It's an outrage to place kids in expensive special ed programs based on subjective criteria. Do this on your own money not on taxpayers dollars - we will not pay for kids that are not clearly qualified. How can a program exists with so many fraudulent kids - who's watching the store ?

The state has no mechanism for making judgements about which kids qualify for services and which kids don't. The only thing the state monitors are the procedural requirements for implementing these Special Education programs. The decision about who qualifies and who doesn't is entirely made by the local school district. Local districts are already well aware of the problem of over-identification. This article is somewhat misleading in that it gives the impression that too many students are being served outside the regular education classroom and are pulled out into the resource room. That's not the case. One of the things that the state is responsible for is making sure that school districts have a continuum of available Special Education services. There are many school districts out there that barely pull kids out anymore (which is actually more expensive) even though the kids could really use it. Again, not the State's decision one way or the other. All made by the local Team. The Commissioner knows this, or at least he should.

As a school administrator in five different districts in five different states, this is an unsurprising finding. Here's what is happening: as budgets get tighter, schools are cutting staff. These cuts result in higher class sizes, a reduction in non-mandated support staff, and a reduction in staff development. Parents and teachers know the only way to get more help for their children is to have them identified as "special education" and, absent staff development for inclusion, the only programs in many schools is in a separate classroom. The solution is to flood the early elementary grades with reading support programs for ALL students, restrict the identification of special education students at early grade levels... and wait four years. The numbers are not going to drop as quickly as they rose because once a child is identified and is getting the support they need, parents and teachers are reluctant to go through the process of withdrawing a child from the program. Oh... and the paperwork... that's the tip of a very large iceberg. If you want to establish a true cost to educate a special needs child, don't forget to factor in the lost instructional time and additional staff needed to prepare for and attend the planning meetings for the development of each child's Independent Education Plans. When that time is taken into account, it becomes very obvious that every dollar spent keeping a child out of special education is a good investment.

"The study did not identify reasons for this", so I'll try, the Federal Government does not pay for Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). It does pay for Emotionally Disturbed (ED) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The Federal Government expects the State and City to pick up the cost for Oppositional Defiant Disorder, many states do, Massachusetts does not, and Boston does not! Many cities and states have separate schools for ODD students. To my knowledge Boston Public Schools does not. In the suburbs ODD is not considered a disability, and the student is given an "immediate logical consequence" and sent home to parental care. We try not to do that in Boston Public Schools, many parents are working and kids might get into trouble. In the BPS, the ODD students are placed into the Learning Adaptive Behavior (LAB) programs with the ED students even though the ODD student requires an intervention called "immediate logical consequences" and the ED student requires "talk therapy." Many states do not even have these two populations in the same school because of the different interventions required! Boston Public Schools evaluates principals, and the school, on limiting their referrals of students to special education. A high number of sped referrals, the lower the principal's evaluation. Many principals have elaborate gate-keeping practices to prevent a student being referred to special education. It has been my experience that a student almost has to seriously assault someone before they are referred for a Core. Teachers really don't have a say and it is unfair to demonize and suggest that teachers are responsible for "weak academic programs that cause students to fall behind, or because some teachers to want unruly students out of their classrooms." A teacher can provide all the "rigorous" and "differentiated" instruction possible, but how much class time can you use to "redirect" an ODD student who is running around the room, tossing books, poking other students, throwing chairs, and calling the teacher profane names that would make a sailor blush! If you have a couple of ODD students in a group, would you want your child in that classroom?

in the inner city it's well known that pushing your kid into sped is a one way ticket to ssi disability payments to go along with the EBT card. the parents don't seem to care how this status will affect the kid' future-just pay me now.

Congratulations! You've just posted the most asinine thing anyone will say on this subject all day.

Thank you for posting that.

The requirements stem from the federal law. Try getting some reform at that level these days with partisan bickering. Another thing to consider is the odd entry of political directives and corporate models entering schools. You can't win being an administrator these days. Were you on the NCLB bandwagon spouting about "all children will be at grade level" by 2014? People forget that kids are not all the same. I just hope when the corporate folks, leading puppets like commissioner Chester around by the hand, finally drive a stake into Special Education that they don't also abandon the good intent behind the law.

