Excepts from the 2001 Annual Report of the Provincial Auditor of Ontario

Regarding Special Education

Parents of Special Needs children in Ontario will find it interesting to read some of the highlights of the 2001 Annual Report of the Provincial Auditor of Ontario regarding Special Education.

Overall Audit Conclusions

.presently, the Ministry and school boards do not have the information and processes to determine whether special education services are delivered effectively, efficiently, and in compliance with requirements. In particular the following was noted:

• The Individual Education Plans that schools are required to prepare for each student with special needs met neither the requirements of Regulation 181/98 under the Education Act nor the suggestions for good practice in the Ministry's Individual Education Plan (IEP) Resource Guide (1998).

This, despite the fact that IEP's were made a regulatory requirement in the province in 1998 and this audit was issued in 2001! To my knowledge the schools that failed to comply were not penalized in any manner. So much for accountability.

• Neither the Ministry nor the school boards had established the quality assurance processes necessary to assure compliance with the Act's requirements that all exceptional students have available to them appropriate programs and services and that they receive them in a timely manner.

• The Ministry's standards for school-board special education plans do not require that trustees establish measurable performance targets for school-board management so that their effectiveness in providing service to students with special needs can be determined.

Why can't we expect that the Ministry and its boards would require no less in terms of accountability than is required from say teaching personnel who have their periodic professional evaluations? If they fail to meet standards, goals and professional performance targets they are held responsible and accountable and there are potential consequences associated with their outcomes.

• The Ministry did not have procedures in place to ensure that school boards provide comparable and reliable information about their special education expenditure in order to facilitate meaningful analysis and support funding decisions.

In his 2003 book, Failing Our Kids, former B.C. Deputy Minister of Education, Charles Ungerleider comments on education matters across Canada. He tells us that "there are numerous instances of school boards using resources designated for one group of (special needs) youngsters to provide service to another group." He goes on to say that: "Learning assistance and special education have become growth industries for some cash-strapped school boards."