Shameless Lobbying by Charter Schools Jeopardizes Solid Special Education Reform (Lower Macungie Patch, May 26, 2014)
Our Missing $200 Million (Yinzercation, May 30, 2014)
Critics are stating that Charter Schools receive more special education funding than they need and are using the funds for other purposes. Excess funds should be returned. On the surface this seems to make great sense. But it actually is a red herring. It has everything to do with the Special Education funding formula and nothing to do with Charter Schools. Let's spend some time finding out how Special Education is funded in Pennsylvania.
Special Education (i.e. providing individualized education services to students with identified disabilities) is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. Here is a quick timeline of events (Source 1).
In 1975 Pennsylvania was committed to providing 50% of all regular education costs to local school districts. When the federal government passed these two laws, Pennsylvania created a Special Education funding formula based on need. The Excess Cost System meant the state funded Special Education based on the actual per student cost of providing services over and above regular education costs. Thus every district received adequate funding to meet their Special Education needs. This was a huge commitment on the part of the state.
I entered public education as a teacher in 1975. In Upper St. Clair HS (where I taught for two years) and in the Pittsburgh Public Schools (where I worked for 23 years), Special Education classes were pull outs - meaning special needs students were taught in isolated rooms by certified special education teachers. The state provided funding for each student that was identified. Providing per student funding actually created a financial incentive to identify students with disabilities. As the chart above suggests, in practice this type of funding, although adequate to meeting the demand, incentivized taking students out of the regular education population. My experience in Pittsburgh found that special education classes were overwhelmingly filled with black males. In a very cynical (and racist) way, this seemed like a "win-win" for the district.
In 1983, the state of Pennsylvania changed it's funding formula for school districts. They repealed their commitment to fund at the 50% level. High inflation, loss of jobs/industry, growing special education costs and a conservative backlash against taxes created revenue shortfalls. The funding levels dropped consistently over the next 20 years to a low of 36% in 2006 (Source 4).
In 1991, the state decided to change its Special Education funding formula in order to save money. The new formula assumed that 15% of a given school population had a "mild disability" and 1% had a "severe disability". Based on these assumed proportions, the state provided a consistent revenue stream to fund special education for local districts. This model was predicated on the belief that all districts have the same proportion of special needs students. As one can imagine, the new funding formula had two important ramifications.
First, it created an incentive not to identify students for special education. Since the funding was fixed, the less students with special needs the better. Thus there was a financial disincentive to test students for disabilities. Although this is a very cynical and unethical consequence, evaluation decisions at the administrative level were often made through a funding filter.
Second, the new funding formula gave too much money to certain districts and too little money to others. If your district had only 10% special needs students than the district kept the additional money and spent it any way they wanted to. Sound familiar?
If the district had more than 16% special needs students, than the district did not have enough money to provide services for its students. They would have to make up the difference with local funds or not provide services (which is against the federal law). It is not a surprise that districts with higher levels of poverty have higher percentages of special needs students (note the three possible contributing factors to learning disabilities in the chart at the right.)
So it was the 1991 Special Education funding formula that created the system that provided excess funds to some districts. And these excess funds did not have to be returned. There was very little complaining about excess funding before the existence of Charter Schools. The main complaint pertained to the fact that state funding in general was shrinking. It is hypocritical for critics of Charter Schools to demand that they pay back excess special education funds when they never asked the rich suburban districts who have received excess funds since 1991 to return those funds to the state. But then again, many of those critics live in the suburbs and send their children to suburban schools.
In 2013 the State of Pennsylvania commissioned a report on special education funding including recommendations for a new formula. The published report attempts to fix the formula by addressing factors such as severity of disability, poverty, local conditions, etc. The report has been published but the recommendations have not yet been made into law.
At the school level, Special Education funding is often a tale of two extremes. A case study from my experience as a Charter School principal points out how complex special education funding can be.
School districts complete a PDE Form 363 to determine the tuition they must provide to Charter Schools per student. In Pittsburgh for the 2014-15 school year, the district will provide a Charter School with $12,402.91 (PA average is $9717.99) for every regular education student and $27,270.14 (PA average is $20,270.12) for every special education student. This means that the charter receives an additional $14,876 (PA average is $10,552.12) for each special education student. That's a lot of money.
As one would guess there are different levels of expenditure based on each student's individual needs.
