Special needs equity

If you are looking for the classrooms for handicapped students in many schools, start in the basement and look for the worst classrooms in the building. This is where these students are often housed.

It used to be worse. Fifty years ago, children with severe disabilities were expected to stay home and be taken care of by their parents. Students with behavioral problems didn’t have special needs; they were just bad students.

While we now have these students in many of our schools, the distribution of special needs students among our schools has not been equal. Over a third of the students in some central city schools are students with special needs. Meanwhile, some schools with entrance requirements have the smallest percentage of students with special needs, often less that 10 percent of their student population. 

Give Superintendent William Andrekopoulos credit for bringing to the school board the equal distribution of special needs students in all our schools. “If we don’t do this now, we never will,” he told me. Thankfully the board also had the courage to pass his recommendation.

But that is not the end of the story because Milwaukee Public Schools, itself, is becoming a district chosen by the state to warehouse a large percentage of our special needs children.

Private schools that receive taxpayer money through the voucher program are not required to provide services for special needs students. Students with mild disabilities often attend these schools, but students with the most costly disabilities are pretty much told to attend MPS.

Of course, these private schools don’t receive additional funds to provide these services. Some private schools would gladly provide services if they were given the money. Others are happy that they have an excuse not to take these students.

Suburban school systems participating in the open enrollment process don’t have to open up seats for handicapped students and so they don’t. But these same school districts are willing to take regular students.

What the state has created is an inequitable system for special education students. That must change.

Terry Falk is the Milwaukee Public Schools Director for the Eighth District, which includes Bay View. He can be reached at (414) 510-9173 or falktf@milwaukee.k12.wi.us.

Copyright 2010 by Bay View Compass. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.