The DOE practice of"penny wise and dollar foolish" policies has resulted in the City paying out 303 million dollars to settle Special Education lawsuits. It appears the DOE practice of "Education on the cheap" has resulted in a 185% rise in payouts since Bill de Blasio took office back in 2014 and a 8% rise since last year.
According to the Education committee of the City Council 22% of the estimated 250,000 students with an IEP do not receive their required services. Parents are frustrated with the DOE's inability and or unwillingness to provide the Special Education services required by federal law. The result was an uptick of lawsuits that the City needed to settle.
I suspect that the DOE's Fair Student Funding is a major contributing factor as principals, subject to tight school budgets, try to save funds by withholding needed services for their Special Education students. Moreover, the high administrative costs for paying for thebloated Central Bureaucracy at the DOE also is a problem. Finally, the lack of accountability at Tweed immunizes the managers to escape consequences when their decisions hurt the child.
Will anything change? I highly doubt it.