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Access Living's November 2009 critique of CPS budget has been ignored for too long... Critical review of how Chicago budgets for special education

Rodney Estvan - January 12, 2010

[Substance editor's note. The following study was originally published by Access Living Chicago in November 2009. It was released to Chicago's corporate press and school officials at that time. Except for a brief mention in the Chicago Tribune, the findings of this study, many of which are scandalous, have been ignored. Substance is publishing the entire report in the January 2010 print edition and offers it to our on-line readers here as well. This document is reformatted for the Web but is otherwise complete from the initial report, including charts and footnotes, with permission of the author. The print edition of Substance for January 2010 will be mailed to all Substance subscribers on January 14, 2010. Additional copies of the document are also available from Access Living Chicago, contact restvan@accessliving.org. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance, January 11, 2010].

Above, a wheelchair equipped bus awaits children at the end of the school days outside the Blair Early childhood center in Chicago. The public school serves some of the most severely disabled young children in Chicago and has faced cuts at several points during the past four years, especially from Arne Duncan when Duncan served as CEO of Chicago's public schools. The budget practices analyzed in the Access Living report were all products of the Duncan administration. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Access Living analysis of CPS budget regarding special education, By Rodney Estvan

Chicago Public Schools 2010 Budget Review Including discussion of ARRA funds and new anti-violence initiative (November 2009)

Introduction

This budget review was delayed for several months because of inconsistencies in reports provided Access Living by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) relating to overall special education teaching positions in the FY 2010 budget (1). These issues are discussed in detail in the sections that follow. Specific recommendations to both CPS and the Illinois State Board of Education appear at the end of this review.

The CPS budget office did an extraordinary amount of work in response to our numerous questions. We want to thank Christian Herzog the CPS Budget Officer and Matt Smith from her office for their patience with our many questions. We also want to thank George Schmidt the editor of Substance newspaper for sharing with Access Living the complete position file for CPS which his newspaper had requested under FOIA (2).

FY2010 Education Budget developed within the context of economic distress

The FY2010 budget increases funding directed towards special education services by only $1.4 million. CPS appropriations devoted to special education declined by 1.5 percent compared to FY2009 (3).

In the last 12 years, special education costs have grown by $671 million or 1,600% (4). In FY 2010 special education expenditures composed 12.2% of appropriations; in FY 98 special education composed 14% of budget appropriations (5).

However in real dollars CPS special education appropriations have grown from $41,612,000 in FY1998 to $712,645,000 in FY2010. During the same time, the basic education costs for all of the CPS students have grown by $2.09 billion or 1,200%.

First of four charts from the Access Living study of the Chicago Board of Education's budgeting for special education. The first chart below [to the left at this point in the on-line edition] depicts CPS special education enrollment for students aged 3-21 from 2007 to 2009 (6).

In his budget letter introducing the FY2010 budget, the newly appointed Chicago Public School Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman established a tone implying that CPS faced a fiscal meltdown in 2010 based on rising pension costs and teachers’ salary increases. Mr. Huberman also discussed CPS fiscal issues in the context of the economic downturn and governmental revenues. By August, when the CPS Board approved the FY 2010 budget, the state was approximately $173 million in arrears for its FY2009 block grant payments to CPS. That constituted approximately four months in late payments. In the recent past, the state had been at most one month late. The delayed payment put pressure on the general fund balance. CPS balanced its FY2010 budget by using $61 million from its reserve fund, $96 million of one-time acceleration of property taxes as a result of an accounting change, and $25 million in School Finance Authority fund-balance transfers. The CPS publicly reduced 572 jobs outside the classrooms and planned to reduce expenditures by another $61 million to eliminate the need to draw down on fund balance (7). In total CPS cut $38.1 million in positions and $68.1 million in programs before the start of the 2009-20010 school year (8).

The FY2010 budget is also notable for the additional federal support CPS has received for special education. The additional support came in the form of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) IDEA Part B monies, totaling $57 million. This ARRA money will be discussed in a separate section of this report.

On July 23, 2008 CPS held a joint press conference with Mayor Richard M. Daley on the CPS budget. Several themes were emphasized during the presentation. First, because of the generalized economic decline in our country and the significant decline in real estate, it was determined that property taxes would not be increased to fund the CPS. Second, CPS would make up funding deficits by using part of its unencumbered reserves totaling about $100 million. Third, CPS would scale back various initiatives and make further cost reductions, particularly in the area of transportation (9).

In the FY 2010 budget CPS chose to limit the property tax increase to 1.5% instead of the legally allowable increase of 4.1% (10). The limited tax increase meant an $18 increase on a typical Chicago home valued at $262,000 which was less than the $77 increase the system could have assessed by taxing to the maximum allowed, according to Mr. Huberman (11).

This was surprising because most observers of CPS had assumed CPS would be required to tax to the limit to stay solvent (12). But by October 2009, when property tax bills were sent to homeowners, it became clear why CPS did not tax to the limit (13). Lawmakers in the State General Assembly, in 2004 imposed caps on runaway tax assessments during the real estate boom and in 2007 voted to gradually do away with the protections created a situation where some of the poorest city neighborhoods would experience huge property tax increases of 30%. The FY09 budget formally changed its fiscal reserves policy creating what it called a “stabilization fund.” The fund was then projected to contain $258 million According to the CPS, the fund “will not be utilized unless there is an unforeseen emergency, which requires a consensus decision among the Board members.” (14).

There was and still is no clear guideline as to what level of a decline in anticipated revenues or increase in operational costs would constitute an emergency, or whether CPS would consider using short term anticipation notes or other such short term debt as an alternative to using the stabilization fund (15). In FY 2010, CPS used $61 million of the stabilization fund to attempt to balance the budget and planned for additional cuts to replenish the funds. When Access Living asked the CPS budget department why it did not make the additional $61 million in cuts during the budget planning process we were told that additional reductions would focus on vendor and consulting contractual efficiencies through renegotiations and reducing/eliminating less effective services and additional operational/ administrative efficiencies that required a lengthy review. As Access Living has noted in previous reviews of CPS budgets, the Chicago Board of Education should re-establish a budget or audit subcommittee. On July 26th 1995, the Board suspended its own rule requiring a standing budget committee. The Board needs to have a standing finance oversight or audit committee, just as publicly held corporations do. The CPS is one of the largest employers in Illinois and its fiscal issues are extremely complex, requiring budget or audit committee meetings that are subject to our state’s Open Meetings Act. Decisions such as utilizing the stabilization fund or defining a fiscal emergency should be discussed publicly in a budget committee and then brought to the full Board for final approval.

The average CPS teacher’s salary, according to the Illinois State Board of Education, has gone from $53,238 in 2002, to $74,839 in 2008, and back down to $67,589 in 2009. This was the case even though the average CPS teacher in 2002 had 13.9 years of teaching experience and 12.7 years by 2009. As experience has gone down, the percentage of teachers with graduate degrees has gone up. By 2009, 59.4% of CPS teachers had graduate degrees whereas in 2002 only 43.8% held graduate degrees (16). From FY98 to FY09 the total amount of compensation for all special education staff working in traditional CPS elementary and high schools steadily rose, then in the projected FY 2010 budget this trend stopped with a $15.7 million decline (3.9%) (17). This is depicted in the chart below. Chart showing decade-long trend in CPS compensation for special education staff.

