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REPORTS
The “Crisis” in Special
Education Has Many Components
By Noreen Connell
March 18 was a red-letter day. Two separate events confirmed
that the Children First reorganization was taking a heavy toll on special
education. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum held a press conference in the
City Hall rotunda to announce the result of a phone survey of 199 school
psychologists and 95 principals and administrators. Their responses indicated
that there were serious problems:
40 percent of the administrators and 44 percent of the
psychologists said “they have been given a direct order to keep referrals
and evaluations down.” Over 20 percent of both groups of respondents
said that “they knew of colleagues who have been given such an order.”
56 percent of administrators said “their school has
a backlog of students awaiting placement.” A much higher proportion
of psychologists reported this problem, 74 percent.
70 percent of administrators said “their school has
a backlog of students awaiting reevaluation.” A higher proportion
of psychologists reported this problem, 81 percent. 81 percent of administrators
and 87 percent of psychologists said “their school had trouble locating
IEP’s (Individual Education Plans].”
By huge margins, both administrators (83 percent) and psychologists
(96 percent) indicated in one way or the other during the phone interview
that “the DOE’s reforms have adversely affected the referral/evaluation
process.”
On the same day, just a building away, the newly installed Deputy Chancellor
for Teaching and Learning, Carmen Fariña, issued a strongly worded
memo to the ten Regional Superintendents stating that school-site meetings
were to be scheduled with principals,psychologists, and local instructional
supervisors and to report weekly on all the schools visited. The memo
stated, “The purpose of these meetings is to educate the principal
on how to monitor compliance with special education assessments…
The plan for each school must first determine whether a reasonable amount
of daytime work is being performed by school staff.” Later on, in
the memo when discussing schools with the highest cases out of compliance,
the Deputy Chancellor authorizes “if necessary, referring administrators
or staff for disciplinary action.” Throughout the memo regional staff
are directed to end the backlog of referrals and evaluations and to hire
staff to create new special education classes and to access independent
providers for evaluations and services. The memo ends with the information
that the Office of Auditor General and Ernst & Young staff will visit
schools in the spring “to ensure compliance with the above mandates.”
Whether by coincidence or plan, the Fariña memo focused on a lack
of productivity at the school site, while the Gotbaum press conference
pointed fingers at administrators, especially at the regional level.
More than a record-keeping problem
When schools opened in September, the word spread quickly that the elimination
of 37 district committees on special education (replaced with just 10
Regional committees) and the elimination of the school-based special education
evaluator position were creating havoc.
The most understandable and immediate problem was that student records
had not been sent to the schools, so new special education children were
at the schoolhouse doors without any documentation of their disabilities
or evaluations as to what type of instruction and services they needed
(called “Individualized Education Program”). These records had
been kept by district offices of Committees on Special Education and were
not redirected to the schools, but instead were put into warehouses. The
first mystery is why these records had not been made into computer accessible
documents in the eight-month period from the January announcement of Children
First to the September opening of the schools. Stories abounded about
school staff members spending a whole day in a warehouse only to locate
a handful of records for their students. The second mystery is why there
are still complaints that records of students already in the school were
no longer accessible, since these records are kept at the school.
Shortly after the Gotbaum’s press conference, the Department of Education
filed a “freedom of information” appeal with the Public Advocate’s
Office to get the detailed results of the survey, a highly unusual request
from one city agency to another. This peaked EPP’s interest, so we
simply phoned the Public Advocate’s Office to get a copy of the survey
responses. Almost all of them were negative. Only one, from a psychologist,
was positive, “Think reorganization is great. It empowers us and
eliminates duplication…New job exhilarating. Now that I am responsible
for placements as well, more meaningful contacts. Many share my views.”
This was supposed to be the result of the reorganization, so what were
the other respondents complaining about?
Unfamiliar tasks and a lack of
training, computers & supplies,
EPP looked at the survey responses from both the psychologists and administrators
to try to identify the nature of their complaints, not just their conclusions.
