I thought I was done with blogging for the day but then I read a comment on an earlier post. It was very disturbing. If true, it’s frightening to think that the Obama administration plans to “monitor” special education by test scores and to reduce the number of people on the ground.

“For-profit higher education is a $30 billion industry, and it has the wherewithal to call off the regulators.” Exactly. DoEd will reform (translation: eliminate) OSEP’s compliance procedures assuring IDEA and special education IEPs are effectively working for children with disabilities. OSEP director Melodie Musgrove told us at the Council for Exceptional Children’s international convention (CEC) in April, 2012 that they will be monitoring “achievement data” (translation: standardized test scores) from Washington and cutting back on state compliance officers (translation: firing). Her “vision” for OSEP is “results driven accountability” and to “reward teachers who work with sped students.” (translation: TfA exploiting the SPED teacher shortage).

OSEP’s shift from compliance to monitoring sets back 40 years of special education progress in assuring all schools provide a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities.

Musgrove signaled that DoEd and OSEP would essentially ignore IEP violations.

This is a huge gift to the for-profits. Shifting away from school compliance on IEPs means schools will not be accountable to parents or teachers for providing individualized educational services. You know, all those expensive services like smaller class groupings, collaborative teaching, inclusion, transportation, psychological support, speech therapy, OT, PT, etc. that the profiteers don’t want to pay for.

Musgrove said we could call her anytime a 205-245-8020 or e-mail her at melody.musgrove@ed.gov. She added, we might not like what we hear…

If you are the parent or child of a child with special needs, or if you care about children with special needs, you should get in touch with Musgrove.

Diane