The FY2010 budget also stated CPS had fewer teachers than in FY09. From FY09 to FY2010 there was a 3.4% decline in “teacher class positions.” (18). According to the budget, there were 916 fewer teaching positions. From FY06 to FY 2010 CPS experienced an overall decline of 9.7% in its teaching force. All of these reductions in positions have been explained in budgets as being due to a “recent trend of declining student enrollment.” But no projected enrollment for FY 2010 was given in the budget (19).

Based on statements appearing in the budget it appears that that some costs for elementary and high school services for Chicago’s students with disabilities have been transferred to charter, and contract schools. In the FY 2010 budget it is noted that: “An additional $65.8M is budgeted in a Citywide unit (12670) for special education charter payments and tuition for private and non-traditional placements.” (20). The CPS stated at the FY 2010 budget hearings that it does not know what the school based budgets are for charter schools (21). In a response to a request for information from Catalyst magazine, CPS provided data indicating it projected a 2% decline in tuition for private special education schools in its cluster program (22). CPS Unit 12670 has the following listed in relation to tuition in FY2010 budget: account 54305 “tuition $61,346,788,” account 54320 “student tuition - charter schools $270,000,000.” (23). Account 54320 is a newly created account which did not exist in FY09, prior to this year per student payments made to charter schools came from account 54305 which also included most of the private school placements for disabled students with a smaller amount coming from Unit 11670. The changing of accounts and merging of different tuition expenditures makes tracking year to year changes very difficult. Issues relating to charter school funding and special education are discussed in greater detail below.

Specialized Services Unit 11670 also holds charter schools support services staff, which consists of 22 CPS special education teachers who are CPS employees assigned full time to various charter schools. The projected to cost in FY 2010 for just these 22 teachers was $1.7 million. According the last Renaissance 2010 RFP the CPS policy of providing CPS employees who certified special education teachers to charter schools is ending and all reimbursement to charters for these teachers will be done on a per-teacher basis the formula for which can be found in the FY 2010 budget at page 97 (24). The total amount CPS is reimbursing charter schools for special education teachers could be up to $18.5 million (25). The public at large, and in particular charter schools themselves, have no way of knowing from the FY 2010 budget whether special education staffing for charter schools is equitable.

From time to time, CPS in its Board actions authorizes agreements for payments to private special education schools for tuitioned out CPS students with disabilities. In March 2009, CPS authorized payment up to $44.2 million covering part of FY09 and part of FY2010, and then in June 2009 reduced that amount to $37.6 million. About 1,400 CPS students with disabilities attended private schools in FY07 at the expense of CPS. There are currently 74 approved private special education schools located in Illinois and out of state for placement of CPS students with disabilities (26). CPS also places some students with disabilities in other school districts. Currently CPS is budgeting $4.4 million for payments to 43 other public school districts (27). CPS has professional services agreements with an unknown number of not-for-profit or for profit special education services providers to work in CPS schools (28). CPS has the Cluster Private School Initiative, where providers are paid for reserved slots that CPS fills, rather than paid on a per student basis. All of these programs appear to charge to either Unit 11670 or Unit 12670.

Need for an outcomes-based funding system for special education Funding and staffing decisions for special education need to be outcomes-based. Access Living and many other community organizations want to see a closing of the achievement gap between non-special education students and students with disabilities. As we have stated in previous budget reviews we would like to see the CPS by 2014 reach or at least approach the No Child Left Behind standard of providing students with disabilities a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education. To do this, CPS needs a framework, or rubric, for the measurement of each school’s effectiveness in the delivery of services to students with disabilities. Effectiveness needs to be measured in terms of academic achievement and transition to post secondary life for most students with disabilities. Resources need to be driven, not just by attempting to comply with various regulations, but by attacking the enormous education deficits of students with disabilities attending the CPS.

The new CPS Chief Performance Officer would have responsibility for creating such frameworks and rubrics for the measurement of each school’s effectiveness in the delivery of services to students with disabilities. We look forward to working with this new office on the development of such an assessment approach. Up to now CPS has side stepped this important issue when it has been raised by Access Living.

For some students with disabilities, attacking their deficits requires a core group of highly skilled teachers fully trained in regular education, special education, and in reading instruction. This educational approach is called a Universal Design for Learning. Access Living actively supports this approach for students with more moderate disabilities who are largely being taught in regular education classrooms with their non-disabled peers.

How many special education teachers does CPS really have?

The CPS FY 2010 budget stated that 916 teacher class positions were eliminated in elementary, high schools, and in citywide units (29). It is unclear how many teaching positions have been created in non-traditional charter and contract schools which could be seen as offsetting this decline. The reason for this lack of clarity was explained during public budget hearings, when CPS claimed not know how many teachers work in charter schools, because these teachers are not CPS employees (30).

However, CPS does know how many special education teachers are working in charter and contract schools because CPS provides direct reimbursement to these schools for each of these certified teachers, at up to $65,000 per approved position (31). Access Living was told by the CPS budget office that there were projected to be 239 special education teachers in charter and contract schools for FY2010 (32). Access Living was informed by the CPS budget office that none of the 916 teaching positions the FY2010 budget indicated were eliminated were held by what it broadly defines as special education teachers. According to CPS there were a total of three additional special education teaching positions. The budget office on August 20, 2009 informed Access Living that the total number of special education teaching positions in CPS including charters and contract schools for FY2010 was projected to be 3,653.33 What the CPS budget office projected to be its FY2010 special education teaching force of 3,653 when it was subtracted from the number of special education teaching positions CPS had told Access Living it had a year earlier in FY09 did not show an increase. In FY09 there were, according to the CPS budget office, 3,707.8 special education teaching positions (34).

Using the CPS FY09 and FY 2010 numbers we computed 54.8 fewer special education teaching positions, not an increase of 3 positions as the CPS budget office had claimed. When presented with this contradiction CPS looked again at its total number of projected special education teaching positions (35). CPS on August 24, 2009, indicated that it had used a different methodology for counting special education teachers than had the prior budget director and hence had to correct its total. The new total number of special education teachers in CPS, charters, and contract schools was 3,718.6, which also indicated that CPS’s original statement about there being three more special education teachers in FY2010 than in FY09 was incorrect. Using the new method, there were now 10.8 more special education teachers than in FY09.36 This revision, according to the CPS budget office, was driven by a different assessment on the number of special education teachers located in special education schools which are part of CPS Unit 19092. This was particularly interesting to Access Living because the principal of one of the special schools publicly claimed her school was losing numerous special education teachers in the projections for FY2010.37 Given this contradictory information Access Living reviewed the Oracle Service Report covering all funds except capital and debt service for this unit (38). The Oracle report attached to the FY2010 budget is a product of CPS’s Oracle Peoplesoft enterprise package. In November 2003, CPS began to implement its conversion to Oracle packages including financial software. CPS has since then converted over 600 schools to an Oracle-based software application to track internal accounts, and the budget development system is driven by an Oracle accounting package.

The Oracle report for Unit 19092 indicated that in FY09 it had 320.9 special education teacher positions and for FY2010 274.2 special education teacher positions, a reduction of 46.7 special education teacher positions for special schools (39). The CPS budget office on August 24, informed Access Living, that there were 315.6 special education teaching positions projected for Unit 19092 in FY2010 (40). The difference between the Oracle report and the projected FY2010 positions CPS gave to Access Living created a 41.4 position discrepancy that equates to a $3.95 million cash discrepancy (41). In late October 2009 CPS provided additional data indicating that there were 265.8 positions listed as “special education teacher” in Unit 19092, this number indicated that CPS cut 55.1 special education teacher positions from the special schools, which would equate to about a $5.7 million in savings for CPS (42).

