How to find best school for Special Education?

Question

Is any body aware of any website that can help me select the best school district for Special Education . I found a site (greatschools.net) which ranks schools on State exam score. It also give other info about the district like expense per child, student-teacher ratio etc. Will it be safe to assume that district with highest expenditure per child will offer maximum service for special education ?

Answer 1

I don't think it would be safe to assume that. Gen ed. and Sped funding are two different things. Check out local ISD websites, they usually handle Sped funding. You can call local ISDs and ask them about the programs they offer, amount spent per child, what there graduation rates are like. I think that is one of the ultimate tests for special education in a district, how many of these kids can we see through to graduation. About 50 percent of our sped kids end up dropping out (at least in our state). That tells you things need to be done better. Look at your states official education website and go into the special education category. There are huge variations by state.

Answer 2

www.ed.gov is the fed site. they have info on special ed as well.

Answer 3

No public school system is going to offer the maxium services available for every student in Special Ed. For one, a student must qualify for the particular services in question and not every child qualifies for certain things (OT, Adaptive PE, Speech). The second thing is that every child is entitled to a "free and appropriate" education under IDEA. This does not mean however "free and top of the line". This is where I find a lot of parents become confused. What that statement means is that public school districts will do everything thing they can to make accomodations and try things that have "emperical evidence" to back them up as far as adopting programs that work. They do not however have to try or provide anything that comes down the pike that doesn't have emperical evidence to back its validity just because a parent wants it.

      

     I think you'd be better off rather than looking at a district's budget looking at teacher-paraprofessional-student ratio, finding out how many of the districts Special Ed teachers are "Fully Qualified" under the "No Child Left Behind" law and seeing how many times a district has been taken to court for "Fair Hearings" in Special Ed. Those three things give a better picture as far as how a district (even the wealthy ones) are operating their Special Education programs.