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Perspective Newsletters
Summer 2009
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Page 1
Dear Friends of the Foundation:
I hope this letter finds you enjoying the very pleasant weather lingering in our
area and hopefully a refreshing break in routine.
Things in life definitely run in cycles. However, life extends along a continuum,
meaning: things also constantly evolve. While we have predictable seasons, we age,
our students graduate and move on with their lives; what is today will soon enough
be history.
For all of us, we take this in and, to varying degrees, sort out those aspects of
life we believe will cycle and go on apart from anything we might wish and those
aspects we believe we and others might change in some way. Remember the Serenity
Prayer? (If not, see below)
Special Education, at the national and regional level, has certainly evolved and
in an impressive time frame. In our immediate area, in the 1960s, students with intellectual
disabilities were put out of school and deemed ‘uneducable’. In the mid 1970s, our
country, on a national level, stopped this practice and guaranteed that all students
with disabilities had a right to a Free and Appropriate Education. It was a guarantee
and students could not be excluded from school based upon a disability. However,
we certainly wrestled with what to do with students with serious emotional, behavioral
and learning problems. In the 1980s, many jurisdictions had meetings where students
with some very common characteristics were segregated between those with believed
emotional and/or behavior problems (which may or may not symptomatic of very specific
learning problems) and those to be deemed socially maladjusted. It is comical now
to remember all the meetings and charts and thought that went into that. The entire
point really had to do with who we believed we could change and who we believed deserved
a public education.
In just a relatively short period of time, this movement and law has been refined
many times over and is central to a huge population of children and adolescents.
Coincidental to this progress, we saw a huge national de-institutionalization movement
affecting those with psychiatric issues and cognitive impairments. President Kennedy
and others also had the foresight to promote community mental health as an alternative
and means of supporting integration, perhaps a safety net for some.
During the past 20 to 30 years perhaps, we have seen an enormous drop in residential
treatment centers, placement for students with disabilities and what used to be 30
to 45 day then ‘short term’ psychiatric stays.
On the one hand, these events represent real progress: those with disabilities are
no longer routinely segregated, expected to be assigned long term care with perhaps
low expectations and ‘out of sight; out of mind’. These are our children and fellow
citizens and belong in our communities.
During the past ten to 20 years, there has been perhaps an extension of this movement
whereby many, in the name of further integration, promote inclusion to the point
that nearly all students with disabilities should attend their neighborhood schools.
Any student and, by all means any student with a disability, should be able to attend
school with their neighborhood peers and we should make accommodations to the maximum
extent possible so that this can happen. Just like we know that learning to read
on grade level by the second grade is critical to middle and high school success,
we know in our hearts and minds, that to take a student out of his or her natural
environment, with their friends up and down the street can cause irreparable harm.
This is not even arguable. Everyone should have the opportunity, the equal opportunity,
to attend schools, socialize, seek employment within their community and to enjoy
all it has to offer.
However, there were and remain good reasons for alternatives. Going to the neighborhood
school, a separate special program, a residential treatment center, a short term
psychiatric stay and the like cannot be viewed simply as all good or all bad.
The development of alternative special education placements, like the Leary School
programs, had most to do with fulfilling needs. For many students, programming designed
for success was not available. For many students, a high degree of individualization
ran contrary to the contemporary mission of most public schools: educate the masses,
homogenize, one size fits all, K-12 in steady doses. For some students, only a smaller
setting, with a very special expertise or program would provide fair odds of success.
For some students, due to some very special needs, very special programming and expertise
has to be in place. Practically speaking, just because it became law did not mean
every jurisdiction provided the needed programming or embraced the larger national
movement.