A special education student being wheeled from a lift bus into Christopher school two years ago by school aides. The aide at the lift is a bus aide, which is necessary on all CPS buses transporting children with disabilities, but which CPS has tried to cut during the past few years. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.This apparent confusion caused Access Living to ask yet more questions in August and September in relation to the numbers we were getting from the budget department and numbers appearing in the Oracle report attached to the FY2010 budget. The first answer we got from the budget office was not all special education teachers are listed as such in the budget using job code 00500629. We were informed that a number of special education teachers were in a job code for “part-time teacher”. Others [who] were listed as art teachers, librarians, and guidance counselors were tied to job code “regular teacher.” We asked the CPS budget Office to balance these special education teachers not listed as such in the Oracle report to the totals CPS had provided to Access Living for unit 19092 — special education schools, unit 19096 -—general high schools, unit 19097 -— vocational high schools, and unit 19098 — elementary schools. Discussions and messages on this discrepancy issue continued with staff from the CPS budget department from August to October 5th. At that time, we were informed by a staff member from the budget department that despite numerous attempts to reconcile Oracle teacher positions for these four major units with numbers coming from the CPS Office of Specialized Services (OSS) it could not be done because the information for the end of FY09 and the projected FY2010 was no longer available.

The CPS budget office, however, was able to provide to Access Living on October 30, with data for the major educational units and charter schools as of October 23, 2009. This data is discussed below. CPS should by normally accepted accounting practices, have been able to reconcile its Oracle data with position data being generated by OSS rapidly and simply. CPS should have been able to tell Access Living how many special education teacher positions were labeled as job codes other special education teachers for each of these units in its projected FY2010 budget. Staff from the CPS budget department has indicated that steps have been taken to allow such data far more rapidly than it took this year.

The newspaper Substance issued a FOIA to CPS on August 25, 2009, one day after CPS had provided revised totals of special education teaching positions to Access Living (43). On October 2, 2009, CPS provided Substance with a different total of special education teachers using positions that were assigned to employees. The capture date for this report is sometime in September 2009. In this report there were 3,324 assigned special education teachers in traditional schools. On October 30, 2009 CPS provided special education teaching position information to Access Living using the capture date of October 23, 2009.

The CPS at that time had 3,515.3 special education teaching positions in traditional schools and 283 positions in charter schools for a grand total of 3,798.3 special education teaching positions for FY2010 (44). This number was 79.7 special education teaching positions larger than the number CPS had provided Access Living on August 24th. Of this increase, 44 positions were in charter schools, and 35.7 were in traditional schools. The apparent increase in special education teaching positions assigned to charter schools in two months was 18.4% (45).

Assuming this special education teaching position increase in charters is correct, it would seem impossible that charter schools could fill these additional positions once the school year had began. The October 30, 2009 special education position data included information on the number of what CPS called special education teaching positions in traditional non-charter schools that were not listed in the Oracle system under the title “special education teacher.” There were 228.5 FTE such positions. Among these positions 27.5 had the job title “retired teachers,” 4 were “part time teachers,” 2 were “head teachers,” 65 were listed as “regular teachers,” 27 as “program option teachers,” 13 as “bilingual teachers,” as “acting head teacher, and 65 as “other.” (46). A total of 24 positions CPS listed as special education teaching positions were “assistant principals.” The average cost of a CPS assistant principal including benefits is about $175,000, the average cost of a CPS teacher including benefits is about $104,000 (47). The cost for the assistant principals listed as school based special education teaching positions comes to about $2.5 million.

Because CPS is exempted from a state law that defines who can be counted as a special education teacher or certified professional entitled for state reimbursement, it is unclear what standard CPS used to determine that these positions could be counted as special education teaching positions. This issue is discussed in greater detail below. The CPS budget office has provided data to Access Living on the number of special education teaching positions dating back to FY07. In FY07, according to CPS, there were 3,818.4 special education teaching positions in CPS schools, including charter and contract schools. In FY08 there were 3,796.8 such positions, and in FY09 there were 3,707.8 positions. To put this in perspective in July 2004 CPS Office of Specialized Services stated it had 4,056 special education teaching positions (48). From July 2004 to the FY09 budget, CPS officially eliminated 348.2 special education teaching positions, which equated to 9% of its special education teaching positions. However, given the most recent information, CPS has provided Access Living we can not determine the standard CPS used to say when teachers not listed the special education job code could be counted as special education teachers, or when an assistant principal could be counted as a special education teacher. The fact that a teacher or an assistant principal holds state special education certification does not mean that they are currently delivering services to students with disabilities.

Once a year CPS makes a determination of special needs areas that allowed the residency policy to be waived in an effort to recruit staff, at that time CPS provides public information on vacant positions.

As part of that wavier process CPS declared that in April 2006 there were 212 vacant special education teaching positions. In March 2007 that number had grown to 289.49 In October 2008, according to CPS, there were only 98 vacant special education teaching positions (50). This reduction in vacant special education teaching positions was achieved by reducing over time the number of special education teaching positions and by an increase in the number of trained special education teachers in Illinois CPS to fill these positions (51). It is completely unknown how many charter school special education positions are vacant, but based on listed job openings vacant positions clearly exist (52).

Chicago’s exemption from state law

A big part of the problem in relation to CPS’s current budgeting practices for special education teachers can be found in state law P.A. 92 568 (105 ILCS 5/Art. 1D). This law exempted only the Chicago Public Schools from the special education funding rules for teachers, other professionals, and non-certified staff that all other districts in Illinois are required to follow. Specifically, subsection (e) reads:

The district [Chicago] is not required to file any application or other claim in order to receive the block grants to which it is entitled under this section. The State Board of Education shall make payments to the district of amounts due under the district’s block grants on a schedule determined by the State Board of Education. All other school districts in Illinois are required to use the established Special Education Personnel reimbursement program that is authorized under Section 14-13.01 of the School Code. The State provides supplemental reimbursement to school districts and special education joint agreements for certified and non-certified personnel providing direct and support services to students with disabilities who are receiving special education and related services in accordance with an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The State reimburses local school districts and special education cooperatives $9,000 per professional employee and $3,500 per noncertified staff employed on a full-time basis for the school year, depending on sufficient State appropriation. Currently all other school districts are required to submit Special Education Personnel Reimbursement claims to the ISBE Funding and Disbursement Services Division electronically through an ISBE Web Application Security (IWAS) account. Every special education teacher, other professional (social worker, psychologist, etc.) and non-certified personnel must be accounted for in this process. Each of the personnel for which ISBE is to provide reimbursement for is required to have a special education identification code. The special education identification code differentiates personnel eligible for special education personnel reimbursement per the requirements of Sections 14-12.01 and 14-13.01 of the School Code from those not eligible for such reimbursement. There is a one-year delay in reimbursement for every school district in Illinois except CPS, which is block granted and gets funded in advance. While state law prohibits ISBE from making CPS file any claim or documentation to get these funds, it does not prohibit ISBE from requiring that CPS document its special education expenditures for which the State paid. State law P.A. 92 568 states: “A school district to which this Section applies shall report to the State Board of Education on its use of the block grants in such form and detail as the State Board of Education may specify.”

