High court to weigh special ed funding case
April 27th, 2009From the Washington Post:
The Supreme Court will consider a case this week which aims to define when public school officials must pay for private schooling to educate children with disabilities — a question that pits beleaguered parents against cash-strapped school districts. Millions of dollars are at stake.
Under federal law, every child with disabilities is entitled to a “free and appropriate public education.” School systems which cannot provide appropriate services must reimburse parents for private school costs. The court is being asked to decide whether schools must first be given a chance to provide services before being required to pay for private school placement.
School officials argue that a ruling in favor of the parents would contribute to soaring public education costs and detract from the education of students with disabilities who remain in public schools. Parents say a ruling in favor of school districts would mean that students would have to fail in their public schools before they could get services in private schools.
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April 27th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
As someone who is in the public school trenches I can tell you that many times the private programs are not superior, and many times can be inferior to school programs.
Some parents believe that anything provided through the public school system can never be as good as something private. Due to that belief and lawyers, a few parents refuse to accept public school services and demand private services.
Where I work this has cost the school district approximately $1,000,000 this year alone. That figure is for private services to less than 20 children in the entire school district. I find this revolting as I believe it is taking money that could be better spent on all children, rather than a few who have lawyers.