Still practically speaking, financing the changes enters the picture. It is expensive
to develop and add new programs. It costs more to educate students with disabilities
than those without disabilities. It is money well spent and for many reasons (it
can result in a net savings in many instances; it is the right thing to do). However,
understanding the progression away from residential treatment, away from psychiatric
short term (meaning more than 2-3 days) and long term treatment periods, institutions,
and now, to some extent, private day schools is instructive. In the 60s and 70s,
communities and states saved money by returning those formerly institutionalized
even considering the costs of what was to be offsetting community based mental health
(this never happened at the proportion needed). At the same time while dramatic increases
in costs to public education systems due to the explosion in special education populations
and programs, a decrease in costs for residential placement occurred. There are some
very strong secondary gains and consequently drives associated to policy that result
in savings to local government. Doubtfully few will go on record applauding de-institutionalization
primary because of its cost savings. The same holds true for the most current movement
towards 100% integration of students with disabilities into neighborhood schools,
yet we know the relationship exists. Providing special treatment at separate schools
has to be more costly than treatment at the neighborhood school and wouldn’t you
know it: this corresponds exactly with our sentiment that everyone is best served
in the neighborhood school with perhaps accommodations.
The movement is wonderful. We should all be incredibly proud. We as a nation and
citizens have created in a short period of time a system that embraces children with
disabilities, guarantees them across the nation, that we will provide for them and
want them to succeed, be happy, and live good and fulfilling lives. We are the leaders
and are doing the right thing.
Still, we need to be careful that we remain dedicated to the central mission and
remind ourselves that ‘one size fits all’ was part of the thinking that we needed
to change. We are led in large part by the “individualization’ aspect of the law.
We also need to be practical.
Let’s consider the following.
- Starting with the very practical: nonpublic schools on average are not more
expensive than public counterparts. I invite anyone to produce defendable research
and data to argue the point. Many have tried to prove this point but keep discovering
the opposite. There is a reason governments consider outsourcing, turning to
private providers for many services and purchasing products from the private
sector across the country. It has to do with money.
- ‘One size fits all’ in part was bad treatment and, as a concept, runs contrary
to “individualization’ one of the main ingredients in the law (IDEA). Student
needs should drive programming.
- Not all students benefit from, desire placement in and/or are welcome in neighborhood
public programs. Parents and students tell us this repeatedly.
- The field of special education is still learning and evolving. All the needed
programming is far from being in place at this point. We are far from having
it all figured out. From a practical and ethical position, we need simply to
do the right thing. If ‘Program X’ is the best place for Susan, it is up and
running and can meet her needs, then Susan should be allowed to go there.
This article emphasized ‘refocusing’ a necessary step in the process from Leary School’s
vantage point and in considering the larger developments in our region and country.
Many of the local educational agencies in the region now have good programming available
for students who previously may have been provided programming through one of our
programs. Most likely, the Leary School ‘mainstay programs’: currently Leary School
of Virginia and Leary School, Prince George’s County, will be relatively smaller
than in the past. Hopefully, as we downsize and get used to runner smaller programs
they will offer the very specialized programming with small nurturing and positive
cultures that were a part of the Leary School history. These programs have a great
history and have helped thousands and thousands of students. Just last year, 17 students
graduated with regular high school diplomas. Talking to these students and their
parents, this probably would not have happened without the programming afforded them
through one of our programs.
Now to some equally important refocusing.
Starting with the 2009-10 school year, Leary School will be offering three job site
programs: one in Fairfax County Virginia, One in Loudoun County Virginia and now
one in Brandywine Maryland in the southern portion of Prince George’s County. Please
see page +++++ and our website for more detailed description of the program and updates.
The Leary School jobsite, a one of kind, extremely effective program has enjoyed
enormous success in the area. Students and parents love it as does everyone else
that comes to know the programming.
The programming is needed.
The programming works.
The programming is a real substantial alternative in every sense of the word and
goes to the heart of the movement to individualize and meet student needs.
Keeping up with policy and movements, nothing in special education corresponds closer
to the transition movement than this programming for a very special selective group
of students.
It just makes sense along every dimension of the special education movement. Actually
it is ahead of the movement from our vantage point.
Consequently, the heart of the Leary School ‘refocusing’ will be aimed at operating
highly effective and relatively small special education programs
and providing more jobsite programming.
Public policy and perception may need some refocusing in this light however.
Not dissimilar to the disconnect that occurred when we de-institutionalized, when
we de-residentialized and as we reduce placement in nonpublic programs; alternative
programming and treatment was not entirely in place, support for our jobsite programming
could be stronger.