Access Living submitted a FOIA to ISBE asking what reports it requires CPS to file in relation to the special education portion of the educational services block grant that also covers state funding for Bilingual, Regular and Vocational Transportation, State Lunch and Free Breakfast Program, Summer School, Educational Service Centers, and Administrator's Academy (53).

ISBE responded to this FOIA stating: “Note that CPS is not required to break down how much was spent by each program within the Block Grant. ISBE only asks that the report on the cumulative amount of funds received under the Block Grant.” (54). ISBE provided Access Living a link to its fiscal report documentation system that encompassed the educational services block grant. The reports provided no break out of special education expenditures. A block grant report on expenditures made by CPS for FY 2008 for Instructional “salaries” states $202,545,378.00 was spent by CPS. One cannot determine how much was spent on special education teachers, special education aides, bilingual teachers, or bilingual aides. They are all lumped together. The reports do not provide position counts associated with this $202.5 million expenditure. Audits of CPS special education expenditures

As PA 92 568 required, CPS did report to ISBE its expenditures from the block grant, but ISBE put no accountability mechanisms in place that would allow for transparency of these expenditures of public money. ISBE has a unit called External Assurance that conducts audits of State categorical programs and fiscal/programmatic compliance review of State and Federal Grants. However, the primary instruments ISBE External Assurance unit would utilize in auditing CPS’s special education expenditures are ISBE’s Special Education Personnel Claim and the Special Education Pupil Claim, both of which CPS is by law not required to submit.

When Access Living asked ISBE’s External Assurance division how it conducts audits of CPS special education we received no response.55 Currently we do not know, since PA 92-568 became law, if ISBE’s External Assurance unit has ever conducted a district level audit of CPS’s special education block grant expenditures. ISBE has discussed CPS staff shortages in reports it calls “Corey H. District-Wide Findings” that are developed Pursuant to Paragraph 18-22 of the Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) Settlement Agreement in the Corey H. case. As of July 2009 there have been 9 such reports and ISBE has found “CPS has failed to adequately staff schools and appropriately allocate staff” consistently in these reports (56). In none of the finding reports does ISBE indicate a total number of special education positions that it believes any one particular school may be lacking. It does however provide data on the percentage of schools it has monitored that are lacking special education staff. For example in the 2008-2009 school year, ISBE staff drew conclusions on adequate staffing for 107 CPS schools. Of these 32% were found not to have adequate staffing (57). The CPS in 2008-2009 had a total of 666 schools (58). If these, staffing shortages were generalized it would mean that over 200 schools had inadequate special education staffing in the 2008-2009 school year.

In its Corey H. District-Wide findings related to adequate staffing, ISBE does not compare its school based reviews of school staffing to what CPS has in its Oracle system for the same school. ISBE also accepts without any independent auditing data in Corey H. Annual Reports regarding teacher shortages (59).

On December 18, 2001 the US Department of Education Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a final audit report to ISBE involving the use of IDEA Part B funds by CPS and two other Illinois school districts covering 1997, 1998, and 1999. The OIG found that ISBE had not monitored CPS and the other districts to determine if some IDEA funds had been used for regular education purposes in violation of supplanting provisions of IDEA. OIG noted CPS at one point had $13.3 million in excess IDEA cash and expressed not very veiled concern that the interest on these funds were being used for general education purposes. ISBE admitted it needed to improve monitoring and agreed to institute improved cash monitoring. OIG did not “verify the reliability of LEA [CPS and other 2 districts] expenditure data,” but OIG noted that during the audit “nothing came to our attention that caused us to doubt the acceptability of the data.” (60).

Another source of auditing that sheds light on CPS funds is the independently audited CPS Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR). While it examines expenditures for teachers’ salaries funded by the ISBE for the education of students with disabilities, the CAFRs do not examine in any detail whether the teachers would meet ISBE reimbursement standards applied to all other districts in the state (61). The CAFRs have never examined the expenditures of the educational services block grant from ISBE in any detail.

The CAFRs do examine in somewhat greater detail the CPS expenditure of federal IDEA Part B and C grants. Using Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards, CAFRs have looked at CPS special education expenditures covered by federal special education funds. In FY07 their findings in relation to the expenditure of these dollars were identified as what are called a “material weakness.” In FY06, findings in relation to special education expenditures showed reportable conditions, which are not considered to be a material weakness. The formal definition of a reportable condition is a significant deficiency in internal controls discovered by the auditor in the course of a financial statement audit. In FY 08, CPS had audit findings in relation to special education expenditures that were required to be made by federal rules but were not considered to be a material weakness. Since FY 2006, CPS has not met the federal standard in relation for IDEA Part B dollars to be considered a “low-risk auditee.” (62).

Aside from CAFRs and audits conducted by OIG, OSS has periodically conducted its own position audits. In 2007, Access Living obtained the CPS OSS audit form and audit instructions for its high school programs (63). The internal audit process is limited to examining ratios of students with IEPs to providers and does not examine how special education teachers and aides are identified in the CPS Oracle report used for district wide budgeting purposes.

Special education aides The number of special education aide positions budgeted for FY09 was 2,688 and in FY08 was 2,690 according to the CPS budget office (64). These numbers include positions based at charter schools and all positions based at special schools. We did not request an updated number from CPS for FY 2010. However, the total of all aide positions that were clearly titled as special education in the Oracle report attached to the FY2010 budget, for was 2,548. In FY09 special education aides appearing in the Oracle report was 2,345. The Oracle report does not include special education aides working in charter schools. So we believe it is reasonable to assume that for FY2010, CPS may have increased its number of special education aides by about 8.6% from the FY09 level. Administrative units for Special Education

The OSS central administrative unit (Unit 11610) located at the CPS central offices in FY96 had 120 positions; in the FY09 budget it had only 46 positions. By FY 2010 this unit had 44 positions, which represents a 37% reduction in four years. Historically, some of the functions of this unit have been relocated to regional offices and citywide units. According to CPS, 41.2 city wide special education administrative positions were cut by the FY 2010 budget. CPS provided a detailed Excel spread sheet to Catalyst Magazine on these reductions (65). Our examination of the Unit 11670 city wide special education Oracle report attached to the FY2010 budget shows that this unit was reduced by 30.5 positions compared to FY09; additional special education positions were cut from the office of high school programs. In an August 2009 memo issued by Mr. Huberman a new special education instructional Area 27 was announced to be under a new Chief Area Officer (CAO). From Access Living discussions with CPS we learned that Area 27 is to administer CPS special education schools. This new unit was not described in the budget and not accounted for as part of the Oracle report attached to the FY2010 budget. The total costs for this unit are unknown, but the new CAO is being paid $151,131 a year without benefits.66 Even with the creation of the new Area 27 administrative unit, it appears that since FY 96 there has been a large reduction in what can be called the special education “bureaucracy.”

The critical question is whether CPS special education has become less efficient and responsive due to these reductions. Responses made by a CPS administrator to a recent Chicago Tribune article on problems with special education services were factually in error and indicate that even at the highest levels this bureaucracy is becoming increasingly dysfunctional (67). American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part B funds

As we have noted above CPS received and allocated $57 million in ARRA special education funds as part of its FY 2010 budget (68). Of this $57 million, $49.5 million went to pay salaries of teachers working at special education schools under CPS Unit 19092. Two million was allocated to pay for special education teachers and aides in charter schools, and $5.5 million was planned to fund new and expanded special education programs at new and existing schools (69). What exactly these new programs are to be is still unclear.

