The Dark Underbelly of Your American School District: part 2

You may be surprised what’s going on in schools around the country

In July 2007, Daniel Golden reporting for the Wall Street Journal wrote, Schools Beat Back Demands For Special-Ed Services: Parents Face Long Odds Amid Cost Concerns; Seeking a Home Tutor

In Oct. 2019, Kristen Taketa reporting for the San Diego Tribune wrote, Families Endure Costly Legal Fights Trying To Get The Right Special Education Services

In May 2023, Sarah Randazzo reporting for the Wall Street Journal wrote, Special-Education System Stacked Against Families, Lawsuit Says: Proposed class action in Virginia aims to change how students with disabilities can challenge school districts for better services

In Nov. 2023, Lee V. Gaines reporting for WFYI of Indianapolis wrote, When Schools And Families Go To Court Over Education, Everyone Loses.

In Feb. 2024, Sarah Randazzo reporting for the Wall Street Journal wrote, Why One School District Spent $1 Million Fighting a Special-Education Student: California case highlights the rising legal disputes between school districts and parents seeking assistance for their children

These are all carefully researched and reported investigations into the practice of denying kids with learning disabilities access to needed intervention. Please notice the range of dates and locations across the country. The most stunning of these reports came from Texas. The Houston Chronicle’s 8 part series on:

How Texas Keeps Out Tens Of Thousands Of Children Out Of Special Education, Brian M. Rosenthal, Sept. 2016.

This series exposed the state of Texas’s random mandate to school districts that they could not present more than 8.5% of their students for special education. This despite the fact that the state previously served a number of special education children closer to the national average of 13%. In order to meet this 8.5% goal, a variety of methods where used. Most of those methods where illegal and a violation of the children’s civil rights. Schools and educators had no choice but to comply. But families didn’t know any of this, and the state education department kept everything quiet.

In 2018, two years after the articles and exposure of the illegal practices, the state of Texas was ordered by the U.S. Dept. of Education to identify and provide current and compensatory services to all of the hundreds of thousands of students who were denied.

These kids were like our kids. For example a child who wasn’t reading in first grade and had parents asking for evaluation only to be denied or ignored for years. Now 11 years old they have a dyslexia diagnosis that could have been remediated with several years of intervention. Instead the child is headed for 6th grade with a 3rd grade reading level and depression from years of failing.* In 2020, a follow-up article by the Houston Chronicle revealed how very few of these Texas students have seen any intervention at all.

So, why am I talking about Texas? Because the exposure of illegal practices and high pressure tactics by administrators should give us a keen insight into the types of things that are going on around the country. We can see it in the articles spanning rural Indianapolis to NY, LA, San Diego. The school districts are doing everything they can to deny services to kids with learning disabilities. And it’s happening, right here in our own backyard, with our own kids.

If you have a child who has gotten effective intervention from your local school district, then count yourself lucky. Many other parents have sought help from schools while innocently assuming the schools would naturally want to intervene. They’d want to make sure your student could succeed in school. We love our teachers. We trust them with our kids. They’re our heros. Right? Instead, parents are maneuvered, gaslighted, and consistently betrayed by the very people they expected to be helpful.

Some parents then pursue legal action against the school district. But, as you will read in the articles above, the districts have big gun lawyers whose only goal is to save the district money. And the judges who make verdicts are administrative judges without any training in special education. They often like to “side with the district.” So if you go the legal route, you’d better be sure your lawyers feel the case is iron clad. Otherwise you’re going to be stuck with huge legal bills…and you still have a child who needs tutoring and interventions. The school is not going to help, and it will be up to you to find and pay for what your child needs.

If you are a parent who is going through this right now, you are not alone. Parents across the country and in your child’s own school are also struggling with this.

Next week, I’ll address the financial underpinnings, wide spread ignorance of learning disabilities, and moral trauma that underlies these problems.

In the meantime, look up those articles I listed above and give them a read.

*See Houston Chronicle article.

I’m working on a book and seeking families with stories to tell. If you’ve been through this struggle, I’d love to hear from you. Everything will, of course, be confidential.

You can reach me at: 241kcawley@gmail.com