Low Cost Extreme: Every year our school has a few students who have a speech and/or a hearing disability. As per the special education guidelines, the student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) articulates how the school, student and parent are going to address the disability. First, a complete evaluation of the student is conducted often by a third party psychologist. Second, once the IEP is written based on the evaluation and agreed to by all parties, primary services may include working with a speech therapist throughout the year. This is accomplished through an itinerant certified speech teacher who works for the local Intermediate Unit. The teacher will work with the student as needed for the entire school year. Third, support services are provided to the student by both a special education teacher and the regular education teachers in the regular education classrooms (least restrictive environment.) This type of intervention, due to the minimal severity of the disability, might only cost an additional $5000 in expenditures. Thus, according to the critics of Charter Schools, our school netted $9,876 ($14,876 - $5000) and should have to pay it back to the district.
High Cost Extreme: Every year our school has a few students with severe disabilities. An example would be a student with multiple disabilities such as an intellectual disability (60 IQ) in addition to a speech and learning disability. Many schools or smaller districts are not able to adequately support students with severe or multiple disabilities within their program. In this case, our school works with the parent to conduct a full psychological evaluation to create the IEP. The IEP may call for wrap around comprehensive services that can only be provided at schools specific to working with severely disabled students. We work with the parent to locate a mutually agreed to facility that meets the child's needs and is welcoming to the family. Once the child is accepted into that facility's program, we pay for the students tuition and transportation. We work with the school on the annual IEP, follow the student's progress and work with the parent to obtain support services as needed. A recent example for such a student cost our school over $90,000 per year (for 4 years). Believe it or not, the highest part of the cost was for daily transportation from home to the facility. In this case, our school was spending $62,730 ($90,000 - $27,270) more than the allocation it received.
As you can see, a number of students with high cost extreme disabilities can tax a school's budget. Extra costs from one student help to defray costs from another. It should be noted that every attempt was made to work with our chartering school district (the Pittsburgh Public Schools) to share transportation costs. Essentially, PPS was transporting their students to the same private school, but was unwilling to work with our school to share the transportation. This would have saved the district money and our school money since we would have shared the costs. Since they were not willing to work with us, we had to transport the student spending large amounts of money that could have been saved.
Cost balancing of special education funding occurs in every school and every district in Pennsylvania. Some districts spend more than they receive and others net gains that are spent on programs outside of special education. Or they choose to carry the net gain to the following year in case they need to serve students with high cost extreme disabilities.
Since 1983, the state has funded regular education in a manner that shows a clear lack of support - lowering its funding from 50% to 36%. As the state lowers its funding for education, the local districts must make up the difference. This leads to local funding where wealthier districts provide more and better resources than poorer districts (i.e. education inequality.)
Since 1991, the state has funded special education in a manner that is cynical, simple minded and benefits the haves... not the have nots. This occurred under both Democrat and Republican governors, and a Republican legislature. I have already commented on the funding inequities in my blogpost - To learn about education in Pennsylvania... Follow the money!
The often cynical and unethical behaviors by district administrators to manage their special education identification and programming based on financial incentives or disincentives is terribly distressing. Whether this occurs in rich suburban school districts, poor urban districts or charter schools, it is wrong.
As a society, we should be committed to quality education for all students. A first step would be for the state level to legislate the recommendations made by the 2013 Special Education Funding Commission.
It also might be a good idea if the watchdog groups, such as the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, the Pennsylvania Education Association, Yinzercation and Great Schools - Pittsburgh, took some of the effort they put into complaining about funding and used that effort to monitor District and Charter special education programs to see how successful they are. The critics want to talk about money. We should be talking about creating successful models with our special needs population.
I am very proud of the efforts that City High has made regarding special education. Below you will find a few measures from City Charter High School's Annual Report regarding special education. City High recently went through a successful state audit of its special education program in which the schools program was described as "exemplary".
City High special education students graduate with:
So let's finish the money talk. Let's say a charter school has excess special education money at the end of the year. And let's say they gave it back to the school district. What would the district do with it? Would they give it back to the taxpayers? Would they send a check back to the state? Would they spend it on their existing special education students? Or would they allocate it to other purposes?
What's your guess?
Federal Legislation
Special Education (i.e. providing individualized education services to students with identified disabilities) is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. Here is a quick timeline of events (Source 1).
1961 - President Kennedy creates the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation. The panel’s recommendations includes federal aid to states.