CPS used its ARRA funds to legally supplant it own local special education funding efforts. The legislative intent of federal special education funds are to help ensure that students with disabilities have access to a free appropriate public education that meets each student’s unique needs and prepares each student for further education, employment, and independent living. The rules related to supplanting IDEA funds can be found at section 613(a)(2)(C) of that Act, which states that if, for any fiscal year, the allocation that school district receives under IDEA exceeds the amount that the school district received for the previous fiscal year, the district may reduce its maintenance of effort expenditures by up to 50% of that excess. CPS effectively avoided rules relating to these provisions by reducing its own revenue through not increasing property taxes it legally could have increased for FY 2010.70.

The particular provision that CPS is avoiding is one that states if CPS students with disabilities are not academically achieving on our state’s standardized tests and not meeting other performance standards, then all of the ARRA dollars are required to be spent on educational improvement and reform for students with disabilities. CPS has never met this standard. If this rule were invoked, CPS could not have used at least $51.5 million of these dollars in the way it proposed in the FY 2010 budget. In the FY2010 budget, CPS allocated almost all ARRA IDEA Part B funds to pay for special education teachers’ salaries in special schools and in charter schools. On March 7, 2009 the US Department of Education (DOE) issued its principles relating to expenditure of these funds. The overall goals of the ARRA were to stimulate the economy in the short term and invest in education and other essential public services to ensure the long-term economic health of our nation. There are three essential principles established by the DOE in relation to these funds:

1. Spend funds quickly to save and create jobs.

2. Improve student achievement through school improvement and reform.

3. Invest one-time ARRA funds thoughtfully to minimize the "funding cliff."

The CPS allocation of its ARRA IDEA Part B funds in its proposed FY 2010 budget violated two out of three of these principles.

CPS made a decision not to levy property taxes which it had the power to do under the Illinois Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, commonly called “PTELL.”. As previously mentioned, in FY 2010 CPS made a decision not to raise property taxes to the allowable cap of 4.1% and instead chose to raise the rate to only 1.5%. In FY09, CPS elected not to raise property taxes at all. The millions of dollars lost by the failure of CPS to raise property taxes helped to create a situation where there is a fiscal necessity for using almost all of the ARRA IDEA Part B dollars to pay special education teacher salaries and benefits. CPS fundamentally created a situation of legal supplanting of these funds through its failure to raise funds. ARRA was not designed to be a property tax payers’ relief act.

The utilization of ARRA funds to pay the salaries of existing special education teachers will not improve student achievement through school improvement and reform. An Access Living report released in April 2009, describes in detail the poor education and weak performance CPS and CPS Renaissance 2010 that many students with disabilities are currently experiencing (71). The ARRA funds which should be applied to these improvements are instead being spent on salaries for special educators because CPS has failed to raise money it could have raised through property taxes.

The CPS FY 2010 proposed budget explicitly states on page 8: “CPS also expects a funding cliff within the next two years as its ARRA Title I Part A and ARRA IDEA Part B (federal stimulus) of more than $380M expires.”

CPS is correct to expect a funding cliff because CPS is spending its ARRA IDEA Part B funds in violation of the principles established both by Congress and DOE. Special education teachers’ salaries are an ongoing obligation of the school district and using these funds to pay part of these salaries creates the funding cliff that the DOE asked not be created.

CPS Charter and Contract School Budgets as presented in the FY2010 budget

In the FY08 budget, for the first an only time, CPS provided school by school budget information inclusive of charter and contract schools. All of the charters or contract schools files had all funds listed under “discretionary/ supplementary” or “other programs.” The column for “special education” was left blank for all of these schools. In the FY09 budget CPS did not provide school by school budget information for charter and contract schools. The only information the FY09 budget provided on these schools appeared on page 100 of that budget. It reads: “In FY09 there will be approximately 30 Charter schools, with 67 campuses, and 8 Contract schools across the city serving 28,311 students. Using the funding structure listed above [reference to a table on the page], the district estimates spending the following amount on Charter Schools in FY09:

$208,000,000 for General Education Tuition

$17,298,960 for SGSA

$8,113,585 for NCLB

$6,533,966 for Start up

$4,303,165 for Expansion

Note: These totals do not include SpEd, After School programs, ELL, or any other programmatic funding provided to schools separately.

The FY09 budget, had attached to it a CD-ROM. On the CD CPS provides what it calls the “school segment reports.” The CPS provides these reports for the following types of schools: Neighborhood Schools, Alternative Schools [only Jefferson and York are included; all Youth Connection Charter School campuses were excluded], Citywide [no charters or contracts included], Early Childhood, Military, Performance Schools, Selective Enrollment, Small Schools [no charters or contract schools included], Special Education Schools, and Vocational Schools. There were no segment reports for any of the 67 charter campuses or eight contract schools.

The segment reports for traditional CPS schools include very important information such as the total number of teachers in each school, enrollment data, cost break downs for administration, special education and numerous other funding categories. Data is even provided on the percentage of students who get free lunch and reduced lunch based on income requirements. In the FY 2010 budget CPS again excluded school segment reports relating to even greater numbers of charter and contract schools. This issue had been raised repeatedly during the hearings held for the FY 09 budget and CPS budget office staff said repeatedly they wanted to improve the reporting of expenditures for charters and contract schools.

We can see no improvement in the FY 2010 budget. In fact it is even more obscured than in prior years. The FY 2010 budget contains this statement relating to charter school expenditures: “The FY 2010 budget for Professional Services and tuition is $689.3 million higher than the FY 2009 level of $651.7 million. The major driver of this increase is an expansion in charter schools.” (72). The Oracle reports provided with the FY 2010 budget has a line for payments made to charter schools (Unit 12670). A projection is made that CPS will pay $270 million tuition to charter schools for FY 2010, but in most of the prior years tuition payments are not clearly broken out. For years FY09, FY08, and FY07 all charter school payments are embedded in general tuition payments. In the FY 09 budget CPS indicated in passing its charter school tuition payments would be $205 million (73). In the FY 08 budget CPS made no statement on the tuition payments it was making to charter schools. But based on what information is available charter school tuition payments increased by $65 million from FY 09 to FY 2010 or by 31.7%. The total number of students being educated by CPS in charter schools is not given in the FY 2010 budget.

On June 27, 2007 Access Living commented to the CPS Board meeting on problems with accounting associated with charters, based upon an OIG audit dated June 7, 2007. OIG stated that “it appears as though CPS cannot identify its charter schools’ expenditures.” (74). This raises real concerns about transparency of budgeting for Chicago charter and contract schools.

Access Living Chart 3.Special Education Appropriations as part of the overall CPS budget

Since our review of CPS’s FY07 budget we have been noted the declining percentage of the overall budget devoted to special education. The special education appropriation of the FY 2010 budget composes only 12.2% of the overall budget; back in 1995 it formed 15% of the budget. The average cost per special education student has been increasing, even though the numbers of students with disabilities have slightly declined and the number of special education services providers has also declined. Using special education student counts from June 2007 through June 200975 an average cost per student with a disability aged 3-21 can be arrived at.