This is a serious issue that requires review - because there are too many parents who indeed are NOT parenting. It is much easier for parents to ignore bad behaviors and let children run wild, throw objects, and out of control while using foul language while claiming the child needs 'special education' and the parent need EXTRA money and the SCHOOLS NEED TO CONTROL all students. Of course the school also gets EXTRA MONEY for the out-of-control students. #1. Why not assign children with anti-social behaviors to a 'SPECIAL' SCHOOL with "Special Admission CRITERIA' and 'SPECIAL SALARIES' for the teachers? #2. Why Not provide funding for students who want to go to schools to learn; children with supportive parents who generally have to go to PRIVATE schools to get a decent education BECAUSE all the funds are being directed to the bad mannered, out-of-control students who are looking to make trouble? #3. 'Special Education' USED to be for the ELITE students - until - educators realized there were too few of those students and parents realized they could CASH-IN and get paid monthly allowance for NOT-PARENTING, and no one cared.

Dear Cantabrigian01, This is a serious issue, and will become even more serious as the state opens up more charter schools that are allowed to cherry pick their students. The 5th largest school system in the country, Clark County, Las Vegas, Nevada, have alternative schools call "Opportunity Schools" that deal with students with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (not for kids with normal adolescent rebellion.) These schools are set up to provide "immediate logical consequences" for behavior that does not comply with the "habits of civility" and following the rules. The schools accommodate students in grades 7 to 12, and students assigned to these schools have an "opportunity" to earn their way back to their regular school. Some students never earn enough points to return, and graduate from the Opportunity School. Some students stay because they like the regiment, strict enforcement of rules, and are successful in that type of environment. Maybe these schools provide the structure and consequences that these students don't find at home. The school day is open for two sessions. 7 to 12 and 12-5. Students are only allowed to stay for one session, but teachers working in these schools have the option of working a second session, doubling their pay. Some teachers work on flextime. Only core subjects are taught, enrichment subjects are not offered. Students are not permitted to return to their former school campus for any reason, at any time, or they will be arrested for trespass. Unlike Boston's DYS, Clark County's Department of Youth Services (DYS) is part of their school system. So there is no argument if "DYS" is going to pay for a student needing services, or if the schools system is going to pay for services. In Boston, an ODD student can leave a Court Appointed DYS facility, and end up in a regular ed classroom with a teacher, who isn't informed, that the student has a tendency to be violent! I had one student who was in lock up for threatening a former teacher with a gun; and another student who was return from lock up for throwing a chair and hitting a teacher during MCAS. I was told about this by these students! When I verified the information with "student support", I was informed that I was not told about their behavior because the philosophy, at that time, was that the student did his time and should have a clean start! So much for the safety of the other 30 students in the class, and their teacher! Being a BPS teacher I asked, "well what if the kid skips and doesn't go to the Opportunity School? If a parent can't get the student to school, or if the student skips out, they are removed from the home during the week, sent to a DYS therapeutic boarding school. Students are allowed to earn weekends home, and can earn their way back to the "Opportunity School" and living at home." When I would speak (ok "rant") about the "youth prison industrial complex," people uniformly said, "We are going to have an educated population!" and explained that these were

Dear Cantabrigian01 continued: Being a BPS teacher I asked, "well what if the kid skips and doesn't go to the Opportunity School? If a parent can't get the student to school, or if the student skips out, they are removed from the home during the week, sent to a DYS therapeutic boarding school. Students are allowed to earn weekends home, and can earn their way back to the "Opportunity School" and living at home." When I would speak (ok "rant") about the "youth prison industrial complex," people uniformly said, "We are going to have an educated population!" and explained that these were "therapeutic boarding schools not prisons." The one problem that these people pointed out was that students were sent back to their "home" school. They felt that students who completed the "Opportunity School" requirements should be sent to a different school and get a fresh start.