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JULY 2003

Special Education in New York City
by Jill Levy

Thirty-five years ago, many children, including my own, did not have the right to attend public schools. They were children with “problems”—disabilities that prevented them from learning or attending school as easily as other children. They were placed in private day schools, residential schools or in institutions, removed from their communities, their neighbors and often their families.

Parents and children’s advocates fought for years to provide children with the appropriate educational programs in the least restrictive environments. I was among those who won many battles including the ones for smaller class size, the implementation of individualized plans, and evaluation by a committee of experts in specialized fields.

Special Education in New York City has evolved since then. We’ve seen increased class size, an entire district just for Special Ed students and now the growing use of immersion programs. Through it all, only one thing remains constant: the only way to navigate the complicated and unique world of Special Ed is to consistently evaluate each student’s progress.

With this in mind, let me turn to the Department of Education’s reorganization plan and pose the crucial question: Is this plan good for children? The reorganization for special education is a corporate model of management that emphasizes a top-down structure for the school, but provides little in terms of daily, ongoing, internal supports. There is little opportunity for listening to those working with the children and responding to their needs.

Principals are now expected to shoulder the responsibility for Special Education, while their entire support staff is being taken away. In my experience, principals, although well meaning, lack the know-how, formal training and experience to address the needs of children with special learning problems, physical handicaps and behavioral issues. In fact, under the current plan they are required to have only a paltry six credits of Special Education coursework.

In some staffing areas, the number of Special Ed employees citywide will drop from 166 to 90, doubling many caseloads. And unlike our high schools which must have Assistant Principals with Special Education expertise, our elementary and middle schools will be on their own.

But, the biggest problem concerns the 332 licensed Supervisors of Special Education (SSE) who all work in schools and report to the Principal. Their responsibilities include: observing and evaluating teachers, providing staff development for special and general education personnel, interpreting and complying with individualized education plans (IEPs) for special and general education, programming self-contained, mainstreamed and inclusion students, evaluating the quality and effectiveness of specialized equipment and techniques, interacting with parents of students with special needs to answer and resolve issues regarding instruction, working with parents whose children are not yet placed in a school or program and, ensuring that all services comply with city, state and federal regulations.

All of these positions are being eliminated and replaced with 200 Instructional Support Specialists (ISP). While the ISPs will work with teachers, they leave much of the above responsibilities, including compliance and instruction, to principals and assistant principals.

Why are we willing to turn over the education of our educationally and emotionally fragile youngsters to people who have little or no expertise? Why are we willing to let them fall through, not cracks, but major fissures in the system?

“Special Education is failing our children,” goes the chorus. “Special Education is draining resources from general education.”

I have known literally hundreds of families who came to the city’s Special Education program in despair for their children’s lives only to come away years later aglow with praise for the special education experts who “saved” them.

Talk to some of those parents. Then talk to me about our failure to “cure” special education. Perhaps the powers that be are focusing too closely on the wrong indicators of success.#

Jill Levy has served as president of the Association for Neurologically Impaired Brain Injured Children and on President Clinton’s Committee for People with Disabilities. Ms. Levy has a Master’s degree in special education and has taught graduate courses on the subject. She is president of the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators.

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