2007 $11,665.76 average cost per special education student

2008 $12,483.48 average cost per special education student

2009 $13,239.26 average cost per special education student

No Child Left Behind and CPS students with disabilities In 2009, only 6.5 % of CPS 11th graders with disabilities could read at or above state standards. In 2008, 6.7% of CPS 11th graders with disabilities could read at or above state standards. In 2007, 7.5% of CPS 11th graders with disabilities could read at or above state standards. Access Living’s primary concern in relation to CPS’s FY2010 budget is driven by our dismay over the educational outcomes for students with disabilities attending CPS. As a center for independent living we perceive a high correlation between being a highly literate individual with a disability and a person with a disability who is both productive and lives independently.

The Prairie State Achievement Examination, which is given to eleventh grade students, showed that in 2007 92.5% of CPS students with disabilities who took the test were reading below state standards, with about 52% of these students reading at the lowest academic warning level. In 2007, only 21.7% of CPS students with disabilities at all grade levels were reading at or above state standards. The test results for 2008 were even worse. In 2008, 93.2% of CPS students with disabilities who took the test were reading below state standards, with about 58% of these students reading at the lowest academic warning level. In 2009, 93.5% of CPS students with disabilities who took the test were reading below state standards, with 58.5% of these students reading at the lowest academic warning level.

The achievement gap for CPS students with disabilities relative to all CPS students has increased for reading from 2004 to 2008 at all grade levels. In 2004 there was a 29 point gap in the percentage of all CPS special education students reading at or above standards and the percentage of all CPS students who were reading at or above standards. By 2007 that gap had grown to 37 points. In 2008 it grew to 39.5 points, in 2009 it declined to 38.3 points (76). The gap between students with and without disabilities is a critical measurement used by the State of Illinois in relation to the No Child Left Behind Act. The Chicago Public Schools has never achieved the Adequate Yearly Progress standard for its students with disabilities in either math or reading. We believe there are fundamental problems for students with disabilities using off the shelf reading programs and we call on CPS to closely review these programs for there appropriateness for these students (77).

Technically, many parents of students with disabilities in Chicago, have the option under NCLB to transfer their children to another school in the district that has not been identified for improvement. For students with disabilities, there are few such options within CPS. Other provisions such as having special education staff provide extended school days for students with disabilities seem impossible with the current budget being proposed by CPS. Parents are looking at charter schools as an option, but these schools’ ability to serve more students with disabilities, in particular ones with more significant disabilities, appears to be limited.

Access Living recommended three years ago that the Board authorize an independent study along the lines of the National Special Education Expenditure Project’s 2003 review of the Milwaukee Public Schools that we provided to Board members on May 24, 2006. We believe that any such study conducted in Chicago must examine the huge number of disparate CPS initiatives including all aspects of the 2010 project and how they may impact special education costs and performance. We were informed by CPS staff in 2006 that they were reviewing the study and apparently they are still doing so because we have heard nothing further.

CPS anti violence initiative and special education

Shortly after the CPS Board approved its FY 2010 budget, a new CPS initiative to reduce violence among high school students was announced by CEO Ron Huberman. (78). At this time there is limited written information on this initiative, but what has been presented indicates that a disproportionate 24% of CPS shooting victims were students with disabilities according to a CPS study that has not been made public (79). According to the New York Times the CPS study was based on “an analysis of more than 500 students who were shot over the last several years to predict the characteristics of potential future victims, including when and where they might be attacked.” (80). The initiative according to press reports will cost CPS $30 million a year, and will be completely funded using ARRA money (81). This means the initiative will have no clear funding source beyond 2011. The initiative will offer intensive mentoring and a job to for approximately 250 students most at-risk of being victims, Youth Advocacy Programs (YAP) Inc., a Pennsylvania-based group has been contracted to carry out the mentoring part of the initiative (82). The mentors or “youth advocates” are on call 24/7 and will be required to spend sixteen or more hours a week with their assigned at-risk students. Each youth advocate will be assigned only 4 students (83). The advocates are to work “with the student’s family and links them to assistance and support services.” (84). The advocates are to meet with these students’ principals and other “school officials” on a weekly basis. The advocates are also required to intervene on behalf of the students with social service agencies, law enforcement agencies, and the juvenile justice system when necessary.

The total budget for the YAP advocate program is $5 million for one year, including training of advocates, recruitment of advocates, and supervision of advocates. The CPS contract with YAP does not establish any minimal educational requirement for a youth advocate, nor does it require that these advocates be residents of Chicago. Given the advocate to student ratio established by CPS in its contract with YAP, the total cost for each advocate will be about $80,000 a year. These at-risk students are to be “routinely assessed by social workers and counselors to monitor progress and needs.” (85).

In order for this monitoring to take place, 38 high schools that at are higher risk where students are at higher risk are to have increased staffing of social workers and counselors (86). The initiative according to press reports will include a proposal to create a culture of calm in schools with statistically higher-than-expected levels of violence. The CPS has told the media it has received detailed plans for each of the 38 schools it plans to target (87). The initiative also involves creating a safe passage for student to walk to and from schools, because students sometimes face the prospect of crossing gang boundaries. Part of the plan for two of the 38 schools includes implementation of the Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) program under the supervision of a contracted licensed clinical psychologist (88). CBITS is a skills-based, child group intervention that is aimed at relieving symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and general anxiety among children exposed to multiple forms of trauma (89). The program is not designed to address the needs of students clinically identified with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorders.

While Access Living supports any process for reducing violence in schools particularly against students with disabilities, and supports putting in place supports for students who have disabilities that may make them statistically more likely to be both perpetrators and victims of violence we can not support this being done outside the existing framework of special education regulations. Our first concern is that CPS is not effectively carrying out its legal obligation to seek out and find CPS students who are seriously emotionally disturbed, particularly students exhibiting characteristics of oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorders. In the chart below we give the percentage of the entire enrollment of CPS identified emotionally disturbed students for the last four years.

Access Living Chart 4.Is there reason to believe that there should be a higher incidence of emotionally disturbed students in CPS? Our answer to that question is yes. While the CPS identification rate of students with emotional disturbance is consistent with national rates, it is low for a school district with high levels of poverty and violence (90). Although mental health researchers estimate that up to 19% of the national urban student population exhibit symptoms of serious emotional disturbance, less than one percent of CPS students are identified and referred for the necessary support services. Data on the number of poor children receiving mental health services in Illinois indicates numerous CPS students are not being identified for emotional disturbance.91 A 1996 DePaul University/Ounce of Prevention NIMH-funded study of 2000 Chicago inner-city African-American adolescents found that 25% of these youth were at high risk for clinical depression, but up to 46% of these youth demonstrated signs and symptoms of depression. The majority of these youth had not previously been evaluated or treated by a mental health professional (92).

Members of a children’s mental health working group that included a former CPS Chief Specialized Services Officer, the head of CPS psychological services, and the CPS director of pupil support services in 2001 made this candid statement: “Currently, screening and identification systems in schools are inadequate to assist the group of children and youth in need of mental health support. Few, if any, schools implement a systematic method of screening. Those that do often are unable to meet the treatment needs for those children identified as having mental health problems.” (93). We know that Chicago’s minority children are disproportionately poor, and poverty is associated with higher rates of exposure to harmful toxins, including lead, alcohol, and tobacco, in early stages of development. Poor children are also more likely to be born with low birth weight, to have poorer nutrition, and to have home and child care environments that are less supportive of early cognitive and emotional development than students from middle class backgrounds. When poverty is deep and persistent, the number of risk factors rises, seriously jeopardizing development. While the separate effect of each of these factors on school achievement and performance is less than clear, substantial differences by race/ethnicity on a variety of dimensions of school preparedness are documented at kindergarten entry (94).

