Re: WSJ~Schools Accused of Pushing Mainstreaming to Cut Costs

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Schools Accused of Pushing Mainstreaming to Cut Costs

By Hechinger in the Wall Street Journal.

http://tinyurl.com/2kjj3e

Greece, N.Y - For years, Schuster's mother begged the public

schools here to put her son in a special program where he could get extra

help for his emotional problems. By 11th grade, had broken his hand

punching a wall and been hospitalized twice for depression -- once because

he threatened to kill himself with a pocket knife.

But teachers insisted that , who suffers from attention

deficit disorder, learning disabilities and bipolar disorder, could get by

in regular classrooms. His mother, Kathleen Lerch, says the reason was cost.

" It was all about the bottom line, " she says. Citing confidentiality, school

officials declined to discuss 's case but said they seek to provide

an appropriate education to all children.

Advocates for the disabled have long promoted the inclusion of

special-education children in regular classes, a practice called

mainstreaming. Many educators view mainstreaming as an antidote to the

warehousing of children with special needs in separate, and often deficient,

classrooms and buildings.

Now, some experts and parents complain that mainstreaming has

increasingly taken on a new role in American education: a pretext for

cost-cutting, hurting the children it was supposed to help. While studies

show that mainstreaming can be beneficial for many students, critics say

cash-hungry school districts are pushing the practice too hard, forcing many

children into classes that can't meet their needs. Inclusion has evolved

into " a way of downsizing special education, " says Fuchs, a

Vanderbilt University education professor.

Districts have a powerful motivation to cut special-education costs.

U.S. schools spend almost twice as much on the average disabled student as

they do on a nondisabled peer, according to a 2004 federal study. But the

study also found that, in recent years, per-student special-education costs

rose more slowly than for the general population. One of the likely reasons,

researchers found, was cost savings from mainstreaming.

In 2003, Fairfax County, Va., an affluent Washington, D.C., suburb,

hired Gibson Consulting Group to study its special-education program.

Gibson, a firm specializing in education, says it has saved clients millions

of dollars by " improving productivity and eliminating inefficiencies. " The

firm's president, Greg Gibson, says mainstreaming nearly always saves money

because regular classrooms have fewer teachers per student.

Gibson found that Fairfax spent an average of $14,671 per

special-education student in all types of classrooms -- 85% more than for a

pupil in general education. At 21 special-education centers, the per-student

cost was even higher: $22,195. Mr. Gibson estimated that the district, which

currently has a $2.2 billion school budget, could save $229 million through

2015 by closing 16 of the centers and taking other steps to teach more

disabled children in regular classrooms.

Fairfax shut down the centers, prompting some parent protests. Fairfax

officials acknowledge that the moves reduced costs, but say that children

are better off in mainstream classrooms. They would not specify how much has

been saved but said it was far less than Mr. Gibson's projections because

special-ed students have received additional support.

MacMillan, chair of the special-education department at

Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, says the Plymouth, Mass., public

schools are currently cutting costs by moving students from separate centers

-- either public ones operated by multiple districts or private facilities

-- back into community schools and, where possible, into regular classrooms.

'For the Kids'

Cheryl Jacques, director of Plymouth's Pilgrim Academy, a separate

public center primarily for students with emotional and behavioral problems,

says her center's enrollment is dropping because districts are trying to be

" economically responsible. " Though she supports bringing students back to

local schools if the children are ready, in some cases districts are likely

" keeping kids that don't belong there, " she says. Pilgrim charges districts

$24,000 a year for each student. At Plymouth's public schools, the average

cost of a special-education student runs $13,343. Bruce Cole, Plymouth's

director of special education, counters: " I do what's best for the kids. "

In the Greece Central School District, with 13,000 students, the push

for more mainstreaming began in 1998. That year, Walts, a former

land schools administrator, took over as superintendent in this

middle-class suburb near Rochester, N.Y., where many work for Eastman Kodak

Co. and Xerox Corp.

At the time, Mr. Walts was under pressure from New York state to

include more disabled children in regular classrooms. The federal

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that students be

taught, when possible, in the " least restrictive " environment.

Making Gains

Since Congress started pushing for mainstreaming more than a quarter

century ago, many academic studies have found that the practice helps

children with disabilities make academic and social gains. The two largest

federal studies, each examining the records of 11,000 disabled school-age

children, concluded that while failure rates rose, mainstreamed students

overall tended to have higher grades and test scores than their counterparts

in separate classes.

In Greece, Mr. Walts slashed the number of students referred to

special outside schools, cutting separate classrooms and limiting " resource

rooms, " or learning centers for students with disabilities.

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