of where a child is educated becomes less about the child and more about maintaining the status quo? The idea that only one system can educate a child is a false one. Parents know this and this is why they rallied by the thousands yesterday. Parents want, need and should have school choice.