Special education on the cheap
ONLY SO MUCH caring can be done on the cheap at the state's private special education schools before the cracks appear and kids fall through them. I know a little bit about this, as I watched three schools put a decade and a half of work into one of my sons. The final outcome was his passing the MCAS, graduating from high school, and living independently in New Hampshire. Last week he sent his mom and me a triumphant e-mail about a good grade on his first college course.
It is questionable how many other youths will share my son's victory in the years to come. All three of the schools he attended are part of the 155-school, 6,400-student Massachusetts Association of C766 Approved Private Schools, or MAAPS. These schools are run privately under state approval. The state sets tuition levels for students sent to them by public school districts that do not have the resources to teach them.
These schools represent one of the biggest oversights of school reform. The state forces them to do tough work on tightwad tuitions. The private school association says the average salary of a teacher in its schools is $31,000. The average salary in the public schools, according to the state Department of Education, is $53,658. MAAPS says its schools operate at a combined deficit of $2 million a year.
Statewide, 93.9 percent of teachers are licensed, according to state figures. MAAPS says only 70 percent of its teachers are licensed. It says its annual teacher turnover rate is a stunning 34 percent, more than double the average for public school teachers in the Northeast. Half of its residential staff quits every year. The state yesterday added science to the MCAS requirements. But 88 percent of the MAAPS schools do not have a functioning science lab.
The executive director of one of my son's former schools told me this week that three teaching candidates turned down his job offers for next year because they could make more money in the public schools. The entry-level teacher salary at this school is $30,500, but even after 12 years, the salary is $42,500. He himself is on the health insurance of his wife, who teaches in a public school. ''We have to do a lot of bribery like offer child-care services to get people to come," he half joked. ''I don't know how long that will be enough."
MAAPS's executive director, James Major, said it has been difficult to get MAAPS schools to tell this story of inequity because ''the schools themselves are so proud of what they've still been able to do. They're still providing some of the best special education in the country, but it's coming at a cost to everyone."
The cost was noted in February by the State Supreme Judicial Court. Even though it ruled 5-2 against families of poorer districts who sued the state for more-equitable funding, the court said ''sharp disparities" still exist. Both the majority and the dissent noted special education as being a major area of disparities.
Writing for the majority, Justice Margaret Marshall said: ''I am cognizant that, for the student whose special needs go unaddressed, for the student who sits in an overcrowded classroom or an ill-equipped school library, and for their parents or guardians, the prospect of 'better things to come' in public education comes too late."
Writing in dissent, Justice John Greaney said far more sharply that poorer districts ''have difficulty servicing children referred for special education, due primarily to a lack of psychologists able to perform the necessary evaluations. All lack sufficient space to provide special education services in appropriate settings and fail to provide students with disabilities with meaningful access to the regular education curriculum in regular education classrooms.
''Children with disabilities in the focus districts suffer from the absence of meaningful professional development both for regular education teachers on teaching special needs students and for special education teachers on subject matter content areas that children with disabilities need to learn. All of the focus districts lack sufficient personnel to support and assist children with disabilities in regular education classrooms."
MAAPS says it would cost $83 million over three years to equalize teacher salaries. If the state can come up with $70 million in infrastructure for the Patriots' gleaming stadium, it surely can come up with the cash to shore up a critical underpinning of special education. It is ironic that the executive director of one of my son's former schools ''bribes" applicants with child care. He does it because the state does not fully care for its most difficult children.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com. 
