As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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Special ed students struggle to find work
By: Sarah Karp / November 17, 2008
After leaving high school in 2007, nearly 40 percent of students with disabilities are unemployed and not enrolled in any type of college or vocational program a year later.
These are the findings of a post-secondary survey conducted by the Illinois State Board Education and analyzed by Access Living. The report released on Nov. 12 surveyed 209 disabled students who exited CPS; some had graduated, while others had dropped out. The students surveyed had a mix of disabilities, though they were slightly more likely to have learning disabilities than the district’s population as a whole.
After leaving high school in 2007, nearly 40 percent of students with disabilities are unemployed and not enrolled in any type of college or vocational program a year later.
These are the findings of a post-secondary survey conducted by the Illinois State Board Education and analyzed by Access Living. The report released on Nov. 12 surveyed 209 disabled students who exited CPS; some had graduated, while others had dropped out. The students surveyed had a mix of disabilities, though they were slightly more likely to have learning disabilities than the district’s population as a whole.
The report also notes that students with disabilities from CPS were less likely to be working (by 5 points) than disabled adults from other states.
Fewer than 10 percent of students with disabilities who had dropped out of school had jobs and only 3 percent of them were attempting to earn a GED, according to the survey.
Also interesting: Close to 8 percent reported that they had attended some college, but had since left.
Twenty-three percent of the students were in college or vocational training; while another 20 percent were in listed as other, which includes military, prison or other type of institutionalization. About 18 percent were working, though less than half had full time positions.
Special ed students struggle to find work
A quick look at the latest High School Directory issued by CPS ("2009-2010 High School Directory") shows that CPS continues to concentrate students with disabilities in the city's general high schools. There should be more information checking these trends, but consider the following.
Harper High School. According to CPS (the latest "High School Directory"), last year 27.2 percent of Harper's 1,258 students were "special needs." This was brought to the attention of CPS and the hearing officer when Arne Duncan proposed firing all of the teachers at Harper for "Turnaround" and was ignored.
A quick tour of the directory (which only came out this past week, despite the fact that families have been urged to apply for schools by December 19; the new elementary directory is not out yet) shows that for the general high schools ("attendance area high schools" in the current jargon of CPS for this directory) almost none of the schools has a special ed population of less than one in six students, while some (like Harper) have more than one in four students in special education.
By contrast, none of the academic magnet high schools has more than six percent of its students in "special education." The charters (the high schools that have been expanding the most in the past three years) are still developing, by with numbers closer to the general high schools.
Like most other CPS data, the data on special education show that Chicago has achieved two systems, separate and unequal. The general high schools take on the most challenging special education cases, and are then forced to shuffle the most challenged students (general and special education) while the Duncan administration forces the schools' administrations to reorganize classes and programs from September until November in many cases.
We have characterized this approach to the general high schools as "sabotage" by Arne Duncan.
In the context of high school closings and privatizations (as of today, six Chicago high schools since 2004 -- Austin, Calumet, Collins, Englewood, Harper and Orr -- the latter two dubbed "turnaround"), every one of the schools that was slandered as "failing" (er., currently "underperforming", another local contribution to the Orwellian lexicon) has a special education population of between one in four to one in six of all of its students at the time Arne Duncan launched his "failing school" attack on the school.
More and more high school teachers (and principals) are saying that what is being done is sabotage. Again this year position closings at the general high schools further disrupted an already unstable situation, with some of the most dramatic examples including Hyde Park, which is within walking distance of the very very very stable elementary school (Ray) attended by Arne Duncan's own children.
It has been clear to me for a long time that by providing safe haven privileged schools for the children of the middle class (and the most articulate classes, such as those families who children attend Ray with the little Duncans) CPS has achieved a formula whereby the children without privilege can be victimized over and over, while their teachers can be slandered by the Duncan administration and its cheerleaders without public accountability for the centralized sabotage of those schools.
This year, Duncan has proclaimed that he intends to "turnaround" a dozen schools. Teachers at just about every general high school are anxious that their school might be one the bull's eye for this year's round of slander, kangaroo court "hearings" (which neither Duncan nor his Board members will attend), and termination.
On the basis of the treatment of special education students of high school age alone, it is the top officials of the Duncan administration -- not the teachers in the city's general high schools who serve the greatest number of them -- who have failed and should be subjected to termination.
What Chicago needs, as these special education data show, is "turnaround" on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors of 125 S. Clark St., including the termination of most of the highly paid executives currently occupying positions of power there.
Special ed students struggle to find work
George... Again you're right on...The old Chop the Top mantra has to be resurrected.
Special ed students struggle to find work
oNE OF THE REASONS WHY THEY CAN'T FIND JOBS IS WE ARE PUTTING STUDENTS WITH 1ST GRADE READING LEVELS IN PHYSICS AND ALGEBRA TRIG UNDER THE FLAG OF "TREATING ALL KIDS ALIKE".WHY CAN'T SOME OF THEM LEARN TRADES, BASIC SKILLS, ETC. I AM QUITE SURE THAT MY MECHANIC OUTEARNS A FIRST YEAR TEACHER.
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