^^^ There are way too many ignorant people on this forum. My child has special needs and attends a parochial with many voucher families. The atmosphere is diverse and the academics are top shelf. My daughter gets therapy services in her parochial school provided by DCPS through Federal IDEA. DCPS tried to shut services to special needs kids last year to boost their own enrollment, and that didn't go well; DCPS -> mean to special needs kids, that my personal experience. That's probably why DCPS lost the special needs DL case in Federal appeals court a couple of weeks ago for not trying to find and help special needs kids. If you want a school system that cares about your kid and you want academic rigor, go parochial. If you can afford an Obama solution at Sidwell, power to you.

It would be helpful if trolls on this forum strop spreading fake news. There's already plenty of that on Facebook and cable TV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

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.

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, the choice includes losing their federally guaranteed right to access the school's curriculum on as equal a footing as a student without SN? How is this fair?

It isn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

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.

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, the choice includes losing their federally guaranteed right to access the school's curriculum on as equal a footing as a student without SN? How is this fair?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public money = Public scrutiny. Why do voucher schools get a pass?

What do they have to hide? How about admissio s discrimination using religion, disability, language, gender expression, whatever the heck they want.

Let the charter school board vet the voucher schools

^^^ Ignorant troll.

Neither. Just inarticulate in my message.

What I meant was, the charter board -- or something like it -- would be more capable of providing oversight than the OSP. The charter board already has performance management metrics and oversight processes in place for non-DCPS schools that receive public money. They know how to vet the management and finances of a school. They know how measure results in a way that gives parents data they can use to make informed choices. They can call out schools that are not operating in the interests of kids, like those that discriminate or fail to meet health and safety standards.

The OSP, to my limited knowledge, does none of this, but still gets taxpayer money? Why can't all schools that get public money be accountable to the public? Why do voucher (mostly Christian) schools get a pass? Why should voucher parents get less information on the schools they choose than other parents? How is that fair?

I'm not anti-vouchers. But I am against the lack of visibility into the voucher schools program as it's run in DC. Public money = public oversight. Why is that such a radical notion?

Personally, I think voucher funds should be based on the total costs of attending the school. If we want people to have real choice, we have to give more viable options. With oversight and transparency, of course.

Anonymous wrote: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?

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.

Anonymous wrote: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?

No, no, and because federal disability law requires students with disabilities and an Individual Education Plan should be guaranteed a "free and appropriate education" to fulfill the IEP. So long as the public school system insists it can serve a student, the funds stay in the public school system.

I think this is BS, but that's the current situation. It would make more sense if DCPS would partner with local private/independent schools instead of fighting them and bullying parents into either spending money or risking their child's education.

See the Special Needs forum for more info on this.

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?

But that's at the discretion of the school. And most catholic schools are poor academically. I don't feel comfortable with my tax dollars paying for kids to listen to Christian fairy tales.

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the gap between the $ offered by the vouchers and the price of tuition at most privates. It doesn't even cover Catholic school tuition, much less Sidwell, GDS, etc. So the privates are still putting up a large amount of scholarship money, or the kid can't enroll.

We know a few older siblings of my kid's DCPS classmates who are going to private using this voucher, and are happy to do so. But the private school is still covering the difference between the voucher and tuition with a scholarship and bearing the bulk of the financial aid to the family. And if they hadn't done so, the family would not be able to cover the tuition.

It seems like DeVos is trying to show that with vouchers you can attend any school you want to, and it is just not so.

Your middle paragraph contradicts your opening. Most privates can give up to half off tuition to low income families. So, with a voucher, most private high schools are suddenly in reach.

Anonymous wrote:Love how the best private schools barely have anyone on vouchers.

How do you know the writer didn't cherry pick? And it's pretty difficult to get into the tippy top privates, and low income tends to correlate with test scores, so not that surprising if she wasn't cherry picking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the gap between the $ offered by the vouchers and the price of tuition at most privates. It doesn't even cover Catholic school tuition, much less Sidwell, GDS, etc. So the privates are still putting up a large amount of scholarship money, or the kid can't enroll.

