Milwaukee Special Education Lawsuit

The Milwaukee Public School system recently completed the settlement of their special education lawsuit decision made last September in US district court. In a nutshell, the district's specific violations were:

1. Failing to refer children with a suspected disability in a timely manner (within 90 days) for evaluation.
2. Extending the 90-day requirement improperly.
3. Imposing suspensions on children in a way that impeded the process of referring them for special education services.
4. Failing to ensure that a child's parents or guardians attended initial evaluations of children.

Read the full decision vs. MPS (pdf)

It dragged on for six long years and the cost to the taxpayer and the district was enormous. Wouldn't it have been better to put the money toward education, not counting the college funds for the attorney's children?

MPS loses special ed lawsuit
District failed to assign students, state failed to enforce, judge says
By SARAH CARR and ALAN J. BORSUK
scarr@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 11, 2007

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Milwaukee Public Schools systemically failed to provide special education services to children who needed them, and the state Department of Public Instruction failed to exercise adequate oversight.

In his decision, U.S. Magistrate Judge Aaron Goodstein said the district broke the law between 2000 and 2005 when it failed to evaluate students with a suspected disability on a timely basis and routinely suspended them instead of figuring out if they needed special education services.

For the state, Goodstein wrote, "the underlying problem was the failure of DPI to put any teeth into its bite."

Goodstein quoted the testimony of one DPI administrator who said she was not aware that any deadlines were set for MPS to remedy its problems. "No consequences were ever imposed," Goodstein wrote.

The suit, certified a few years ago as class action, has dragged on for six years, costing millions of dollars. At issue have been the fates of thousands of children eligible for special education in the city and millions of dollars spent on special education each year. In recent years, about one in six of the district's 90,000 students have received special education services, and one in five at the high school level.

The cost of providing special education has increasingly strained school district budgets, with MPS spending millions more on the mandated services each year. Meanwhile, the district has struggled to find enough special education teachers. Although the long-term impact of the decision is still murky, the ruling could exacerbate some of these financial strains and teacher shortages.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick, a managing attorney at Disability Rights Wisconsin, said the case has not just been about trying to get more money for special education in Milwaukee. "If accountability isn't there, we are going to waste a lot of money," he said.

He added that he hopes the decision "sends a very strong message to both MPS and to the DPI, and maybe to other school districts, that what they have done in the past simply isn't enough. Complying with both the spirit and the letter of the law in terms of making sure children are identified and receive the services they are entitled to is mandatory - it's not optional."

MPS Spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin said district officials were still reviewing the decision Tuesday afternoon and could not comment in detail. She said MPS' director of special education expected to be briefed this morning by lawyers who represented the district. "In the meantime MPS remains committed to providing quality education whether a student has been identified as having special education needs, or not," St. Aubin said in a statement.

John Johnson, a spokesman for DPI, said department officials had not received a copy of the decision as of late Tuesday afternoon. He referred a reporter to the state Department of Justice, which represented the DPI. Attorneys there were not available for comment.

The case focused on whether MPS was meeting requirements of the federal special education law related to identifying and evaluating children with suspected disabilities. The provisions go under the general name "Child Find."

"The inability of MPS to reach full compliance with the law in the area of Child Find is not the result of numerous isolated and unrelated cases, but stems from systemic inadequacies," Goodstein wrote.

MPS said two years ago that it had spent $1.8 million on its defense, some of which it could possibly recoup through insurance. That was before the three-week-long trial in 2006. Spitzer-Resnick said his group has spent more than $1 million, money it hopes MPS and DPI will now be forced to pay.

During the 2006 trial in front of Goodstein, lawyers hired by the school district had argued that much of the testimony from the parents was not reliable. But Goodstein cited specific cases presented at the trial where he judged the district had not addressed students' needs appropriately.

Spitzer-Resnick said that throughout the legal proceedings: "We've heard 'It's poverty, it's mobility, it's homelessness.' Guess what? Those excuses are not given any credence by the court or by the law."

One of the mothers involved in the lawsuit, whose son's story was chronicled in a December 2005 Journal Sentinel article, said she made repeated requests that her son be tested for learning disabilities. Eventually, the boy was 12 years old but still in the third grade at MPS. He was suspended so often that his mother and teachers sometimes lost track of where he was supposed to be.

In another case, one girl cut herself at school and once wrote on her desk: "Kill all people. Solve the problem." While she did well on standardized tests, she couldn't seem to pass the sixth grade.

The judge noted that school officials suspended the girl and referred her to a new school - but did not evaluate her for special education until prodded to. "The issue of suspension has an effect on the timely identification of children in need of special education," the judge wrote. "It also had an effect on the timeliness of providing services."

Goodstein wrote that both MPS and DPI tried to solve the problems at the heart of the court case, and that there were improvements between 2000 and 2005. But "their respective efforts, while taken in good faith, were not adequate to bring MPS into satisfactory compliance."

Goodstein did not conclusively address the issue of sanctions in his decision. He did, however, write that the sides in the case should make a new attempt to reach an out-of-court settlement so that there will not need to be another drawn-out legal battle over what should happen next. He ordered the attorneys involved in the case to meet with him Sept. 27 to discuss further action.