Paid to keep kids out of special ed

 Paid to keep kids out of Special Ed

 

Local school systems in Maryland are being paid to keep students OUT of special ed.  The State Superintendent of Schools is offering three school districts in Maryland one million dollars each if they can figure out a way to keep children from being placed into special education.   He is particularly interested in keeping lower socio-economic kids, Black boys and other children he has deemed as over identified for needing special education services.

School districts that are interested need to submit a proposal that will reduce the number of children being referred for special education services from the identified so-called vulnerable groups.  The State Department of Education is getting the three million dollars from COVID funds it hasn’t used up yet.  The program is designed to Reduce Overidentification in Special Education (ROSE) in Maryland schools.

“This new grant opportunity will allow awarded LEAs to analyze and interrogate their data, develop and implement pre-referral processes, and train school-district staff on evidence-based strategies that identify and prevent disparities in special education identification.” (per the MSDE website)  Winners of the grant need to show strong baseline data and explain how they are going to address the over identification of children in these vulnerable groups.  All measurable data must be disaggregated by each vulnerable group.

What is wrong with this picture?   For openers, where are the data that show receiving special education services is a bad thing.  It seems to me that we would need these data before making a plan to keep students from receiving the services.  Secondly, why is there the assumption that just because there are more kids from these sub-groups receiving special ed, they are over-identified.   Even the State Superintendent calls these children vulnerable.   Most discouraging of all is the purpose of the grant is to keep kids from being identified but NOT to meet their educational needs!  Grant recipients will partner with a “national leader” selected by MSDE to oversee the implementation of the grant program.

These monies are coming from the American Education Rescue Plan.  Seems to me just the opposite is happening.  These kids aren’t being rescued, they are being pushed further underwater just so MSDE can claim fewer students from the identified “vulnerable” groups are receiving special education.  Guess that’s ok as long as they don’t drown trying to reach standards of general education.