Chicago Public Schools Attack Special Ed

WBEZ has a breathtaking scoop about CPS hiring auditors, some of whom billed as high as $350 an hour, with no background in special education, to reshape CPS special ed! The results have been disastrous.

Here's how it worked:

1) Declare CPS is broke.
2) Declare Special Ed is too expensive, especially for black and Latinx boys.
3) Hire auditors.
4) Pay them vast sums
5) Create new systems to make it harder and harder for kids to get benefits.
6) Declare victory, I guess.

In an interview with WBEZ, CPS officials involved with the special education overhaul said if students were denied services, it was because they didn’t qualify under the new criteria.

Yolanda Williams’ daughter was one of thousands of students affected. She has Down syndrome and had qualified for occupational therapy for years, Williams said. But last year the staff at Penn Elementary in North Lawndale suddenly stopped providing it to her, she said.

Williams’ daughter sees an occupational therapist outside of school at the University of Illinois-Chicago. That therapist says the girl still needs the extra help at school, Williams said.

“I am trying to understand what happened and why?” she said.

The UIC therapist is teaching her daughter life skills such as brushing her teeth and tying her shoes, Williams said. But she said her daughter’s handwriting is virtually unreadable and she doesn’t know how to read, which are skills an in-school occupational therapist could work on.

CPS has always depended on some parents not knowing their rights.  Now they have made it worse.

A Day in the Life at Chicago Public Schools - Special Ed

A local story went national yesterday. A mother arrived at school to find her child separated from the other kids and wearing a garbage bag. According to the mother one official defended the practice by saying since there was no rule explicitly against it, it wasn't actionable.

Meanwhile, Chicago Public Schools is cutting vast sums of money from special ed in an unprecedented way (after the school year has already started).

Mark Brown, at Chicago Sun-Times, went to CPS' press conference and wrote that this is a calculated move to push kids out of special ed. Special ed is expensive.

In a Facebook post, quoted with permission, activist and former mayoral candidate Jesus Chuy Campuzano agreed. He posted this picture of a slide which demonstrates how CPS is planning to tear apart their special ed program.

Image Description: Who are our Diverse Learners in CPS?

The majority of students with disabilities in CPS qualify for services

because of a specific learning disability (50.4%). For the most part, these students have

average or above average intellectual ability (IQ) and should

be learning with their peers.

I also have a number of other stories from parents I hope to be sharing in a forthcoming piece. It's not good.