NYC Special Education Blunders Left Thousands Of Kids Behind: Study

NEW YORK CITY — Blunders by New York City's public school leaders left thousands of students without much-needed special education services, a new audit found.

Those failures came even as families' claims for special education services ballooned tenfold to $372 million over the past decade, according to the study released by city Comptroller Brad Lander.

Low-income students of color have especially affected by Department of Education shortcomings, Lander said.

"We can and must do better,” he said in a statement.

Department of Education spokesperson Nicole Brownstein noted the audit acknowledged recent special education advances and investments. She said education officials agree more must be done.

"This fall, we are proud to open more high-quality seats than ever through a $51.8 million investment in programs and supports for students with autism, dyslexia, and emotional disabilities, and expanding capacity for bilingual special education seats to over 4,000," she said in a statement.

"We know particular commitment will be required with respect to service delivery in non-public schools, where the law and realities mean special education services are different: for this reason, we are working with our non-public schools through IDEA consultation to ensure the implementation of effective services from high-quality credentialed providers."

Roughly 14,000 individualized educational plans for services such as speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, or counseling were unfulfilled in the 2021-22 school year, the study found.

During that same year, 38 percent of preschool students — or 10,000 — with disabilities completely missed out on their legally entitled services, the study found.

The gaps largely left predominantly Black and Hispanic school districts, as well as those with high poverty, behind, according to the study.

And those gaps also continued in spite of families increasingly filing due process claims to get those services, the study found. Providers in that system largely operate without controls, making the claims rife with potential fraud.

The city can reduce those claims and ensure children with disabilities get the services to which they have a legal right by expanding the network of providers by making a seed investment of $100 million, or a quarter of what the city will spend this year on claims, the study argues.

"Over time, the investment will reduce the need and legal justification for due process claims, thus improving services and saving the City money in the long term," the study states.

Read the full study here.