Children and adolescents who do not receive the services they need often have continued difficulty functioning as adults. Youth who do not receive appropriate services are also predisposed to a lack of employment options, reliance on public assistance, incarceration, and homelessness. Research has shown that the most effective way to help students with emotional disturbance is through a service model that is comprehensive, collaborative, and coordinated-in other words, a service model that focuses on the child and family, includes different types of services from many different agencies, and includes providers from different fields who work together to address the needs of each child individually. These services, often called "wraparound services," can be effective in attaining desired outcomes, such as reducing the number of out-of-home placements and psychiatric hospitalizations experienced by students (95).

As the CPS anti-violence initiative currently is evolving far too much responsibility is being placed on youth advocates to facilitate wraparound services and it is unclear if these advocates will even be able to refer students for special education assessments. If CPS wants to implement a Safety and Security Strategy that will be effective it must address the multiplicity of problems relating to services to students with emotional disturbance and the appropriate identification of these students. The new initiative while it is a step in the correct direction does not address the problems that exist with CPS’s special education system.

Recommendations relating to the CPS FY2010 budget

-- That CPS provide to the public information on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of all CPS reading intervention programs for students with disabilities in schools, that are utilizing these programs. -- That CPS authorize an independent study of special education expenditures and allocations of special education funds to schools as Access Living has requested for the past two years.

-- That the CPS Chief Performance Officer oversee the creation of frameworks for the measurement of each school’s effectiveness in delivering services to students with disabilities.

-- That CPS provide the public with detailed budget information for charter and contract schools.

-- That the Chicago Board of Education re-establishes a budget or audit subcommittee.

-- That ISBE monitor effectively the special education portion of the educational services block grant it provides to CPS yearly. Even though the law that created the block grant currently prohibits ISBE from making CPS file any claim or documentation to get these special education funds, it does not prohibit ISBE from requiring that CPS document its special education expenditures for which the State paid. Access Living is opposed to the State of Illinois requiring CPS to have a one year delay in receiving special education reimbursements as do all other districts in Illinois, because this would create a significant funding crisis for CPS that would not improve services for students with disabilities. We are not opposed to ISBE imposing on CPS far stricter accounting standards linked to actual staffing in schools and current special education student counts. We are opposed to ISBE attempting to recoup special education funds from CPS for any irregularities because that would in no way improve the education of special education students.

-- That CPS not use ARRA IDEA Part B dollars in FY 2011 to pay special education teachers salaries and benefits. The utilization of ARRA funds in FY 2010 to pay the salaries of existing special education teachers will not improve student achievement through school improvement and reform. CPS needs to allocate these funds in the next budget in a manner to improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

-- That the expenditures for the CPS Safety and Security Strategy be clearly established in the CPS budget. Any initiative to reduce violence among high school students must include a strong component of improved special education services to students with disabilities who according to CPS are disproportionately96 impacted by violence.

Footnotes:

1. See public comments made by R. Estvan relating to 09-0826-RS at public participation section of the August 26, 2009 CPS Board meeting.

2. See Schmidt, G. S. (October 20, 2009) Substance newspaper.

3. FY2010 budget at pages 17 and 18 (print version).

4. The primary driver of this increase in cost has been compensation of staff and cost related to privately placed students.

5. FY1998 budget at page 78.

6. All data comes from CPS filings to the US District Court in the Corey H case and was captured on June 1st of each year.

7. Rossi, R. and Spielman, F. (August 11, 2009) Chicago Sun Times. FY 2010 Budget at page 5 (print version)

8. Karp, S. (2009, August 17) “Chicago school officials release details on budget cuts, and some cuts will affect students” Catalyst on line. http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/

9. Sadovi, C. (2008, July 24) “Chicago school officials to dip into reserves to fund budget” Chicago Tribune.

10. Mr. Huberman in a letter accompanying the FY 2010 budget stated the reason for limiting the tax increase was because of economic “challenges” taxpayers were facing in the economic downturn. 11. Rossi R. and Spielman F (August 11, 2009) Chicago Sun Times. 12. See for example Sadovi, C. (March 12, 2009) “Chicago School leaders say tax hike is likely” Chicago Tribune.

13. Secter, B (October 27, 2009) “Double-digit property tax increases in city, Cook County, suburbs” Chicago Tribune.

14. FY09 Budget at page 53.

15. CPS policy 404.1 allows for the issuance of debt for “cash flow needs.” 16. ISBE District Report Cards 2002 and 2009.

17. These compensation figures are based on elementary and high school based compensation figures in the reports contained in the respective CPS budgets for appropriation by fund category “special education.” Staff included both certified and non certified positions.

18. FY 2010 Budget page 68 (print version).

19. The Civic Federation of Chicago (August 25, 2009) “Chicago Public School’s FY2010 Recommended Budget analysis and recommendations” p. 17.

20. FY 2010 Budget page 297 (print version). 21. August 17, 2009 budget hearing response from Christina Herzog CPS Budget Officer to question on charter school expenditures.

22. Karp, S. (2009, August 17) “Chicago school officials release details on budget cuts, and some cuts will affect students” Catalyst on line. http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/ 23. CPS FY 2010 Budget CD Rom files “Schools and school-based detail by Fund pdf page 111.

24. Renaissance 2010 RFP (May 2009) page 18.

25. This is based on 285 teachers at $65,000 per teacher. 26. CPS Board Report 09-0325-ED3, March 25, 2009. CPS Board Report 09-0624-ED15, June 24, 2009. The total number of students sent to these schools is not revealed in the Board reports. Year to year comparisons are not possible.

27. CPS Board Report 09-0527-ED6, May 27, 2009.

28. CPS Board Report 09-0722-EX11 is one example.

29. FY2010 budget page 68 (print edition)

30. August 17, 2009 budget hearing response from Christina Herzog CPS Budget Officer to question on charter school expenditures.

31. Renaissance 2010 RFP (May 2009) page 18.

32. Communication from CPS budget to R. Estvan 8/24/09. It is unclear if this count includes 22 teachers from CPS Unit 11670 city wide special education assigned to charter schools in the FY2010 budget.

33. Communication from CPS budget to R. Estvan 8/20/09 34. CPS budget office email to R. Estvan August 6, 2008.

35. Communication from Rod Estvan to CPS budget 8/21/09.

36. Communication from CPS budget to R. Estvan 8/24/09 37. Sadovi, C. (March 5, 2009) :”Backers of special-needs school protest staff cuts.” Chicago Tribune.

38. This information was included in a CD that accompanied the proposed CPS FY2010 budget.

39. This data can be found on the attached CD under “Schools and School-Based Detail by All Funds” pdf page 93.

40. Communication from CPS budget to R. Estvan 8/24/09

41. We are using the average CPS teacher salary for 2009 of $67,589 which can be found in the ISBE district report card for CPS. We used 53.51% of the base salary as the benefit package. The current determination of the benefit package is discussed in footnote 47. 42. See footnote 43 below on this information sent to Access Living by CPS.

