Just because the D.C. public schools are failing to provide special education services for many children doesn't mean the school district isn't spending pots of money on special ed. A pair of articles in this week's Washington Post shed unhappy light on where some of that money is going. In a column in Tuesday's paper, Marc Fisher paints a series of heartbreaking portraits of poor kids with disabilities who sit in classes they can't understand (if they attend school at all) while an incompetent bureaucracy loses their files or cannot find services for them (sign language instructors, for instance, who can be found in the Yellow Pages, it turns out). A special ed lawyer who represents children failed by the school system points out that hiring specialists to provide the services that these children need would be a lot cheaper than paying lawyers to appear at court hearings on private school placements. Because the District is unable to provide appropriate programs or services, it pays private school tuition for over 2000 children with disabilities (on top of the legal fees for placement hearings).
As an expose on the front page of Monday's Post reveals, the District's failure to meet the needs of disabled children is making some of the school system's former employees quite rich. Reporter Justin Blum managed to untangle the connections between three former employees (two of them disbarred lawyers who worked for years at school headquarters) and the assessment company, private schools, and law firm they help run. These companies charged the school district a total of $9.6 million for legal fees, diagnostic testing, and tuition connected with children who were not receiving adequate services in the public school system. Blum describes some outrageous bills submitted by the companies to the school district, bills that no doubt contributed to the cost overruns in special ed that led to a $62.5 million deficit for the D.C. public schools last year.
"D.C. Schools Failing Everyone but the Lawyers," by Marc Fisher, The Washington Post, February 19, 2002
"Lawyers Capitalize on D.C. School Gaps," by Justin Blum, The Washington Post, February 18, 2002