Charter schools 'amassing' special ed cash?

duh wrote:

what about the school districts that tag a child as having a learning disability that really does not have one so they can get some extra funding but main stream that child. maybe some of the learning disabilities that are being found are with those who are teaching them not the student.

You are a total idiot. Why would a school district claim a student is special needs, when they are not? Since the reinbursment from the goverment only covers about 30% of the costs of a special needs student. The school gets audited anually, so they can't claim to have a student in the special needs program, when they were not there or qualified to be there. It's a shem you have already bred and pasted your stupidity on to the next generation.

toni wrote:

<quoted text>it is not the state or federal government ..it is the taxpayer..bottom line..THE TAXPAYER

Who pays for street repairs and plowing?
Who pays for fire and police dept.?
Who pays the legislators?
Who pays for city services?
Who pays the judges in the court system?
Who pays for the state highways and interstates?
Who pays the county administrators?
Who pays for state, national, and city parks?
Who pays the National Guard?
Who pays for the military?

The taxpayer... The TAXPAYER

Who pays for educating the children? I know--from the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or the money tree that grows in each town, from the sale of education's product--I guess you can't sell the children- from money that mysteriously appears on the business managers desk.

Of course the taxpayer pays for all of this. So what is the solution, stop educating the kids? Keep every thought to be special ed. kid in the regular classroom and let them sink or drown? Let me just say one thing here. The special education money goes to pay for special education teachers that need to be hired to take care of these children. For instances if your district has 150 teachers and 15 are special education teachers, the allocation that comes from the state goes to pay these special education teachers. However, if the cost of these 15 special education teachers exceeds the amoun received from the state then the school district must pick up the difference. It also pays for some addtional services that need to be avaialble to them if there are other problems such as speech, or language delays, or the need for therapy. If a child has multiple handicaps, the costs can be high because the child may be blind, deaf,or severely mentally retarded. These children may need to be sent to special faciities that the district must pay for services. Children much be education by law and the constitution. If a child comes to your school and he is visually impaired, you do not tell the mother that, we will put him in regular education and he will have to fend for himself. Within an hour, a lawyer will appear at the door and the Supreme Court would not be far behind. In the "olden days", special needs kids were not taken care of and when I think back to my elementary days this was sad because we all knew George was not like the rest of us. I know what your response to the first part of my post will be- the pot of gold and the money tree is running dry. I understand this but when it comes to education, it is not an easy business. One of the worst experiences we had to endure was at an IEP meeting when we had to tell a parent that testing indicated some type of special need and possibly mental retardation. We always brough tissues to this meeting. It is very emotional. To then say to the parent, but do not worry, we will put him back into regular education and we will see if he sinks or swims. We just do not have money to do anything else and the taxpayer is screaming that they pay too much in taxes. That would make the parent feel upset maybe as much as you feel when you get your tax bill.

Duh"

Now I know why you selected this name. There are children that come to school with an IQ (certainly higher than yours) of 125 which is good. But with this ability, they should do reasonably well in school but for some reason they do not. Behavior issues are determined obviously but that is not the problem. For some reason a child cannot learn math skills following the basic curriculum. Thus a learning disability is detected and teaching strategies to these kids are not working. Now we could say as I said in my previous post, just let them continue to sink in math, hoping that he/ she will become a libraian. It does not work that way. Also, when this student takes the PSSA and does poorly, people like you will be critical of the schools for low scores.

Also, you made a weak attack on the teachers saying they have the learning disability. This is par for the course when you are ignorant in the field of education.

Really Funny wrote:

<quoted text>
How smart is anybody who pays $59 a year to belong to an organization, just to claim to be in the upper 2% of the worlds population in taking a test?

Smart enough to know they need a reality check every now & again. To be reminded (humbled) with the fact there are smarter people then themselves!
Are you sure you aren't a high school guidence councelor?

Mary Pickford wrote:

<quoted text>
Are you sure you aren't a high school guidence councelor?

Are all them useless losers like the ones I've met?

Many of the posters on this forum are lumping all special education students together in their arguments for or against the high cost of special ed. Please note that there are students with behavior problems and students with learning problems that can be modified. These students' lives can change and they can become contributing members of society.

There are other students whose lives, sadly, will remain very much the same for the rest of their lives. In many cases, these students are the ones whose "educations" are costing the most - many, many times more than other students. Often, their "education" consists of high priced technology and therapies and personal assistants that make insignificant change to their lives, but these things are mandated and so they happen, at a huge cost. Very frustrating. In some cases, the districts are afraid of the lawsuits that can result from not supplying these services to the max. The system needs to be redesigned to provide fair and REALISTIC services to these students.

point blank question.... who's financial life was decimated from someones child learning to say a single word in a years time due to the diligent work of an underpaid teacher and speech therapist using special devices.

Can anyone raise their hand and tell us exactly how "worthless"(this word representing the nasty attitude in this forum) human being is effecting their lives in a negative way.

Prove to me some worth while kid slipped through the cracks because it took three years for a tough case special needs child to say thank you
Every child deserves and education what ever the cost. Believe me our society can afford it...and yes I do know what I'm talking about.

Wondering wrote:

Since gifted children and considered "Special ed" I wonder how much of this money is being spent on them. Probably nothing.

