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DECEMBER 2005

Special Attention to Special Education
By Jill Levy, President, CSA

Once again special education is in the news. After spending approximately $350,000 on a study researched and written by Thomas Hehir of Harvard University, is it still plausible that all this so-called educational team at Tweed could justifiably say is that, two years into their reorganization of special education services, they are “headed in the right direction”?

About four pages of the report were devoted to the stated goals of Tweed and more than 90 pages were filled with the things they have done incorrectly. Sad that they do not have enough respect for the children who are not getting adequate and appropriate services to get off their unacceptable excuse that “heading in the right direction” makes it okay. While they are fiddling around with Schools Attuned, special education is burning to the ground.

Principals and Assistant Principals have been given the responsibility of determining the appropriateness of the instructional and behavioral strategies used in their classrooms.

They are accountable for education issues about which, in most instances, they have little or no knowledge. With the elimination of school-based Supervisors of Special Education and Supervisors of Social Work how is a Principal to make strong instructional determinations? Individualized Education Program teachers have, by their own admission, taken up some of the duties of the missing personnel, but they are unable to observe, evaluate and implement necessary change.

As for inclusion classes, my understanding of the term is that inclusion is a model recommended for individual students who could benefit from instruction in general education classes with the appropriate support services. I didn’t know that one needed to have a designated “inclusion class” in which a group of special education students would be assigned to a general education class with a reduced register and there would be team-teaching by a general and special education teacher. Oops! Pardon me if I got it all wrong!

Even the report found the practices in some
of these so-called “inclusion classes” to be less than acceptable.

Tweed could have saved the $38 million they will need to spend to rectify the 90-plus pages of bad stuff and the $350,000 for the study if they had bothered talking to any one of us in the field. If they had any respect for the experts whom they employ, they would have consulted with them as they reorganized city services for special education students. They might have avoided some of the problems which have arisen that have further deprived children of an appropriate education!

CSA has reached out to the experts in the field, our members. We will be releasing a report of our own on Special Education in the near future. Keep checking the CSA website at www.csa-nyc.org for details.#

Jill Levy is the President of the Council of School Supervisors  and Administrators.

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