Private contract meant to revolutionize special ed system lasted just months
D.C. school officials gave $2.3 million to a Pennsylvania firm to help the schools fight their special education crisis, only to scrap the contract within months, The Examiner has learned.
The city’s contract with Columbus Educational Services was supposed to help D.C. rehabilitate its $300 million-plus education system by bringing in an outside consulting firm that would rapidly respond to the needs of disabled or ill children.
But Columbus “never hired the number of staff anticipated,” suffered from “internal management shortcomings” and was subject to “inadequate management and oversight” by city officials, a federal court monitor reported last week.
Instead of shrinking, the District’s backlog of unresolved special education cases ballooned by 811, court monitor Amy Totenberg reported.
Federal law sets tight deadlines for testing and treating children for disabilities. But the city has been subject to a class-action lawsuit filed by parents who say their children are languishing in an indifferent system. Both sides are due in court today.
Totenberg’s filing, first reported by The Examiner this week, is a blow to Mayor Adrian Fenty and his school chancellor, Michelle Rhee. The administration announced amid tremendous fanfare last fall that it was revolutionizing the special education system with private contracts like the Columbus deal.
But Totenberg’s report called the city’s efforts “beyond ambitious” and listed in painstaking details debacles such as the Columbus contract.Although her report was written diplomatically and in legalese, it accuses Rhee and Fenty of losing focus of reform efforts.
Rhee declined comment. Her spokeswoman didn’t respond to requests for comment, and neither did Columbus. The consulting firm continues to be paid, city records show.
For many parents, the bad news from the special education system was disheartening but not surprising.
“They don’t do anything unless you sue them,” said Jackie Pinckney-Hackett, a former Fenty administration official who has battled the schools for decades on behalf of her learning-disabled son, Christopher, now 18. “The culture of D.C. schools is it’s OK to fail our special needs children.”
Pinckney-Hackett was part of the administration’s early efforts to reform the schools. But she said she was quickly disillusioned. “They thought they understood from the outside what needed to be done,” Pinckney-Hackett said. “Once they got in, they said, ‘Oh, my God.’ They’ve bitten off more than they could chew.”