You are correct as far as I know from my personal experience. We were promised a better education because of teacher/student ratio and the education company hired for this particular school had a good track record.The company pulled out and was replaced with something"comparable. "Fast forward to the first quarter of school.......Teacher turns out to be the gym teacher. Kids sat in their chairs all day except for what they called lunch. Teacher seemed abusive. Spoke to principal. Child complaining because she's not learning. Pull child out of charter school. Complained about teacher(gym teacher) again to principal. Principal quits.Four months later teacher is arrested for choking student. Fired. Pled guilty........My gifted child's tax dollars were better spent in the public school system.

who gives a crap wrote:

point blank question.... who's financial life was decimated from someones child learning to say a single word in a years time due to the diligent work of an underpaid teacher and speech therapist using special devices.
Can anyone raise their hand and tell us exactly how "worthless"(this word representing the nasty attitude in this forum) human being is effecting their lives in a negative way.
Prove to me some worth while kid slipped through the cracks because it took three years for a tough case special needs child to say thank you
Every child deserves and education what ever the cost. Believe me our society can afford it...and yes I do know what I'm talking about.

Do you ever make a post, that makes sense? Did you forget to take your meds? By the way I typed this very slow, so that you might be able to read and understand it.

reader2 wrote:

Many of the posters on this forum are lumping all special education students together in their arguments for or against the high cost of special ed. Please note that there are students with behavior problems and students with learning problems that can be modified. These students' lives can change and they can become contributing members of society...

I must add that there also are students with physical disabilities who certainly deserve some modifications to their education in order to maximize their learning.

Only the facts wrote:

<quoted text>
Do you ever make a post, that makes sense? Did you forget to take your meds? By the way I typed this very slow, so that you might be able to read and understand it.

I don't know about you and your situation, but 'who gives a crap's response made sense and you never answered any of their questions. Is this because you have nothing to state on the subjects; maybe because you have no bogus statistics to quote to them.

Instead of wasting valuable time and resources why not answer the questions and then maybe you will slightly start to understand the real situation at hand rather than resort to name-calling. We are out of kindergarten here....

Your attitude is making me think you have a strong resemblence to Hitler's way of thinking. According to facts, his way of thinking was that the Jews were inferior to mankind and should be eliminated in hopes of creating a perfect nation.

What should we do? Eliminate the problem; that would certainly take care of our 'finacial burdens'!

I will not waste my valuable time by debating this subject; a subject, let me type real slow here for you...., should NOT be debated upon. We are obliged to take care of ones that are in need, no matter what the cost.

BTW you never answered my questions, old man.

concerned parents wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't know about you and your situation, but 'who gives a crap's response made sense and you never answered any of their questions. Is this because you have nothing to state on the subjects; maybe because you have no bogus statistics to quote to them.
Instead of wasting valuable time and resources why not answer the questions and then maybe you will slightly start to understand the real situation at hand rather than resort to name-calling. We are out of kindergarten here....

Why are you posting under 2 differant names, since your IP address matches the other poster IP adress and I'm not talking just the listed location.

again 'only the facts' your information is incorrect. Stay focused to the situation at hand

Wow congratulations You are extraordinarily intelligent..., not really. I'm just kidding you. You can't grasp that two people can use the same PC???? So much for common sense.

BTW YOU never answered my question O "EXPERIENCED" ONE

waste of taxpayer money

who gives a crap wrote:

We are obliged to take care of ones that are in need, no matter what the cost.

I respectfully disagree. When investing taxpayer dollars, the cost must certainly be viewed in terms of the outcome. Of course society must take care of those less fortunate - that is the backbone of a "society," but saying the cost just doesn't matter at all is ridiculous. There is only so much money to go around - it is not limitless. Are you really sure you want to allocate 20X more resources to a special needs child versus a gifted child? I would think we would want society's resources to be allocated more equally among those who will contribute future tax revenues. Implying that I have a death wish for special needs children is offensive and ignorant, I might add. I merely advocate for sensible expenditures of resources. Emotional arguments have little to do with a cost-benefit analysis, and that is why we need a more even handed approach towards spending taxpayer dollars in the area of education.

Oh please there is enough for both in our country.

MonkeyMomma wrote:

<quoted text>
I respectfully disagree. When investing taxpayer dollars, the cost must certainly be viewed in terms of the outcome. Of course society must take care of those less fortunate - that is the backbone of a "society," but saying the cost just doesn't matter at all is ridiculous. There is only so much money to go around - it is not limitless. Are you really sure you want to allocate 20X more resources to a special needs child versus a gifted child? I would think we would want society's resources to be allocated more equally among those who will contribute future tax revenues. Implying that I have a death wish for special needs children is offensive and ignorant, I might add. I merely advocate for sensible expenditures of resources. Emotional arguments have little to do with a cost-benefit analysis, and that is why we need a more even handed approach towards spending taxpayer dollars in the area of education.

Agreed. Plus, by reversing the proportion of spending so that those with higher ability and potential benefit, some of those students will go on to find ways improve the lives of future special ed students and lessen the odds that a child will be born with a disability.

who gives a crap wrote:

Wow congratulations You are extraordinarily intelligent..., not really. I'm just kidding you. You can't grasp that two people can use the same PC???? So much for common sense.
BTW YOU never answered my question O "EXPERIENCED" ONE

Actually nobody give a crap about your hypothetical scenarios