Baltimore's special ed case: Will it ever end?
It's been 24 years since Vaugn G. et al. vs. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore et al. was filed in federal district court. In my story today, Nancy Grasmick likened it to the Cold War. And some wonder whether the lawsuit -- charging the city school system and the state education department with failing to meet their legal responsibilities to special education students -- will ever end. Around the nation, a few school districts have gotten out from under suits of this kind, but in many places, they linger on indefinitely.
But Dr. Alonso wants this monkey off his back. The case takes up a huge amount of time and costs the school system a fortune. He's only been on the job a little over a year, but he says there have been measurable improvements and the system deserves to be rewarded as a result, particularly when it's doing better in several areas than some other Maryland school districts that aren't the subject of lawsuits. The court monitors seven aspects of special education in the system, which says it is now in full or partial compliance with three of them. If Alonso can get the court to drop a few of the measures it's monitoring, he'll be on his way to making the suit go away.
At the same time, Alonso recognizes the need to demonstrate the system can sustain improvement over time. He says he's committed to being in Baltimore for 10 years, but what if he were to leave? If he stays, how do we know his reforms are going to work? Even with significant progress, the system still has a long way to go, as made painfully evident by the improved graduation rate for special education students in Baltimore: 35.9 percent.
If the document the system filed in court last week is any indication, Alonso is extremely confident of the prospects of success. The system was required to submit a "compliance statement" to the court, evaluating where it stands in the seven measures monitored. The 38-page document it turned in went far beyond those areas, talking about everything from improved SAT scores to the central office reorganization to the increase in collaborative planning among teachers. Much of it is not directly related to special education, though it's widely agreed that general education has to be working well for special ed to function. You can read the court filing here.
On a side note, it's been interesting for me to track the politics surrounding this case in the three-plus years I've been covering it. When I first arrived on the city schools beat in the summer of 2005, the state and the city were sparring for control of the school system amid a gubernatorial election, with special ed as the punching bag. Services to children had broken down as a result of the budget crisis, and Grasmick was asking Judge Marvin Garbis to authorize a state takeover of the whole system. Instead, Garbis allowed Grasmick to send in a team of state managers to oversee special ed. At the time, we characterized it as a partial takeover of all the system departments that are special ed-related, from instruction to human resources. The team never really exercised that kind of authority, and today the four remaining full-time members work side by side with system administrators. Some of the team members have even gone to work for Alonso. But I wouldn't say the tension is gone completely. If you read my story closely, you'll notice that Alonso gives his administration's initiatives credit for the improvement in special ed. Grasmick -- who acknowledges improvement but not as much as the system does -- says the credit belongs largely to the team members.
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Comments
There are many times when it seems as though the Consent Decree will still be in place when my great-grandchildren are in school, because it often feels like the targets are constantly moving.
The other issue is that the staff development is often misdirected. There has been substantial compliance in elementary schools in many areas, but not as much at the middle and high school level. As a result, elementary teams will receive staff development in areas where they are already doing well, sometimes at the expense of topics where the IEP Team Associates themselves have identified a need. And this is because someone, somewhere, has determined that because the high schools (for example) are having difficulty with a specific topic, the entire city needs to be trained.
In addition, IEP Team Associates are put into the job, which has a ton of responsibility, with little or no training and what must certainly, to them, feel like a "sink or swim" culture.
Regarding the service problem a couple of years back: even the Court conceded that the problem in the 2004-5 school year was most likely not that the services weren't being provided, but that the service providers themselves weren't documenting that service properly. But this didn't stop anyone (read: Garbis) from awarding thousands of hours of "make-up" or "remedy" services to students. And maybe the State team had something to do with the progress, and maybe they didn't. What I do know is that I couldn't pick most of them out of a lineup if I had to, which to me speaks volumes about their level of involvement at the Area and School level.
Posted by: Claude | September 22, 2008 11:18 AM
Baltimore City Schools are famous(infamous) for one size fits all professional development. The "best"part of most PD is the fancy agenda and sign in sheet.We all get the same thing regardless of whether we are a first year teacher or an experienced one.We get hours of PD when a brief memo would do.Much PD is out of date because the presenters should have retired!! When I want meaningful development in my area,I go outside the city to a college or another school system. Other systems are very open to sharing their PD.
Posted by: Wise Educator | September 22, 2008 8:42 PM
yes, it's funny to hear him talk about the money spent on pd in bcpss. i remember, while teaching in the copeland years, having a pd lead by our iep manager (our school had one person in charge of all ieps and associated meetings, documents, etc.). she told the teachers, special education teachers, and administrators that bcpss was adopting person first language for its ieps. this was at least a decade after person first language was suggested by major organizations such as apa. anyway, after all this time to prepare for using person first language, this person explained it as using children's first names. she could not be convinced otherwise by the special education teachers who had recently graduated from teacher preparation programs.
i agree with the poster listed above. one major issue with bcpss pds was that the people who lead or choose who will lead the pds are out of date (not to be ageist, but the iep manager described above was far removed from her college years).
Posted by: jim | September 23, 2008 12:25 PM
I remember years ago when we had catalogs of PD offerings for each semester, plus summer. It was one of the good things the city offered teachers. We could get free/inexpensive classes that would fill in gaps, such as Special Ed. issues, receive MSDE credits, and just take things to help add to our own skill sets. These were sessions that were chosen by individual teachers who determined a need for the PD. I don't know why this fell by the wayside, but it seems to me that, since we still have an Office of Professional Development, Tom Bowmann could put some efforts into finding out what the needs are in the way of PD for Special Education and other areas. I know we're supposed to be getting school-based PD, but it's foolish to think that city-wide PD is no longer needed.
Posted by: avalon | September 24, 2008 10:34 AM
How does school-based PD work if you teach art, music, PE, foreign language, are a librarian,technology teacher or any number of stand alone positions that require specialized training or updates? We all share some common goals but most certainly have unique needs. Although it does not apply to my field, I sat through reading and math training this fall. Further,the training was boring, out of date, uninspiring, and purely paper shuffling.Once again, fancy sign-in sheets. I am paying for my own PD including gas,tuition/fees,and time.
Posted by: Wise Educator | September 28, 2008 12:53 AM
I am one of those effected by this special ed debaucle. My 15 year old daughter has a permanent mental disability, but Baltimore will only provide 60 days per year of educational instruction! Under IDEA of 2004, there is NO time limit for special ed services!!! To date they owe my daughter 480 days of teaching services. Dr Alonso should wake up and smell the coffee of IDEA and comply NOW!
Posted by: M. Zantt | May 13, 2009 12:38 PM