Sadly, this article in yesterday's Toronto Star isn't news to us.

[Patte Rosebank]

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/882080–3-provinces-get-failing-grade-for-special-education-report

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[Ivriniel]

From the article:

“Gary Wheeler said supports are often determined on a “case by case basis.” In addition, he said a special education grant can provide support regardless if a student is identified as having exceptionalities.”

As a teacher, I’m going to call Bullsh*t on this one. Admittedly, I’ve been out of Special Ed for a few years, but I had a self-contained Language Impairment class when the ISA grant system was introduced, and out of my eleven students only two actually met the criteria for being considered for ISA grants. In order to qualify for ISA grants kids with Learning Disabilities or Language Impairments had to have academic and behaviour problems to even be considered for additional funding and most of my kids just didn’t meet the criteria. Nevermind that the criteria to be in my class was that they be 5% or lower on the language portion of WISC (meaning that at least 95% of the population at their age had better language skills than they did.).

So if kids who have identified exceptionalities can’t get grants under the funding model, what are the chances that kids who have a condition that isn’t considered an exceptionality in Ontario are going to get anything?

And Janet Ecker used to love to boast that Harris Government was putting more money in Special Ed than any previous government. Well, gee, Ms. Ecker, could that have anything to do that prior to your Government, the Provincial Government didn’t fund education at all, as it came from local taxes? Technically speaking given school boards $1 for Special Ed would be more than any previous government.

Sorry, I digress, but that just really drove me nuts. And to be fair, the Liberals haven’t done much to fix the quagmire.

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