Reply to Article about school vouchers WaPo

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would like to know how the voucher system benefits students with special needs. The article gives only passing mention of this issue.  Are schools that accept vouchers required to comply with federal requirements under IDEA?  If so, how are these arrangements tracked and do families have recourse if a private school fails to provide supports required?  If not, why not?[/quote]

In other states there are vouchers offered to students with special needs and IEPs and, upon accepting the voucher, the parent has to waive their right to IDEA and the schools do NOT have to comply with IEPs.

Of course not every parent understands this - many stories of families who got screwed in Florida this way (a program that DeVos really likes and hopes to replicate in more states). But there are also parents who are happy.

[/quote]

So students with SNs are once again given short shrift in a voucher system where they either don't even get offered the choice of using a voucher or if they do, [b]the choice includes losing their federally guaranteed right to access the school's curriculum[/b] on as equal a footing as a student without SN?  How is this fair?  [/quote]

That's because DCPS made the decision last year to try to hoze special needs kids in privates who won't enroll in DCPS.  DCPS wants to boost head count, evidently no matter what the impact.  It's all about how many $ per head for a DCPS school's budget.  Fortunately, Federal law mandates services to special needs kids in privates to be provided by DCPS with Federal money, assuming DCPS can find kids and count correctly (not always the case, especially given the DL case decision from the Federal appeals court).

For all that effort to try to boost its numbers, DCPS could actually achieve its goal if it made its schools safe.  But providing services to make schools safe and actually provide special needs services costs money from the school budget - that's the wrong plan.  Just bring in the head count and forget about the rest.[/quote]

Federal law mandates some portion, unspecified, of DC's IDEA $ has to be spend on children in private schools. But it isn't required to be comprehensive or equal to what would be provided in a public school.

And for students who need differentiated different instruction in all subjects to access the curriculum - e.g. some students with autism, hearing loss - the 2 hours of services a week approach is useless. There is no oversight of the reading and math instruction provided by the private school for students with disabilities, or requirement that they make progress. [/quote]

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