The most frequent response by psychologists is that their training and
background did not prepare them for this job and that, worse, that they
did not have well-trained clerical assistance to accomplish their tasks.,
Many said that they had become, by default, clerical workers. A good number
of the summary statements are similar to these, “Not trained as education
evaluators, we can do psychological testing, not appropriate [to do] education
evaluations” and “One person has to do three jobs — that
of psychologist, educational evaluator, and clerical worker.”
Several principals stated that they wanted their special education evaluators
back and that they didn’t think psychologists were trained to do
their new jobs. The absence of adequate office space, supplies, and access
to computers that faced psychologists at the opening of school was surprising.
The access to computers is critical, because it is only through entering
data in the CAPS system that needed services are documented. One psychologist
said, “Who are these fools that are trying to erode professionalism,
how do I work without ATS [the school system’s software system] and
a working computer with a CD ROM?”
Inappropriate placements
The summary of one psychologist’s statement gives a broad picture
of pressures at the school and regional level: “Am aware of placement
of a general education kid in special education without proper documentation,
IEP. Parent asked to sign waiver to allow placement pending evaluations.
Have to rubber stamp what AP decided. Students in special education placed
in general education without evaluations. Several administrators from
the Region encouraged me to do very little assessments, just review report
card, no testing, and proceed with conference to finish cases. I feel
unable [to finish cases] until have face-to-face testing. It is unethical
to have conference without evidence of child’s skills. No training.
No help from Region.”
The “ROC Runaround”
and pressure from the principal
Next to details about the absence of clerical support, computers, and
training, the highest volume of complaints are directed at the Regional
Operating Center staff, ranging from allegations of their incompetence
and inconsistency to willful efforts to lose or tamper with records and
a purposeful lack of assistance in securing specialized bilingual, hearing,
and speech evaluations. These responses are typical: “Referrals sent
in September are not opened for months; opened only after repeated phone
calls,” “Can’t reach Regional CSE’s,” and “…Directions
for operation are day to day. “ The most serious allegations are
that Regional staff purposely sit on or lose referrals to reduce the number
of students in special education or to deny them services. Several psychologists
simply stated that speech therapy and bilingual evaluations “were
no longer available.” Not all the complaints were about the regional
staff. Several psychologists report that principals are actively discouraging
them from making initial referrals to special education because this is
a factor in the evaluation of a principal’s job performance.
What does all this mean?
EPP asked advocates and a union representative to provide EPP with their
take on the “crisis.” Their responses differed. One advocate
said that the Public Advocate’s survey revealed “generalized
kvetching” about having to work. She said that there was a lack of
productivity in both the old and the new system of referrals and evaluations
and added, “The old teams were rarely, if ever, in classrooms. How
is this different? I think the bigger issue is that the lack of resources
remains the same. The new system has not created better placements, more
integrated settings for students or added resources to the classrooms
in either the general education or special education settings.” But
both this advocate and the union representative agreed that under the
old system the district level special education staff could counter inappropriate
directives from the principal (either more referrals or fewer). The flexible
use of special education funding, called Academic Intervention Services,
gives an incentive for principals to provide fewer services to individual
students in order to use the funds for other programs at their school.
Another problem is that student-teacher ratios are being ignored and some
principals are prohibiting bilingual services. Apparently, plans for professional
development for special education teachers have not been fully implemented.
The union representative believes that a contributing factor to this denial
of services at the school level is the poor performance of Regional special
education staff. There are not only inconsistent interpretations of practices
and policies across the Regions, but inconsistencies within Regions. Clearly,
the reorganization of the school system has stumbled badly in creating
better instruction and services for children with disabilities. The question
is whether this “crisis” can be ended. The March 18 directive
from the Deputy Chancellor has resulted in even more “rush-rush”
evaluations and referrals, but it may have put an end to the issue of
an “unofficial policy” of discouraging special education referrals
and services. On the other hand, the Mayor’s Executive Budget proposes
to reduce special education funding by over $366 million in the next school
year.•
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