43. CPS provided Substance data on 51,039 positions and summary data by job titles.

44. CPS (October 30, 2009) “FY2010 School-Based Special Education Teacher Entitlements Full-Time Equivalents by Unit and Job Code” Excel spread sheet emailed to R. Estvan.

45. On August 24, 2009 CPS emailed Access Living with a total of 239 special education teacher positions in charters on October 23, 2009 we were provided from CPS a total of 283 positions in charter schools. 46. CPS defined other as follows: “additional teacher positions at schools with a high concentration of students with disabilities. These additional positions include general education teachers, counselors, art/music teachers, physical education teachers, and librarians.” 47. Average salary for assistant principals was taken from FOIA data provided to Substance. Average teacher’s salary was based on the 2008 average for CPS teachers of $67,589 plus a total benefit package totaling 53.51% of base salary. Benefit percentage was based on the FOIA data provided to Substance. The high cost of benefits is driven by P.A. 89-15, the minimum contribution to the Teachers’ Pension Fund is required to be an amount determined to bring the total assets of the Fund up to 90% of the total actuarial liabilities by the end of FY2045. The required CPS contribution is calculated as a level percentage of payroll over the years through FY2045. The calculation for determining the CPS required contribution is the total amount of the employer contribution less additional state appropriations, additional CPS appropriations and other employer appropriations.

48. Office of Specialized Services End of Year Report For School year ending 2004, p. 134.

49. Board Report 08-0227-RS15 Feburary 27, 2008.

50. Board Report 09 – 0325 - RS3. 51. Illinois State Board of Education (December 2008) Educator Supply and Demand in Illinois.

52. On wwwincschools.org/jobshtml the web site for the Illinois Network of Charter Schools numerous schools were still looking for certified special education teachers after the opening of the school year. 53. Access Living FOIA to ISBE, September 14, 2009.

54. ISBE response to Access Living FOIA, September 22, 2009.

55. September 23, 2009 E-mail request from R. Estvan to Paul Williams ISBE External Assurance Division. 56. Illinois State Board of Education (July 31, 2009) “Corey H. District-Wide Findings – 2008-09 School Year” page 23. 57. Ibid.

58. http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/At-a-glance/Pages /Stats%20and %20facts.aspx

59. Illinois State Board of Education (July 31, 2009) “Corey H. District-Wide Findings – 2008-09 School Year” pages 15-16.

60. Lorraine Lewis (December 18, 2001) Final Audit Report ED-OIG/A05-B0023 US Department of Education Office of Inspector General.

61. An example is the FY06 CAFR at page 150.

62. The criteria to be considered a low risk auditee can be found in section 530 of Circular A-133 (Federal Register June 27, 2003) 63. These materials are the OSS High School Audit Report form, high school audit – detailed position information form, and “audit instructions.”

64. CPS budget office communication to R. Estvan August 06, 2008.

65. CPS FY2010 CPS BUDGET REDUCTIONS excel spread sheet attached to article by Sarah Karp (August 17, 2009 ) Catalyst Notebook blog post. 66. See CPS Board Report 09—0826-EX22.

67. Ahmed, A, Huppke, R. (September 28, 2009) “Chicago flunks when it comes to special ed” Chicago Tribune.

68. FY 2010 budget at page 53.

69. CPS budget office communication to R Estvan August 20, 2009.

70. The IDEA provision on maintenance of effort deals with only actual dollars not costs. Therefore, as long as a school district does not reduce the real dollar amount the provision is not applied. Since CPS did not increase revenues to meet costs for special education it could use ARRA part B dollars to cover the deficit without provoking the provision. 71. Estvan, R. (April 2009) “Renaissance 2010 and Students with Disabilities” Access Living. 72. FY 2010 budget at page 71 (print version).

73. FY 2009 budget at page 100 (print version)

74. US Department of Education Office of Inspector General (June 7, 2007) “Letter to Illinois Superintendent of Schools” control number ED-OIG/AG5G0033 p.9.

75. These counts come from CPS filings in the Corey H. case. The cost per student was calculated by dividing the special education student count by the total special education costs listed on the CPS budget table titled “Distribution of appropriation by major fund categories and unit groups.”

76. All gap data comes from 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009 State Report Cards for District 299.

77. Results for students with disabilities in the CPS striving readers program have been particularly disappointing. See Jonathan Tunik (January 2009) “Chicago Public Schools Striving Readers Initiative Year Two Evaluation Report” Metis Associates. CPS received a $24.5 million reading grant for 32 Chicago public elementary schools. The grant, which will run from March 2006 to December 2010, is one of eight awarded nationwide and the largest amount received by a single district. CPS students with disabilities attending these 32 schools showed no significant improvement in reading.

78. CPS (September 3, 2009) “Safety and Security Strategy” Power Point presentation. 79. CPS (September 3, 2009) “Safety and Security Strategy” Power Point presentation slide 9. CPS submitted to US District Court on October 2, 2009 data that as of June 1, 2009 the percentage of CPS high school students with identified disabilities was 15.47% [Case 1:92-cv-03409 Document 646-2 Filed 10/02/2009 Page 3 of 26]. The CPS power point presentation incorrectly gave the percentage of CPS high school students with identified disabilities as 18%.

80. Saulny, S. (October 8, 2009) “2 from cabinet to meet on Chicago youth violence” New York Times.

81. While the CPS FY 2010 budget never discussed this new initiative it would appear to be funded out of the ARRA Title I grant which CPS indicated in the FY 2010 would equal $260.7 million.

82. CPS Board report 09-0923-PR27.

83. CPS Board report 09-0923-PR27

84. CPS (September 3, 2009) “Safety and Security Strategy” Power Point presentation slide 10.

85. Ibid. 86. CPS (September 3, 2009) “Safety and Security Strategy” Power Point presentation slide 21. 87. Ahmed, A (September 22, 2009) “Chicago school violence: District rushes to put anti-violence plan in place as gunfire claims new victims.” Chicago Tribune. CPS has not revealed the names of the 38 schools or provided copies of the detailed plans to the public.

88. CPS Board Report 09-0923-PR27

89. Jaycox, L.H (2003) CBITS: Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools, Sopris West.

90. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, selected years, 1977 through 2006, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) database, retrieved August 1, 2008, from http://www.idea data.org/PartBdata.asp. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Statistics of Public Elementary and Secondary School Systems, 1976–77 through 1980–81, and Common Core of Data (CCD), “State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education,” 1981–82 through 2006–07.

91. Illinois 2008 Mental Health National Outcome Measures (NOMS): CMHS Uniform Reporting System. 92. Study cited in Mental Health for Children Working Group (March 2001) WHITE PAPER ON MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH IN ILLINOIS, http://www.oism.cps. k12.il.us /pdf/oss/ WHITE_PAPER_7.1_ Final.pdf

93. Mental Health for Children Working Group (March 2001) WHITE PAPER ON MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH IN ILLINOIS page 8.

94. Report of the National Research Council Panel on Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10128.html. Donovan, M. S., & Cross, C. T. (Eds.) (2002). Minority students in special and gifted education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

95. Center on Mental Health Services Research and Policy University of Illinois at Chicago. 96 Access Living, 115 West Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60654

Rodney D. Estvan M.Ed., restvan@accessliving.org 

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