1965 - President Johnson signs the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which provides funding for primary education, and is seen by advocacy groups as expanding access to public education for children with disabilities. In spite of these two initiatives, little changes occurred in public education regarding meeting the needs of students with disabilities.
1975 - Two federal laws were passed that provided the legal basis for our current special education program. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) established the right to public education for all children regardless of disability. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) required schools to provide individualized or special education for children with qualifying disabilities. Under the IDEA, states who accept public funds for education must provide special education to qualifying children with disabilities.The concept of Special Education was operationalized via the 1975 federal EHA and IDEA legislation.
Pennsylvania Funding
 |
| A HIstory of Special Ed Funding (Source 2) |
I entered public education as a teacher in 1975. In Upper St. Clair HS (where I taught for two years) and in the Pittsburgh Public Schools (where I worked for 23 years), Special Education classes were pull outs - meaning special needs students were taught in isolated rooms by certified special education teachers. The state provided funding for each student that was identified. Providing per student funding actually created a financial incentive to identify students with disabilities. As the chart above suggests, in practice this type of funding, although adequate to meeting the demand, incentivized taking students out of the regular education population. My experience in Pittsburgh found that special education classes were overwhelmingly filled with black males. In a very cynical (and racist) way, this seemed like a "win-win" for the district.
In 1983, the state of Pennsylvania changed it's funding formula for school districts. They repealed their commitment to fund at the 50% level. High inflation, loss of jobs/industry, growing special education costs and a conservative backlash against taxes created revenue shortfalls. The funding levels dropped consistently over the next 20 years to a low of 36% in 2006 (Source 4).
 |
| A HIstory of Special Ed Funding (Source 2) |
First, it created an incentive not to identify students for special education. Since the funding was fixed, the less students with special needs the better. Thus there was a financial disincentive to test students for disabilities. Although this is a very cynical and unethical consequence, evaluation decisions at the administrative level were often made through a funding filter.
 |
| What Causes Learning Disabilities |
If the district had more than 16% special needs students, than the district did not have enough money to provide services for its students. They would have to make up the difference with local funds or not provide services (which is against the federal law). It is not a surprise that districts with higher levels of poverty have higher percentages of special needs students (note the three possible contributing factors to learning disabilities in the chart at the right.)
So it was the 1991 Special Education funding formula that created the system that provided excess funds to some districts. And these excess funds did not have to be returned. There was very little complaining about excess funding before the existence of Charter Schools. The main complaint pertained to the fact that state funding in general was shrinking. It is hypocritical for critics of Charter Schools to demand that they pay back excess special education funds when they never asked the rich suburban districts who have received excess funds since 1991 to return those funds to the state. But then again, many of those critics live in the suburbs and send their children to suburban schools.
In 2013 the State of Pennsylvania commissioned a report on special education funding including recommendations for a new formula. The published report attempts to fix the formula by addressing factors such as severity of disability, poverty, local conditions, etc. The report has been published but the recommendations have not yet been made into law.
 |
Special Education Expenditures at the School Level
At the school level, Special Education funding is often a tale of two extremes. A case study from my experience as a Charter School principal points out how complex special education funding can be.
School districts complete a PDE Form 363 to determine the tuition they must provide to Charter Schools per student. In Pittsburgh for the 2014-15 school year, the district will provide a Charter School with $12,402.91 (PA average is $9717.99) for every regular education student and $27,270.14 (PA average is $20,270.12) for every special education student. This means that the charter receives an additional $14,876 (PA average is $10,552.12) for each special education student. That's a lot of money.
As one would guess there are different levels of expenditure based on each student's individual needs.
Low Cost Extreme: Every year our school has a few students who have a speech and/or a hearing disability. As per the special education guidelines, the student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) articulates how the school, student and parent are going to address the disability. First, a complete evaluation of the student is conducted often by a third party psychologist. Second, once the IEP is written based on the evaluation and agreed to by all parties, primary services may include working with a speech therapist throughout the year. This is accomplished through an itinerant certified speech teacher who works for the local Intermediate Unit. The teacher will work with the student as needed for the entire school year. Third, support services are provided to the student by both a special education teacher and the regular education teachers in the regular education classrooms (least restrictive environment.) This type of intervention, due to the minimal severity of the disability, might only cost an additional $5000 in expenditures. Thus, according to the critics of Charter Schools, our school netted $9,876 ($14,876 - $5000) and should have to pay it back to the district.
