No Daley/Duncan/Huberman miracle. Special Needs students in CPS need a miracle if they are to get services.
Today’s Chicago Tribune:
A recent state report shows that… 40 percent of the 96 schools still scrutinized by the state were not properly implementing these crucial special education plans.
That’s just one of 11 findings in the Illinois State Board of Education report, which excoriates the district for its continued failure to comply with federal disability laws. The findings are part of a 17-year-old federal case in which the district was accused of illegally segregating special education students. The settlement of the Corey H. lawsuit, named after one of the young plaintiffs, requires routine monitoring of the district’s special education program.
The most blistering finding also seems to be the most basic: About half the schools reviewed failed to give enough services to kids with disabilities, stifling their ability to make appropriate progress from year to year.
“What it shows is that they are not capable, even with a state agency that isn’t super tough, to deliver the services to support those kids,” said Rod Estvan, a former court monitor in the federal case and education coordinator at Access Living, a disability rights organization. “The CPS is just resisting putting the kind of resources in to solve these problems.”
