ANNAPOLIS — In poorer public school districts in Maryland, the percentage of students receiving special education is disproportionately higher than in wealthier districts, and has been since early 2000.
It’s a nationwide trend that experts say isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since schools in low-income areas have few other ways to address poverty-related disadvantages that affect students’ learning abilities.
About 15 percent of students in Maryland’s top five poorest school districts received special education services last year, compared to about 10 percent in the five wealthiest districts, according to a Capital News Service analysis of the most recent Maryland Department of Education data.
Unlike labeling a child blind or deaf, other special education codes – particularly ‘learning disabled’ and ‘emotionally disturbed’ – aren’t as clearly defined and involve “some judgment and subjectivity,” said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit educational organization.
Kids in poor areas struggle or act out in class “because of the challenges of poverty,” he said, and are more likely to get labeled.
Baltimore, the second poorest district in the state according to U.S. Census data, has nearly double the percentage of students – 16 percent – in special education than Howard County, the wealthiest district, with 8.6 percent.
Low-income kids enter kindergarten already behind, said Abigail Thernstrom, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research group.
“Social class is a reality. There are student differences tied to social-class differences,” she said.
Parents reading to their children, making sure they eat a healthy breakfast and get enough sleep all affect a child’s learning ability, experts said.
“If you have a hungry kid in the classroom they can actually test for having a disability,” said Andrea Kalvesmaki, a medical anthropologist specializing in mental health disability at the Education Policy Institute, a nonprofit educational research and public policy group.
With less community support and fundraising power, schools in low-income areas shouldn’t be blamed for “flagging problems they see … That is their only means for helping,” she said. Placing a student in special education because of poverty-related challenges “can actually help them so they can get extra services.”
Thernstrom said this doesn’t mean students are being mislabeled.
“These kids come in way behind,” and schools are responding to that, she said.
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, last amended in 2004, governs special education and states a child cannot be deemed disabled if the “determinant factor is lack of proper reading instruction, lack of math instruction or limited English fluency.”
There’s no way to tell if a school is unfairly labeling students, said Debra Gardner, communications specialist for the Maryland State Education Association, a union that lobbies for teacher and student needs. “But it does raise a red flag when you see a trend in a specific area, school or neighborhood.”
The root problem is that poverty-related disadvantages are complex and hard to correct, especially through school systems.
“The important variables here are social class and parental education,” Thernstrom said. “Is the state working with parents in charge to create a better environment for academic learning?”
Staff commonly visit families’ homes and make suggestions, sometimes on “very basic parenting skills in combination with” special education, but they can’t force a family to comply, said Judy Pattik, special education coordinator for Howard County Public Schools.
Pattik doesn’t know why her district’s numbers are so low, but speculates the county’s strong early intervention program – beginning special education as soon as possible, ideally before kids are even in school – and extra help in regular classes, keeps kids from struggling.
Howard County resident Kim McKay has a 16-year-old son with autism enrolled in public high school. He’s received special education through the Howard County Public School System since he was 15 months old.
McKay said her son now takes all of his classes in regular classrooms with regular students where teachers adjust lessons for him as needed.
She said she was lucky to already live in a district with “one of the best” public special education systems in the state. If she didn’t, she would have sought services elsewhere.
“There are a couple counties where I feel like the system is set up not against families, but not about families … There seems to be more concern about budget than about what kids need,” she said.
Some counties have worked to change their numbers.
About 10 years ago, Allegany County, Maryland’s third poorest district at the time, had the highest proportion of special education students in the state – 18 percent.
Concerned Allegany school officials went to the Maryland Department of Education, which contracted a consulting firm to analyze the school system, as well as those in Washington and Garrett counties that sit on either side of Allegany.
The firm concluded that while there was “insufficient conclusive evidence” the county was over-identifying students, certain factors contributed to the high percentage.
These included a continuing decline in overall school enrollment, which, when the number of kids receiving special education isn’t declining, makes it hard to keep percentages down. They also pointed to “several social and economic factors,” like high drug use and low median incomes, as well as other factors.
Allegany schools made changes in special and general education, such as enhancing pre-school programs and offering extra help in regular classes.
Since then, the percentage of special education students has declined to about 13 percent, the fourth highest percentage in the state. Allegany is Maryland’s poorest district.
“Funding does not drive services. Anything a child needs … we must deliver,” said Marcella Franczkowski, assistant state superintendent of the division of special education and early intervention services at the Maryland Department of Education.
Schools must meet the same federal and state standards, but counties can deliver services in ways that best fit their demographics, which could account for disparities across the state, she said.
“You could not possibly expect services to be delivered the same way in Allegany County as in Baltimore County,” she said. “With the distance between schools and homes, things are very different.”
