Testimony of Carmen Alvarez before the City Council Education Committee Hearing on Oversight of Special Education Evaluations and Placements by the NYC DOE Sept. 19, 2006

Sep 19, 2006 3:59 PM

My name in Carmen Alvarez. I am the UFT vice president for special education. I am accompanied today by Ann Englesbe, the chair of our school social workers and psychologists chapter. We appreciate the opportunity to testify.

 

The United Federation of Teachers applauds the City Council for seeking better reporting of statistics relating to the evaluation and delivery of special education services to students. We support the direction the legislation takes because we know that for many students, special education services have “gone missing” or been compromised.  We know from our own in-school experience how the current system can perpetuate harm where it should uniformly do good. Knowing the parameters of a problem is the first step in correcting it. If you don’t see and share the information, how can you verify the practices and the trends? How do you fix the problem?

 

The Department shares the information you are seeking – and more – on a monthly basis with its own administrators, with counsel for plaintiffs in the Jose P litigation and with the State Education Department.  The statistics on evaluations, placement and services are not confidential.  Prior to this administration, we received this information regularly.  We agree that you need access to this information in order to properly exercise your responsibilities to the citizens and, particularly, the parents of children with special needs in this city.  Your request is not unreasonable.  It is unfortunate that legislation is required to obtain this information.

 

With better and timely information, you would see how the system is working, you would learn where it is broken and you would bring pressure to bear to fix it. 

 

I caution you that there is a lot of work to be done, particularly in the area of timely and appropriate evaluations and placements. The chancellor eliminated the job of education evaluator. Our school psychologists have become one-man bands, playing too many instruments while—if I can stretch the metaphor—not being allowed to perform in the classroom.   The chancellor also  reduced the number of other special education professionals, including the special education supervisors. Now special education staff are under the supervision –actually, at the mercy – of principals who frequently do not know or understand special education regulations and successful instructional practices.  

 

Before the current school administration, we had fiscal transparency.  The dollars could be followed and you knew where the money went. You had good reason to know that dollars put into special education went into special education. Now that the funding is allocated in the form of block grants, we see principals redirecting special education funds into their budgets for their own projects.

 

In many cases, the DOE reneged on promises to provide school professionals appropriate support.  It reneged on ongoing professional development for all staff involved in the evaluation and placement processes. It reneged on clerical assistance, proper space in which to work for everyone providing services, and needed facilities such as computers, phones and copy machines. 

 

In short, the checks and balances that used to be in place are gone. The entire evaluation process is now in the lap of less than 1,000 school psychologists, some 550 social workers and a tiny cadre of DOE administrators responsible for some 1,600 schools and more than 250,000 Individualized Education Programs.

 

So please don’t point fingers at our members, especially when better information dissemination will show there are indeed delays in evaluations and services. These delays are caused by many variables, most of which are not under the control of our members.  Among them are an insufficient staff, the paucity of resources that hampers provision of specialized assessments such as speech, occupational and physical therapy, and the lack of bilingual services in all these areas.  

 

I said earlier that we are in general support of the thrust of the legislation. Here are some suggestions that would expand the remedies provided by the legislation.

 

The City Council legislation would require an annual report—one released 90 days after the end of the school year. That’s not enough. In order to help the students progress, this reporting should be ongoing. We need remedies throughout the school year, including during the summer. That’s why we need information released far more frequently than once a year. Perhaps three times a year, to coincide with report-card distribution.

 

Right now, there is a method of disseminating information on student evaluations, placements and delivery of related services. It’s even done electronically, and should be made available to all the stakeholders in the educational community. Those stakeholders are parents, teachers, unions and advocacy groups. Currently, the DOE treats the information as though it were a state secret. The educational community and the public should have access to all nonconfidential information on a regular basis. And providing it electronically makes sense. That can easily be done by placing a link on the DOE Web site. That would be the first step in solving the transparency problem.

 

Here’s step two. The UFT urges that, in order to take advantage of the transparency, a stakeholder committee be established. Working with the DOE, the committee would analyze and review the statistics on evaluation and placement as well as the graduation rate of students with disabilities.

 

There are some other technical issues that need fine tuning in this bill, but this hearing is not the venue for working them out. I would be happy to confer with the committee and its staff on these issues at your convenience.

 

Thank you for allowing us to offer our perspective on ways the schools can narrow the achievement and graduation-rate gap between students with disabilities and their peers.   

 

Anne Englesbe and I await any questions you may have for us.