Posted on 07/26/2005 7:08:23 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Because of inadequate documentation supplied by the LAUSD, an independent monitor said Monday that he cannot determine how much money the district has spent on court-ordered improvements to its special-education programs.
Monitor Carl Cohn said he wants to meet with Los Angeles Unified School District officials to determine how much of the $67.5 million the district has pledged to spend has actually gone toward access ramps and other improvements. In a highly critical progress report released Friday, Cohn wrote he had "serious concerns about the reported expenditures" and wants district officials to explain what they've done to comply with the consent decree and how they've spent the money.
"They have failed to present us with the information to give us reasonable assurance that they're moving forward on this," Cohn said in a phone interview Monday. "We need to make sure the facilities people are providing information that is complete and actually shows what the nature of the work is."
District officials had reported to Cohn that they had completed $21 million in improvements and were working on $37 million more.
But none of that work had been verified, Cohn said, which means he cannot determine whether it is applicable to the requirements of the consent decree.
Donnalyn Anton, associate superintendent of special education, said her staff will meet with the district's facilities officials to clarify how the money was spent.
"The money really is going toward accessibility issues," Anton said. "From my perspective, we're moving forward. This district is very committed to its learning program, which includes accessibility for people with disabilities."
Cohn's report questioned whether the district was counting work that predates the consent decree as part of the $67.5 million obligation.
The consent decree came in 1996 to settle a civil-rights lawsuit filed three years earlier on behalf of Chanda Smith and others. The suit said the LAUSD had violated federal law by allowing the teen to twice fail 10th grade before determining that she had the academic skills of a second-grader.
The decree was modified in 2003, with the LAUSD agreeing to spend $67.5 million over five years to renovate older schools and provide handicap-access equipment for disabled students.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said Monday that he wants more information provided to ensure that the district fulfills its pledge to its 85,000 disabled students and that the money is really going for accessibility improvements.
Cohn said he hopes the progress report will urge district officials to provide the detailed information soon.
"I don't want to make harsh judgments. We're concerned, but this is a large urban school system, and this is an area where it could easily be a communication problem rather than a problem of substance."
Board President Marlene Canter plans to announce on Wednesday the creation of a select committee on the consent decree that will provide oversight and an action plan to meet the June 30 deadline for compliance.
"A special committee will be focused on this in the first half of September and I assume that these kinds of questions are the ones we'll want answered for the whole board and the public," board member David Tokofsky said. "The consent decree has 18 specific goals and they are all quantitative and measurable. There should be no doubt if the district has met or will meet the goals when they meet the federal judge."
The district also agreed to spend up to $20 million on immediate renovations requested by principals in order to provide handicapped accessibility such as accessible drinking fountains or a ramp to the school auditorium stage. It appears that 19 percent of the $20 million has been committed to requested renovations, the monitor reported.
Why do you need ramps for dumb kids?
ADA, I reckun.
Americans Disabilities Act
In our district, we spend $8,000 per pupil / year that our in our mainstream programs. The cost to send a student (including autistic kids, LD kids, kids expelled for disciplinary reasons, etc) to a “special needs” school is $75,000 + the cost of a chartered bus.
If we look at the dollars spent in terms of investment and returns on investiment. It seems like we have things backwards, like a farmer that is spending all of his time trying to irrigate, plant and harvest from rocky unfertile ground and spending the minimum amount on the fertile ground. This kind of farmer will fall well behind the competition or will eventually go bankrupt. If more effort were given initially to improving the fertile ground, then the fertile ground will yield better results and yield more dollars to use on improving the moderate ground. When the moderate ground becomes productive, there would be even more money to spend on helping to convert and improve the rocky ground.
Perhaps if we devoted more resources to those that will be truly productive later on, we would eventually see that investments in education can truly pay off … higher test scores and eventually a smarter more educated work force who works on advanced solutions for complex problems. Some of these problems might even be cures for autism, Down’s syndrome, etc.
Or perhaps a more educated work force earns more and thus contributes more to the tax base. Increased tax revenue means that every program benefits, including the “special needs” programs.
Many of the “special needs” kids will never hold an unsubsisidized job and thus, will never repay even a fraction of the educational $$$ that was spent on their behalf (75,000 * 12 years = $900,000). I think we need “special needs” schools but do we need to spend nearly a million dollars per student over the course of their career? Would a quarter of that have sufficed?
(Just as an aside, one of the kids that was expelled from our grade school for attacking students and teachers has threatened other kids w/ baseball bats, gardent tools, etc. He’s only in our town because somenone converted a rental property to section-8 housing and the renter took on foster kids for the increased money from the fed/state government. I see jail in this kids future, and yet our town pays $75,000 a year to send this future convict to a “special needs” school.)
I think state legistlators and judges feel very altruistic when they increase funding for these “special needs” programs, but in the end, it costs us all with not much to show for it.
I agree with you and your premise that we need to spend our money where it will be productive for society. I see the money spent on spec ed, and I know this sounds hard-hearted, but many of these students will never hold a job. Not sure what the answer is, possibly some sort of job training?
When my oldest was in third grade a spec ed student was "mainstreamed" into his class of 30 students. He immediately took up a disproportionate amount of time from the teacher keeping him on task and such. The rest of the class became very frustrated with this boy as he side-tracked the teacher, therefore the class, and eventually the parents were convinced to take him out and put him back in spec ed (this decision was entirely at the parents discretion, not the teacher, other parents or principal). He was no where near third grade level in any area, he was just the appropriate age and the parents wanted him with the other third grade kids. It was a dismal failure academically and socially for the boy.
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