Miriam K Freedman: Let's Prioritize Special Education Reform

Miriam K Freedman: Let’s Prioritize Special Education Reform

Miriam K. Freedman, the ‘School Law Pro,’ writes that we need to pay closer attention to special education and the $110 billion spent on it each year.

Why now? Why here? Fixing special education is my passion; leaving it as is, my concern. Now is the right time, as we move to reauthorize the federal law. Education News seeks to support long overdue discussions. It’s a perfect match!

Miriam K. Freedman

Why me? A bit of history may explain. I came from Holland to America on an ocean liner when I was in 4th grade. After one week at sea, we sailed through New York harbor, past the Statue of Liberty, to Hoboken, New Jersey. Many years before ESL or bilingual education, I quickly learned English through, what’s now called, total immersion. I’ve been grateful that my teacher, Mrs. Bell, did not speak Dutch—I had to speak English!

I soon participated in my first Thanksgiving, had turkey with stuffing, finished elementary school, became a citizen, graduated from high school and college, and became a teacher. Through it all, public schools were the gateway to our wonderful country. I loved them then and do so now.

After my teaching career, I became a lawyer and have worked in public education for more than 30 years—as a hearing officer for special education disputes, an attorney representing public schools, and an author, speaker, consultant, and reformer. We need caring and committed people to work for concrete, real world, research-based solutions for all children in our schools.

Yet, amazingly, with all the talk about school reform today, special education is generally left on the back burner. People say, “We can’t touch that. It’s ‘legal.’” Well, I believe we can and we need to do just that to improve it—now. For starters, we need to:

Change its adversarial climate and rebuild trust. We need to change the premise of this law—that parents and schools are not on the same page and that parents, as the law’s enforcers, need to advocate FOR their child AGAINST their school. Schools so divided cannot long endure well.
Focus on teaching and learning, not winning and burdensome paperwork and documentation. 13-14% of our students depend on that!
Be sure that the $110 billion per year that we spend to educate students with disabilities is smartly spent. Yes, that’s $110,000,000,000!
Implement only policies and practices that actually help children learn. Cut the paperwork!

Do you agree? Disagree? Not sure?

We know that our public schools are our future. As a proud product of them who believes in public education deeply, I feel called upon to sound the alarm when parts are broken and need fixing. We have generations behind us who need that American dream, as it was given to us. I welcome you in this effort. Together, we can work to fix this broken system.

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman is a lawyer, speaker, consultant, and author, and an expert in public education law. For more than 30 years, Miriam has worked with educators, parents, policy makers, and citizens to deal with the legal requirements which impact schools. Miriam translates complex legalese into plain English, and focuses on good preventive practices. For more information, visit her website, www.schoollawpro.com.

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Watch for my future columns at www.educationnews.org! | School Law Pro

September 16, 2011 at 10:25 am

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Curmudgeon

September 17, 2011 at 7:13 pm

The SpedEd teachers and aides in my school spend 30%-40% of their time filling out paperwork. The computer programs to “facilitate” this process are always problematic and the results are depressingly similar.

It’s as though someone figured that repetitive paragraphs and pages of dense text are better than just sitting down with the kid and teaching.

And we’re pretty good with SpedEd here in Vermont.

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Greg Smith

September 22, 2011 at 1:16 pm

re-posting my questions for Ms Freedman (see original thread here):
[link redacted]

I am familiar with some of your writings. As it happens, we both live in the same city. Our city has a large community of first rate parents, family advocates and special educators. Some of the best in the world.

I base my opinion of your work (exclusively for schools and against parents AFAIK) on communications I have had with some of them. I have heard (sometimes 2nd or 3rd hand) that you were exceedingly hostile and harmful to parent’s ability to support their children. I don’t believe that you desire to harm families. Nonetheless, it appears that families with whom you were involved feel otherwise.

Re: “I worked hard to help schools meet their obligations and provide students with appropriate services. I still do so.”
I beg to differ with the last sentence. I understand that you currently advocate that school systems request parents sign a waiver relieving schools of all obligations beyond the delivery of a single page of general comments. Unless you think that is the only obligation of schools, your characterization appears inaccurate.

Three questions for you:
- As a private attorney, how many legal settlements have you written which included a gag order (AKA a confidentiality clause which bars parents from speaking while conferring no additional constraints on schools beyond their already existing requirements)?
- If you wrote some of those, how do you justify now asking parents to share their opinion publicly, when you are responsible for legally gagging those who disagreed with you in the past?
- Your BSEA decisions predate the online system, but I believe they are part of the public record. I’m interested to see how you treated families back then. Can you share your BSEA decisions (shorn of all identifying information, or course)?

I agree that we can and must help parents and schools work together more effectively. It’s a pressing and personal matter for my family.

If you now want to engage parents in a dialog, I suggest that you first apologize to the families that felt hurt by you, even if you never intended that; especially if you never intended that.

BTW @curmedgeon, I believe Ms Freedman’s legal work for school systems includes helping them fire and/or silence teachers who raise concerns about SPED practices (AKA school system Human Resources legal work). I hope Ms Freedman will correct me if that is not true.

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