A bi-partisan measure making its way through the New Jersey Assembly would ban a growing practice that has school boards offering “merit pay” bonuses to school superintendents who reduce out of district special education placements.
According to the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, the most important consideration for special education is what’s best for the child. “That decision should never be clouded by an administrator’s personal financial stake in the outcome,” she said.
Casagrande introduced A-3997 after districts began awarding bonuses – sometimes in excess of $25,000 – for reducing the number of special education students in out-of-district placements. The practice effectively places a bounty on the heads of children with complex disabilities, and creates a direct cash incentive for the superintendent to get involved in placement decisions, a role that he or she does not have.
Decisions about placement are, by federal law, to be individualized and based on the needs of each child. They are to be made by parents and the Child Study Team, and are supposed to be made without consideration of cost.
While it is laudable, and in fact necessary, for New Jersey school districts to increase special education options at the local level, the solution is NOT for boards of education to incentivize superintendents to regulate special education placements for their own benefit.
The federal law, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that special education funding be “placement neutral.”