We know a few older siblings of my kid's DCPS classmates who are going to private using this voucher, and are happy to do so. But the private school is still covering the difference between the voucher and tuition with a scholarship and bearing the bulk of the financial aid to the family. And if they hadn't done so, the family would not be able to cover the tuition.

It seems like DeVos is trying to show that with vouchers you can attend any school you want to, and it is just not so.

Wrong. Please investigate further.

PP here. I meant the vouchers don't cover tuition at ALL the Catholic schools in the voucher program. Holy Trinity in Georgetown charges $17,700 for non-Catholic/out of diocese, Visitation is $29,200 , Gonzaga and St. John's = $22,100, St. Anslem's is $27,000, St. Peters on Cap Hill is $14,000 for Catholics, St. Augustine is $13,500.

These amounts are just tuition. I didn't include application fees, academic admissions testing, books, supplies, uniforms, aftercare, or transportation. Even if tuition is covered by the voucher, it's up to each school to decide which of the other fees might be paid with voucher funds.

Remember, the maximum voucher amounts for the lowest-income families are $8,653 for K-8 and $12,981 for 9th-12th.

Vouchers CANNOT be used for any of the following:

Late Fees (even though vouchers are issued 2 or 3 times a year, not all upfront)
Parent participation and/or fundraising fees
Penalties for student behavior
Basic school supplies
Computers
Personal transportation
Other items not related to academic success
Other fees your school has determined are not billable to your student's scholarship

Bottom line: The voucher system as it's set up is a bait-and-switch. It promises parent choice, but some of the options are completely out of reach. It targets kids at certain schools with -- again -- no way for parents to accurately compare the safety and effectiveness of the limited number of schools they might be able to afford.

Some high-cost schools claim to have voucher students, but we just have to take their word for it because there is no real oversight of the program.

Here's an analogy: food choices. All parents want their kids to have "healthy" food. WIC funds can pay for cereal. Standardized nutrition and ingredients labeling lets parents choose between nut- free or high protein or low calorie or your kid's favorite that you know they'll eat consistently.

Now imagine that some of the options are organic, no artificial colors, flavors, high protein, whole grain and $10 a box. Others are $3 but lack a full list of ingredients (could be nuts). A few are 99 cents a pound, but no expiration or manufacturer listed. Even if you find the perfect cereal for your child, it may be only available at a store two bus rides away.

Bottom line: public money = public oversight

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the gap between the $ offered by the vouchers and the price of tuition at most privates. It doesn't even cover Catholic school tuition, much less Sidwell, GDS, etc. So the privates are still putting up a large amount of scholarship money, or the kid can't enroll.

We know a few older siblings of my kid's DCPS classmates who are going to private using this voucher, and are happy to do so. But the private school is still covering the difference between the voucher and tuition with a scholarship and bearing the bulk of the financial aid to the family. And if they hadn't done so, the family would not be able to cover the tuition.

It seems like DeVos is trying to show that with vouchers you can attend any school you want to, and it is just not so.

Wrong. Please investigate further.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the gap between the $ offered by the vouchers and the price of tuition at most privates. It doesn't even cover Catholic school tuition, much less Sidwell, GDS, etc. So the privates are still putting up a large amount of scholarship money, or the kid can't enroll.

We know a few older siblings of my kid's DCPS classmates who are going to private using this voucher, and are happy to do so. But the private school is still covering the difference between the voucher and tuition with a scholarship and bearing the bulk of the financial aid to the family. And if they hadn't done so, the family would not be able to cover the tuition.

It seems like DeVos is trying to show that with vouchers you can attend any school you want to, and it is just not so.

Getting agitated about vouchers is an intentional distraction from DCPS failures.

Attendance is down - in part because DCPS is locking kids out and then pretending it didn't! It takes FOIA requests to make DCPS tell the truth.

I wouldn't send my child to a voucher school, but I know this - they're still more trustworthy than DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:Public money = Public scrutiny. Why do voucher schools get a pass?

What do they have to hide? How about admissio s discrimination using religion, disability, language, gender expression, whatever the heck they want.

Let the charter school board vet the voucher schools

^^^ Ignorant troll.