Reply to Is it time for private school vouchers in Montgomery County?

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Reply to "Is it time for private school vouchers in Montgomery County?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Great way to shift wealth towards the wealthy while reducing effectiveness for the rest by decimating economies of scale.  It's a win-win for the self-centered, with the added bonuses of 1) being able to note the resulting degradation of public education as a support for the "need" to continue voucher programs and 2) being able to subsidize single-view religious teaching.

But, hey, there's always one or two edge cases from the rest to whom they can point as benefitting.  "See, in America, anyone can get ahead.  Let the invisible hand of the market do its thing!"

What a crock...[/quote]

Ha ha!  What are the "economies of scale" that provide benefits to MCPS consumers?  The top notch curriculum generated by their Central Office?  School lunches?  Of, never mind, subsidized by the Feds.  HR?  Talk to the applicants who don't hear back for months.  Etc.  Your whole logic is disjointed.  If public schools are left with fewer high needs students perhaps they can specialize.  [/quote]

I think it would be the opposite it would be most likely that the highest needs students will be the ones who don't get school choice because only a few select schools cater to students with IEPs and there aren't a lot of private schools with esol programs [/quote]

Students with disabilities are a very diverse population of students with various special needs. Very few students would need services that would be the equivalent to a 100% pull out from a general education environment. Also, some private school students still qualify for MCPS special education services.

I was frustrated with the treatment and lack of support for one child that I transferred him out of MCPS to a non-parochial private school that had about 12 students per class and a disability support counselor. My child thrived because the teachers had time to give him the attention he needed. Much of what would have been considered special education services to learn organizational, time management, and study skills was woven into the universal design of their curriculum. My son’s school also offered a supervised study hall period in the library so the disability support counselor would have periodic checks which help with the transition to the school. The school took the educational data for my child, the MCPS plan, had one meeting with my child and myself, and fully implemented our agreed to plan. A truly positive and rewarding experience.

I would say, before we chose the private we selected, we looked at other schools. Not all privates had the ability to meet my son’s needs and schools like Lab and McLean were not the least restrictive environment for my child. Privates are not one size fits all institutions, however when there’s a good fit, the environment is an appropriate remedy when MCPS doesn’t have the resources to implement a child’s IEP.[/quote]

Even if they don’t need pull out support, they still require something more than the status quo.  Whether that is additional time on test, smaller classes, or different curriculum, all of which comes at a cost.  Lets take smaller classes for instance.  Many kids, special ed or neuro typical  could benefit from smaller classes.  But that requires more space, more teachers, etc etc.  So yes a smaller private can offer this, but its not necessarily less expensive or less resource intensive.[/quote]

Much of Special Education would benefit all students. That’s why a universal design of implementing a plan for a disabled child is a best practice in education. Any general education teacher will say class size is key as far as how well they can meet the needs of all students.

As is, MCPS is at a low point in meeting the needs of students with disabilities. Complaints and law suits are on the rise and MCPS is wasting funds for noncompliance. How do they dig themselves out of the mess left over from ignoring students with disabilities for the past two years?

A voucher system would provide a mechanism to allow students who MCPS doesn’t meet their needs to go elsewhere. This could be aimed at disabled students who have needs for more attention and support, but it could also be exceptional students who need more enrichment but didn’t get chosen in the magnet school lottery process.

If enrollment declines in MCPS schools, it would lower the staffing and infrastructure needs of the entire school system. Less size, less bureaucracy, and focus for what MCPS does best - the middle 50% of students.[/quote]

You know it's not well advertised by mcps but there are ways to get mcps to pay the private school tuition of a student who is not being well served in public education. I have some friends who took that route and their daughter is in private school that services students with IEPs. However this took a lot of time and advocacy and documentation[/quote]

The only way to get private special education placement at public expense is to hire an attorney (at around $500 per hour) and take MCPS to Due Process. A huge gamble for parents, most do not have the $50,000 to $75,000 for the risk. MCPS legal fees do not get paid out of the MCPS budget. They are paid out of the Montgomery County Government Budget so the sky is the limit as they fight a prolonged legal battle against a disabled child.

Many families of students with disabilities, especially after the hell of the last two years, want more than endless meetings that do nothing for their child because MCPS never fully implements an IEP. For some students, smaller classes are better. At the end of the day, as a parent I feel my child has been lied to and cheated by a school system that was quick to say his needs could not be met in an online setting, not give him support and services to get caught up, then was real quick in January to pull the plug again because staffing was needed to babysit not provide the services my child needed. MCPS treats students with disabilities as undesirable afterthoughts. I would be happy to take a pittance of my tax dollars to take my child to an environment that has the resources and who wants to teach him.[/quote]

I'm not sure which private school. You think had the staff to manage your little snowflake in January, during the height of the covid surge, when many private schools were also virtual... But you're aware there's no law mandating private schools follow any IEPs at all? [/quote]

Guess what?  What matters most is that the child needs are met and the child receives an education.

Thus far, the IEP my child has might as well been written on toilet paper. It has not been followed in 2 years.

Then there’s the dumbing down of the curriculum for my child so the school can say he is making adequate progress. MCPS is passing a child through by lowering the expectations to the point he is not learning basic writing and math skills.[/quote]

Query:  Is the “2 years” that you’re so incensed about the same two years when the rest of Montgomery County and, indeed, the rest of the wold, was struggling with the pandemic?  A completely different 2 years? Some overlapping time period?  
Guess what? “What’s matters most” is that people were dying.  And your kid got the best that concerned administrators and dedicated teachers and a supportive community could provide under frighteningly challenging conditions.  Your priorities are self-servingly interesting. [/quote]

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