Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Wisconsin Dept of Public Instruction Sued for Discrimination

Takes quite a while to get to the REAL story in this item, but here it is:

The state Department of Public Instruction has created a system "that excludes children with disabilities from most of the participating voucher schools and that leads to their segregation within MPS with the clear effect of subjecting children with disabilities to discrimination, "the complaint states.

That would be Evers and Doyle--mostly Evers.

Which is not quite the same as the lead 'graf:

The Milwaukee Parental School Choice Program discriminates against children with disabilities and segregates them in public schools, parents and civil rights groups allege in a complaint filed Tuesday with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Interesting. Could it be that MPS colluded with DPI to retain the disabled kids, because disabled kids bring more money into MPS' coffers?

No, of course not. /sarcasm

5 comments:

Dan said...

This one is a tricky one. Yes, the SPED kids do bring in more money for the district but they also cost more than most kids inthe district, especially the severely disabled kids.
Unless the student is a child of an illegal immigrant, MPS can bill Medicade for some costs. If the student is a child of a illegal immigrant family, then MPS has to eat all the costs of educating and supplying services and supplies to the child.
On the other hand, because Special Ed money comes from a different account, they also get to buy top notched equipment and supplies. Special ed. is one place where public education out shines private schools in most instances. If I had a child who had severe disabilities, I would choose the public school over a private school in a second because they can afford to do things that the private sector cannot.
In addition, the severely disabled kids in the inner city schools are treated like Angels by the students, even the hard core gang bangers treat out students with respect and will defend them, if needed.
So, let them sue and have their kids go to a private school. See how long they last there before they come back to public schools.

neomom said...

I am among many parents of a child that would require an IEP in a public school that chooses to work directly with the teachers at our private school without an IEP so as not to label them.

That also skews the number.

Mr. Tastic said...

I've read many other issues with this falsity.

1) MPS categorizes ANYONE they can as SPED. This gets the skrewl more money AND it gives them more leeway on plummeting GPAs.

2) Choice Schools don't need to take handicap kids if they're schools aren't capable (adequate nursing, sufficient hallway space, etc., etc.). MPS quickly snatches them up for the bigger income check.

3) Although SPED kids do cost more, it's easily displaced as more kids are added. Thus the burden is next-to-nothing for public schools.

Anonymous said...

Not having a link to the original articles, it seems to me that special ed is merely a tool to remove charter schools as competition for govt dollars.

I don't know what the plaintiffs are really asking for. Is it that any school that takes charter money be special ed capable, and accept as many as might be tendered? There seems to be many ways to force unacceptable spending on infrastructure for a possible charter school.

Or is the request that adequate charter money be given to *my* special ed student? If so, then where do you spend it? You might be limited to maybe one school in the metro area. Will the plaintiffs need to demand that a certain school accept their child? Back to case #1.

Having the article link would help.

Dad29 said...

Aaargh!

Link to JS story now embedded.