Educators and analysts agree early intervention and mainstreaming are the best routes to ensure kids get help and eventually don’t need extra services.
Maryland is one of six states that provide special education from birth to 21 years old, and has been focusing on mainstreaming and early intervention over the past several years, Franczkowski said.
Statewide, the number of special education students has declined from 12.2 percent in 2003 to 11.4 percent in 2011, below the national average of 13 percent, which, Franczkowski said, “reflects our work.”
But to shrink the disparity, people must talk about learning disability and poverty together, Kalvesmaki said. We “can’t take poverty out of the equation.”
By SOPHIE PETIT
Joe Diamond says
There is a similar trend to the diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and the drugs that control it.
All are now playing in the eastern United States and mostly in NE cities. Early intervention seems to work but if you suggest taking a seemingly normal kid away from seemingly crazy parents you get push back.
Joe
Stephan Sonn says
Darwin lives!!!
Joe Diamond says
Quite!
But evolution did not / does not move all at the same rate…………………..back when I was ateachin’ ah had this student. He never said nothin ! One day he asked for a copy of Darwin’s OREIGIN OF THE SPECIES. So ah got him one and give it to him. He jest read it ‘n read it. THEN he asked for a Bible………..”Pentateuch please, sir.” So ah give him that and all was quiet fer a long while……………….then I had to ask him about the book choice.
He wanted to know if he was his brother’s keeper or his keeper’s brother.
Kids are like that.
Joe
Stephan Sonn says
An infinity of reason suggests that we can defy Darwinism as presented
by The Koch elitists of this world but, if they and their kind were moot,
could we as a society actually pay the bill for all our sick and infirm.
I am 72 need medicare but I just do not see the numbers crunching working
for the future of a compassionate society as, graceful as this fine essay embraces.
Again with the encumbrances of economic concentration aside
how does social utopia pay the bills for a society
now burdened with diseases of the young and old.
Saying this goes against every liberal bone in my body.
There is no comfort in the harshness of Darwin
unless you believe that whatever we create,
we can cure, with the help of God and science
uncluttered, as the prime element of survival.
Joe Diamond says
Stephen,
Many would resort to God OR science uncluttered. Many have ignored or defied Darwin. But finding a compassionate society is going to be a quest by degrees. And I suppose it is little comfort to someone who has just been saved by the prayers of the faithful and modern medical science to discover that after paying all medical bills their new residence will be an abandoned car where eating will be an optional activity.
Best of all possible worlds but not Utopia. This might be a job for some Dickensan character; what to do with the excess population?
Joe
Stephan Sonn says
More porridge please sir.
Joe Diamond says
More!
Are you nuts?……………I may share my recipe for gruel with trusted others. No amount of promises will produce MORE! We are caught in the implications of entropy. But then…..selecting who gets more…(Orwell) or controlling the saved…( Marx) might work. Predicting failures and fixing them ( Huxley) might work. Or we could stick to what made us great….casting them out and or stoning them in the JudeoChristian tradition because they are heretics or possessed could still serve.
Finally there is no way we are going to address individual differences and allow children to develop their own individuality. Independent thinkers are impossible to herd. They will not eat or listen to bull shit. …………………..gotta go……………….many kicking on the door…….later
Joe
Stephan Sonn says
I have always respected the good work of the clergy
why are they not more visible in these issues?
Koch lobbies against hurricane Sandy aid
And he is very viable and vocal just short of vulgar
Seems like the new gods are bullies on vendetta
Just like those of Greek mythology
but who am I to call to the gods
much less call them fickle.
Stephan Sonn says
I want to apologize to the the writer of this fine article
for not addressing it with the reverence it deserved.
It was inadvertent because perhaps while the subject is current to just goals
focus seems to be fixed on whether and if such matters of of social importance
will find forum in an austerity backdrop. That begs the question of just what our
priorities can afford to be in the continuing political turmoil.
Dickensonian society was a dark reference
that I used as contrast
and tried to buffer with humor.
Please continue to bring up such issues and we can hope that
our children will live in an America that will address them.
Joe Diamond says
Stephen,
Not your fault. I viewed it as a puff piece. There is not one line of new information. There is no research presented and no conclusions drawn. Universal education is a spin off from this new idea of democracy. We have yet to resolve the issue of who receives instruction and what to teach. There is even disagreement on how to teach and on how to evaluate teachers.
Always, nice to chat. Nobody else even noticed.
Joe
Stephan Sonn says
You know, we fight the good fight for the right things and
sometimes nobody able is there to pick up the baton.
I also felt obligated to thank
the Kent School superintendent for
her evaluation of her performance.
Not one person even thanked her.
I think what you just said about teaching agenda fits that too.
Well just can not do anything at all, as Nancy Pilosi often says.
This is not the time for benign neglect.