On a national level, there is a taken for granted expectation that raising the bar
will solve many of the inadequacies across the country the least not being poor achievement
and in many incident poor graduation rates for example. We want all of our teachers
to be highly qualified and we want all of our students to prove they have achieved
comparably across similar high stakes testing- proving there is a bar of sorts.
Yet, there seems to be an absence of safety nets. What happens to those that cannot,
will not some for good reason, are not able, or, for many,are trapped in certain
life events and situations which interfere with the attainment of or normal K-12
progression?
It does not seem that public policy and/or public sentiment acknowledges the need
for and availability of alternative completer paths at least beyond the very limited
alternatives to high stakes testing and methodology. Is it enough to raise the bar,
move towards more uniform curricula, insert high stakes testing and are we at the
point in the evolution of special education that the needed programming for the most
part has been developed? We are there? Are we?
Here is where ‘the rubber hits the road’.
Driving in the District this past spring, under the shadows of the Capital, Catholic
University, and Children’s Hospital, are middle schoolers riding bikes and hanging
out on sidewalks; teenage boys and girls getting fast food and talking to men in
their 20s. This is a school day and for most a work day. The schooling that is occurring,
the modeling that is occurring is worlds apart from that expected in the latest go
rounds of No Child Left Behind and the revised IDEA.
Leaving a meeting recently in Baltimore, a block away from the Inner Harbor, revealed
100s of kids mixed with 100s of adults sitting on steps and sidewalks, engaged in
idleness with apparently little connection to work or school. These do not represent
rare events but are the standards anyone can see on virtually any day of the year.
The 2004-05 graduation rate for DC was 57.6% meaning 42.3% were lost (not graduated).
Of this 43%, the majority left before completing 9th grade. The data for Baltimore
is worse with only 41.5 graduation rate and again the majority of non completers
leave the system before competing ninth grade. (EPE Research Center data from the
Common Core of Data US Department of Education 2009). You can imagine the proportion
of these students attending our programs or worse, how many ninth graders are just
hanging out not attending any school? The issue runs deeper than just telling NPSs
they need to cut back and do the job with fewer resources.
Contrast these data with Trends in Income by Educational Level. In 2005 (based on
2006 dollars): average annual earnings for those with less than a high school degree-
this includes all those children that leave DC and Baltimore schools before ninth
grade, is around $20,000. With high school, this jumps to close to $30,000. Just
some college adds a couple of thousand but a college degree adds roughly $37,000.
For those students able and willing to complete college they will make on average
$57,000 compared to very close to $20,000 annually. Over just 20 years, let’s say
by the time most may be 40, the college graduates will have earned $1, 140,000 compared
to the crowd hanging around Lombard Street in Baltimore or G Street in DC earning
about $400,000. If the college graduate earns an advanced degree, the average annual
earnings jump to over $80,000. The difference in earnings between those with advanced
degrees and those that do not get past ninth grade over 20 years is over a million
dollars and most people work more than 20 years. Obviously what is at stake is high.
The more we can get these students in school and keep them there the better for everyone.
It is quite clear what happens when this does not occur.
We have found unequivocally, that students attending our job site programs are more
motivated, have higher attendance rates, high academic achievement and share great
positive sentiment regarding the programming and its availability.
Getting into the heads of some of those students and drop outs hanging out in the
community at large, not even hiding from the fact is where the rubber hits the roads.
Offering a true alternative - being able to go to school while learning hands on
how to build and renovate houses, works with some of this population is where the
rubber hits the road.
Being able to address the 17 year old student who has only a handful of the credits
he or she should have, is more or less on their own, is making all the decisions,
and asks what good will Chemistry, Spanish and World History do for them is where
the rubber hits the road.
Refocusing? Leary School plans to open more jobsite programs and to promote this
programming. Please feel free to visit any of our programs, discuss this programming
with any of us and please feel free to be a part of our programming. We welcome volunteers,
community involvement and suggestions.
Ed Schultze, Ed.D.
President/Executive Director
Lincolnia Educational Foundation, Inc.
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