Balancing Special-Education Needs With Rising Costs

from NYtimes.com 7/27/14

“Dylan B. Randall could not speak or stand. He never tasted food because he was fed through a gastric tube in his belly. He breathed through a ventilator; his own saliva would choke him unless a nurse cleared his throat every few minutes.

It was a daily struggle to keep Dylan alive, much less educate him. And when his public school could not deliver all the daily therapy the then 5-year-old was supposed to receive, his parents asked that New York City pay for what they believed was the kind of education Dylan needed: a private school for disabled children.

special education — Robert Randall, in his Brooklyn apartment on Wednesday, is lobbying the city to change its placement policies for disabled students. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

Rather than pay, however, the city decided to fight. For several months, the Randalls and their lawyers battled with city lawyers, until Nov. 18, when a hearing officer ruled in the family’s favor. Not only did the boy deserve placement in a private school, the hearing officer, Diane R. Cohen, said, but he was also owed hundreds of therapy sessions that the city had failed to deliver during his kindergarten year.

His case was one of thousands being fought each year as a growing number of families seeking private schooling at public expense have butted up against the city’s attempts to keep spending under control. This year, after complaints from parent groups reached state legislators, Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to make changes that would streamline the process for some families, though he did not promise to challenge them less often.

For decades, parents of special-education students nationwide have been able to seek private schooling at no extra cost at public expense when public schools fail to meet their needs. Court rulings over the last decade have strengthened that right, and the city now spends more than $200 million a year on such education, up from just a few million dollars a year in the 1990s, when requests were far rarer.

Under the Bloomberg administration, the city beefed up its special-education legal team. The team evaluates requests and, increasingly, has denied them, arguing that city schools — where the cost of educating a special-needs student is generally $20,000 cheaper than in private school — are appropriate. Families can challenge the denial in a hearing. The Randalls’ hearing was one of 6,241 requested by families last year, up from 5,403 in 2008, according to State Education Department data. Families win a majority of those cases, according to city education officials. Either side can appeal a hearing decision to the state and, after that, in court…”

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Balancing Special-Education Needs With Rising Costs

from NYtimes.com 7/27/14

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