Special-Ed Tuition a Growing Drain on D.C.

· The school system does not have a complete and accurate database of special education students -- a list of their names and the services each is entitled to -- which makes it difficult to check the accuracy of the bills that private schools submit. After looking at a sample of $10 million of payments, an audit by the city's chief financial officer found that $1 million involved cases in which the student's identity could not be confirmed or the list of required services was missing. School officials are planning to hire a consultant for $500,000 to identify the students whose tuition is being paid.

· There are no contracts between the school system and private schools, although several audits over the past five years have recommended that school officials negotiate such agreements to set limits on what the facilities can charge. The school board asked the D.C. Council this year to give the superintendent legal authority to set rates for services.

"The way it works now is a helter-skelter situation," said Ben Lorigo, who works in the office of the city's chief financial officer and oversaw two audits of the tuition payments. He said the city has been unable to control costs, hold private schools accountable or keep accurate spending records. Even after completing the audits in January, he could not be sure of the true amount spent on private tuition, he said.

The tuition spending figures in this story are based on a Washington Post database of payments made by the D.C. government since 2000 to each of the private schools that enroll D.C. students.

Lack of Resources

Children with learning disabilities make up nearly half of the District's more than 11,000 special education students. The next largest categories are emotionally disturbed, speech-impaired and mentally retarded children.

Like many school systems, the District has a goal of putting special education students in regular classes to the greatest extent possible. But such integration requires teacher training and support staff that D.C. public schools have not been able to provide. That has led many parents to seek enrollment in specialized private schools, where their children will be more isolated but are likely to receive far better services, children's advocates say.

"We have a lot of students who don't want to go to private schools, who want to go to their neighborhood schools," said Susan E. Sutler, an advocate who runs a law clinic. But "teachers don't have training or resources," she said. "They have a classroom with children with a variety of disabilities, and the classes are so big. They cannot meet the needs of the kids."

Miranda Brown felt the pain of being integrated into classes in which she had no chance to succeed. Brown, 16, who has a hearing impairment and learning disability, moved to the District when she was in seventh grade and was put in regular classes at Evans Middle School for several subjects. Unable to hear the teacher, she fell hopelessly behind. As her grades dropped, she became frustrated and eventually was suspended for fighting and outbursts, she said.

"They'd put me out of the class and send me to the principal," Brown said. "The school didn't give me a lot of help."

Explaining that they were short-staffed, officials at Evans never held a meeting to set up the individual education plan that all disabled children are entitled to receive, said Brown's mother, Mary Parker. So Parker filed a complaint, and a hearing officer ordered the District to send Brown to Accotink Academy in Springfield.

Brown, who has a shy smile and wants to be a beautician, is finishing her second year at the private school, where her grades have improved. She is in classes of no more than five or six students, compared with 20 at Evans, and has a one-on-one aide at all times. The District has spent $133,100 on her education at the academy, an unusually high figure because of how far behind she was and the amount of help she needs, Accotink officials said.

Herbert Douglas also was sent to Accotink after nearly completing 12th grade at Ballou Senior High School in Southeast. Douglas, a learning-disabled student, discovered that because Ballou had not given him instructors certified to teach the core subjects, he was far short of the credits needed for graduation.