No data is data
New York City’s annual Special Education Report lacks important details about services for students with disabilities
Parents say there’s not enough data on how well schools are serving students with disabilities.
Currently, there are upwards of 200,000 students with disabilities in New York City schools, yet a significant number of them are not receiving the services they need to thrive. Almost a quarter of the approximate 200,000 students with disabilities in New York City did not get the tutoring, therapy, or other assistance required by their Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) in the 2017–2018 school year according to the most recent special education data report from the New York City Department of Education (DOE).
“Special education data in particular is very difficult,” says Leanna Stiefel, Professor of Economics and Education Policy at NYU. She added, the reports “always create quite a stir because there’s always some percentage of students who are not getting the services in a timely way.”
Last year, about 75% of kids with disabilities were labeled as “fully receiving” the mandated educational services, the report says, which is a significant increase from the previous school year when only 59% of students received the full services schools are required to provide them. The controversy Stiefel is referring to is over the fact that almost 40,000 students received only partial IEP services or none at all. These services, mandated by The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), can include a number of support services including occupational therapy, speech and language help, extra time on tests, and technological assistance in the classroom.
This is only the fourth special education report as a result of a law passed in 2015 by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The annual reports require the DOE to release public data on how long students wait to be evaluated and to receive services, in addition to the percentage of students whose needs are being partially and fully met in the city.
The then City Council education committee chair, Daniel Dromm, told Chalkbeat in 2015 that the new law would “shine a light on the services being provided and get some accountability in hopes we can have a broader further conversations about special education.”
Some advocates and parents are arguing that the information released in the annual report is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to IEP compliance rates, and that the DOE needs to be more transparent. At an emotional hearing back in February, parents of students with disabilities painted a picture of how difficult it can be to navigate the public school system while caring for a child with a disability.
Debbie Meyer said at the hearing that she took a year off of work to learn about dyslexia since none of her sons teachers could successfully teach him how to read. Another mother, Nieves Ojendiz, spoke about the problems she encountered while getting adequate services for her 10 year old daughter, Anna, who has cerebral palsy. Through her tears she explained that Anna was seriously injured in the care of the Department of Education, who never offered an explanation for why Anna had broken her leg in their care. The lack of proper nurses and paraprofessionals available at her daughter’s school caused Anna to miss school for two months, her mother too afraid to send her to school without the proper help.
One of the new laws proposed at the hearing would require the DOE to release school-wide data on compliance rates for students with disabilities. As the report stands now, there is no way of telling which schools, or even which districts are falling behind on compliance rates — making it more difficult to pinpoint exactly where the lack are services are taking place. Lori Podvesker, the Senior Manager of Disability and Education Policy at INCLUDEnyc, explained that in the current report, there really isn’t any qualitative data on the kinds of services students are receiving.
“It doesn’t tell us which students are meeting their goals as a result of receiving services, or not meeting their goals as a result of not getting them,” Podvesker said. Students with Individualized Education Plans should be receiving their services as of the first day of school, as required by Federal Special Education Laws.
“We know that’s not happening,” Podvesker said.
Maggie Moroff, Special Education Policy Coordinator for Advocates for children of new York, also pointed out that many parents contact her organization with concerns about their child’s school services.
“I get calls from families all the time who say my child has an IEP and she’s not getting her speech and language services at all, or she’s only getting them once a week.”
Podvesker thinks that releasing the school-wide data would reveal certain schools who are not following federal laws, and as a result would reflect poorly on city officials who are not following up on schools struggling to meet the needs of students with disabilities.
“They’re not very forthcoming with being transparent on things that they’re not doing well, Podvesker said.
What the report does spend a lot of time on is how long students wait on average in each district to be placed in an appropriate school after their first IEP meeting. When a child is referred for an IEP by a parent, doctor, or teacher, the school is required by Federal Law to evaluate the child and meet with the parents within 60 days. The school is then required to hold a yearly IEP meeting for each child to reevaluate the services, and recommend a placement school for the child. Most schools give students their placement notice 7 days after an IEP meeting, but some take much longer.
For example in 2017–2018, school district 16 had an average wait time of 14.1 days, which was 7.6 days longer than than the average number of days across all districts. But again, without a more detailed breakdown of this data by school, it’s really hard to understand exactly why certain districts are falling behind. Podvesker explained that the variation in placement wait times is contingent upon the resources that the district has. She said that some districts have older schools who have outdated ways of keeping records and serving students.
“This doesn’t mean that they’re right, it means that they haven’t caught up yet, or they haven’t been forced to catch up by the Department of Ed.”
Unfortunately, students with disabilities who go to school in districts with less money often suffer the consequences when it comes down to quality of resources and services. For example, a school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, an area with a relatively high median household income of $112,191, often has parents who are able to raise more money for schools which goes back into the budget, Podvesker explained.
“That school may choose to hire more full time related service providers, because they have the money to do it,” Podvesker said.
Compare this to a school in district 16’s Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, where the median household income is $43,021, which is less than the median household income of $60,336 across the entire United States, according to DataUSA. Schools that have less money for basic resources like books and cafeterias are not going to be able to hire top notch service providers, or even the adequate amount of social workers for the school. Podvesker pointed out that the students in these school are also more likely to be homeless, or have parents who are incarcerated, emphasizing the point that these are the students who need more support in the first place.
“They’re barely making do with what they have,” Podvesker said.
The lack of funding and resources for schools is correlated with exam proficiency rates for students. In 2018, less than 12 percent of students with disabilities in grades 3–8 in district 16 passed the English state exam. This is lower than citywide average, which was just under 16 percent. This proficiency rate is particularly low compared to the percentage of students who passed the exam on the Upper West Side: just under 30 percent, almost double the New York City average.
In a population of students who are still performing well below the state average on all state tests, students with disabilities need as much support as they can get. Across all districts in 2018, only 15.8 percent of students with disabilities passed the ELA state exam. This is 40 percent lower than the general education population, 55.2 percent of whom passed the ELA state exam.
“All of these children can learn, it’s just a matter of preparing the school staff to provide everything they need to provide in order to support those students,” Moroff said. She added that many schools want to do better for their students, but just don’t have the administrative support they need to do so.
“What we find in our conversations on a policy level is that schools are under-staffed and overwhelmed and some of them feel under-supported.”
One thing parents and advocates agree on: holding the city accountable for a student’s lack of school services starts by releasing all of the appropriate data.
Parents who feel that their child has not received the appropriate mandated services can request an Impartial Hearing to correct the violation, and may be eligible for an award reimbursement. Contact Advocates for Children of New York, or INCLUDE NYC for more help and knowledge about Federal Special Education Laws.
