One of the things that struck me as being out of sync with the BOE budget was the figure cited by Corda of 71 Special Ed students accounting for 4.1 million in the budget. I think it was Fred Wilms Mike Lyons who asked about best practices from other school systems in reducing the per student average, but Corda deflected that line of inquiry.

It seems that the former Norwalk superintendent had some questions about that special education numbers too, and in this 1999 article from Reason examined (emphasis mine):

In Connecticut, farther down this particular road than most states, special ed by itself now consumes, on average, 18 percent of school budgets; in rural Voluntown, the figure has hit 29 percent.Parents want the best for their kids, and the advantages of a medicalized label such as “learning disability” can be substantial, including individually tailored learning plans, laptop computers, and the right to take notes when other students can’t. “You get a lot more one-on-one time with your teachers,” said one Greenwich student. So friendly experts hang out shingles advertising their diagnostic skills, while entrepreneurial lawyers organize parents to press their rights.

Under federal law, schools that want to resist demands for special ed services must jump through elaborate due process hoops and risk “one-way” attorney fee awards (the school system pays both sides’ lawyers if it loses but collects nothing if it wins). Between 1990 and 1994, the number of formal special ed appeals tripled in the Nutmeg State. “I used to be able to put a year’s worth of hearing records in one file cabinet,” state special ed attorney Theresa DeFrancis told the Courant. “They are in five or six cabinets now.”

For ground-level educators, the hassle is astounding. A few months ago one of my neighbors, the principal of a middle school in a nearby Connecticut town, told me he now is obliged to spend half his time on special ed issues. I thought he had to be exaggerating, yet the Courant spoke to other principals who estimated they too were spending half their time on such demands.

School officials are often reluctant to give offense, but many in this case were willing to be outspoken. “Nobody is slow anymore,” commented Norwalk Superintendent Ralph Sloan. “If you are not in the fast track, you have a disability.” “Anybody can be `special education,’” added Middletown special ed chief Mariann Rossi-Ondusky. “I’ve just got to give you the right tests.” Reported diagnosis rates vary drastically from town to town, with the apparent incidence of learning disability, for example, running from less than 3 percent to nearly 20 percent. Curiously, some of the state’s lowest reported percentages come from Bridgeport, a city almost as famous for poverty as Greenwich is for wealth. To the extent that childhood disabilities correlate with public health woes –deficits in nutrition or prenatal care, for instance–you’d expect Bridgeport to have the high numbers and Greenwich the low. But then, not many Bridgeport parents can afford those pricey lawyers and child development experts.

And so whereas Sloan seemed willing to admit there’s a problem in who qualifies for special ed, Corda seems content to to skip over any healthy examination of what is going on in Norwalk. And money and legal challenges are what’s driving the special ed programs.

Approximately 73,000 students, ages 3 to 21, were receiving special-education services in Connecticut, as of Dec. 1, 2004, according to the Bureau of Special Education of the Connecticut Department of Education.

“It would be foolish to say money isn’t part of the decision,” when school systems fight the placement of students in private special-education programs, Jonson said. Such programs can cost more than $100,000 per student annually. School districts also frequently fight parents who want their children to remain in public school.

“It can be a tougher fight to get a district to create a program that’s not already in place,” Jonson said.

COSTLY BATTLES

Attorneys get involved in the special-education process as early as the annual planning and placement team meeting, during which a child’s individual education program is determined, she said.

After parents dispute a school system’s finding, the next step is a due process hearing at the administrative level. A state Department of Education hearing officer conducts the hearings, which can be a lengthy process.

“A hearing that requires eight days of testimony could take three months,” Jonson estimated.

The “vast majority” of cases brought to due process hearings are settled before being further pursued in either state or federal court, Jonson surmised. Federal court is the more frequent destination from those that don’t settle because special education is covered by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Under IDEA, school districts aren’t required to provide the best education for a special-needs child. The law entitles a child to an “appropriate” education, which has come to mean an education that enables a child to “make sufficient progress,” Jonson explained.

source: Reason, Standard Accommodations; The road to universal disability, by Walter Olson, February 1999

source: The Connecticut Law Tribune
, Former Special-Education Teacher Now Fights for Those Rights, by Keith Griffin, February 5, 2007