High Cost Extreme: Every year our school has a few students with severe disabilities. An example would be a student with multiple disabilities such as an intellectual disability (60 IQ) in addition to a speech and learning disability. Many schools or smaller districts are not able to adequately support students with severe or multiple disabilities within their program. In this case, our school works with the parent to conduct a full psychological evaluation to create the IEP. The IEP may call for wrap around comprehensive services that can only be provided at schools specific to working with severely disabled students. We work with the parent to locate a mutually agreed to facility that meets the child's needs and is welcoming to the family. Once the child is accepted into that facility's program, we pay for the students tuition and transportation. We work with the school on the annual IEP, follow the student's progress and work with the parent to obtain support services as needed. A recent example for such a student cost our school over $90,000 per year (for 4 years). Believe it or not, the highest part of the cost was for daily transportation from home to the facility. In this case, our school was spending $62,730 ($90,000 - $27,270) more than the allocation it received.
As you can see, a number of students with high cost extreme disabilities can tax a school's budget. Extra costs from one student help to defray costs from another. It should be noted that every attempt was made to work with our chartering school district (the Pittsburgh Public Schools) to share transportation costs. Essentially, PPS was transporting their students to the same private school, but was unwilling to work with our school to share the transportation. This would have saved the district money and our school money since we would have shared the costs. Since they were not willing to work with us, we had to transport the student spending large amounts of money that could have been saved.
The Takeaway
Cost balancing of special education funding occurs in every school and every district in Pennsylvania. Some districts spend more than they receive and others net gains that are spent on programs outside of special education. Or they choose to carry the net gain to the following year in case they need to serve students with high cost extreme disabilities.
Since 1983, the state has funded regular education in a manner that shows a clear lack of support - lowering its funding from 50% to 36%. As the state lowers its funding for education, the local districts must make up the difference. This leads to local funding where wealthier districts provide more and better resources than poorer districts (i.e. education inequality.)
Since 1991, the state has funded special education in a manner that is cynical, simple minded and benefits the haves... not the have nots. This occurred under both Democrat and Republican governors, and a Republican legislature. I have already commented on the funding inequities in my blogpost - To learn about education in Pennsylvania... Follow the money!
The often cynical and unethical behaviors by district administrators to manage their special education identification and programming based on financial incentives or disincentives is terribly distressing. Whether this occurs in rich suburban school districts, poor urban districts or charter schools, it is wrong.
As a society, we should be committed to quality education for all students. A first step would be for the state level to legislate the recommendations made by the 2013 Special Education Funding Commission.
It also might be a good idea if the watchdog groups, such as the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, the Pennsylvania Education Association, Yinzercation and Great Schools - Pittsburgh, took some of the effort they put into complaining about funding and used that effort to monitor District and Charter special education programs to see how successful they are. The critics want to talk about money. We should be talking about creating successful models with our special needs population.
I am very proud of the efforts that City High has made regarding special education. Below you will find a few measures from City Charter High School's Annual Report regarding special education. City High recently went through a successful state audit of its special education program in which the schools program was described as "exemplary".
City High special education students graduate with:
- similar GPA's (90% with 2.0 or higher) to regular ed students;
- similar number of Microsoft certifications (3 - 5) to regular ed students;
- similar grades on graduation projects (71% A or B) to regular ed students;
- similar grades on external internships (90% A or B);
- higher ratings on school attitudes and experiences (see following chart).
So let's finish the money talk. Let's say a charter school has excess special education money at the end of the year. And let's say they gave it back to the school district. What would the district do with it? Would they give it back to the taxpayers? Would they send a check back to the state? Would they spend it on their existing special education students? Or would they allocate it to other purposes?
What's your guess?
Sources on Pennsylvania School Funding
1. The History of Special Education in the United States
http://www.specialednews.com/the-history-of-special-education-in-the-united-states.htm
2. A History of Special Education Funding in PA
http://reformspecialedfunding.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/paspecialedfundinghistory.pdf
3. The History of School Funding in PA
1. The History of Special Education in the United States
http://www.specialednews.com/the-history-of-special-education-in-the-united-states.htm
2. A History of Special Education Funding in PA
http://reformspecialedfunding.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/paspecialedfundinghistory.pdf
3. The History of School Funding in PA
4. A History Public School Funding in Pennsylvania
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