Special education's public option

The Legislature's Education Committee is in session this morning with a packed agenda, as I noted yesterday.

Committee members haven't yet gotten into the nitty gritty of the financial condition of Maine's education budget, but -- and likely to no one's surprise -- those issues seem to be on the top of lawmakers' minds today.

The lawmakers have already begun discussing a major cost to any public education system: special education.

Are Maine's schools identifying too many students as needing expensive special education services? There are wide disparities among districts in terms of the percentage of pupils deemed special education students, according to a review of educational expenditures prepared by McKinsey & Company that committee members were reviewing today.

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron says superintendents are now paying extra attention to the issue. And Gendron said she's urging districts to collaborate with other school systems in their region as a cost-cutting measure. For example, she said, rather than send students with autism to private, special purpose schools, multiple districts can come together and form in-house programs to serve that student population. They can do that at a lower cost than the private programs, she said.

Some readers might remember I looked into this issue in the fall. With fiscal difficulties mounting, school districts have limited flexibility when it comes to cutting special education services guaranteed to students under federal law.

"When you look at the expenditures, you see special education costs are growing twice as fast as regular education," Gendron told Education Committee members this morning. "And that becomes a debate in every community."

If Gendron has her way, perhaps that debate will now center on creating public options, if you will, for serving students with severe special needs.