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LRLC Executive Director Janeen Steel responds to LAUSD's Comments in June 3, 2010 LA Times Article:
The Los Angeles Times article “Disabled students losing 200 classes” by Howard Blume on Thursday, June 3, 2010 was troubling. As the Executive Director of Learning Rights Law Center, I was shocked at the overt discriminatory statements made by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Ramone C. Cortines, “You have to look at it in perspective, when you fund some of the special ed things, you’re taking from regular kids.” Over the past 10 years, I have been representing low-income students with disabilities throughout Los Angeles and have seen the disparity in treatment and discrimination first hand.
Cortines makes clear that there are two separate and very different classes of students at LAUSD, “regular kids” and special needs students. Are children with special needs abnormal? It is estimated that 10% of the population has a disability. School funding is not an us versus them scenario – all children must be treated equally regardless of disability, race, or class. Disabilities must be accommodated and that is just a normal part of doing business as a school, not an exceptional burden.
Cortines’ outdated paradigm of disability as “other” harkens back to the troubling racial beliefs of the late 1800s. In 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Plessy v. Ferguson that “[i]f one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.” Would Cortines have us return to the politics of 1896? Thankfully, enlightenment came 60 years later in Brown et.al. v. Board of Education which overruled Plessy and held that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place” for it is “inherently unequal.”
Our ideas about differences among people fortunately have changed drastically since then, as has our perception of the place of law in our society. We now expect that our leaders and laws will work to eliminate discrimination and inequality in our society. Our current laws state that “[d]isability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society. Improving educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.”
Funding has always been used as an excuse for discrimination. Segregationists used funding as an excuse to oppose and delay the integration of African American children in public schools and, while this is no longer a politically correct position to take with regard to race, apparently LAUSD believes it remains an acceptable position towards children with disabilities.
In 1972 Mills v Board of Education of the District of Columbia et. al spearheaded the federal protections for children with disabilities. The court stated regarding the funding: “If sufficient funds are not available to finance all of the services and programs that are needed and desirable in the system then the available funds must be expended equitably in such a manner that no child is entirely excluded from a publicly supported education consistent with his needs and ability to benefit therefrom. The inadequacies of the…Public School System whether occasioned by insufficient funding or administrative inefficiency, certainly cannot be permitted to bear more heavily on the “exceptional” or handicapped child.”
We must not tolerate the discriminatory actions of the people charged to educate the students in the public school system. Let’s not erase the good that took over a century to accomplish.
LRLC Executive Director Janeen Steel quoted in October 2009 California Lawyers Magazine:
Below is an excerpt from the article "Up Against It: Caught Between Growing Demand and Diminishing Resources, Legal Non-Profits Get Creative." Click here to read the full article.
Similarly, the Learning Rights Law Center (LRLC) in Los Angeles has also seen a huge jump in demand for its legal services in securing education for special-needs children. This is due not only to the recession's impact on school funding, but also to a rise in diagnoses of certain health conditions, such as autism. For example, in 2000 14,039 California students were receiving special education because of autism, says Executive Director Janeen Steel. But by 2008 that figure had more than tripled, rising to 46,196.
LRLC is part of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership, a network of groups that integrate legal assistance into medical settings. As such, it helps Los Angelenos with education-access difficulties, which are often linked to health problems such as autism, cancer, or deafness.
"We have a small staff and always have a [client] waiting list," says Steel, adding that LRLC's five lawyers began the spring with a backlog of about 150 intakes. "And now we're seeing a doubling in requests."
But Steel has met that challenge with a slew of ideas. To save money she has brought grant writing in-house, sending staff to free training seminars. In addition, she turned to email to send out updates about LRLC's latest activities—such as Steel's March testimony to Congress about education for at-risk youth—saving the $1,000 it previously spent to print and mail newsletters.
LRLC has also used inexpensive, so-called Web 2.0 technologies to raise its profile. "We're trying to use social networks to get the information out," says Steel. "And there is no cost to Facebook." Plus, last year Steel hired five law-student clerks after she started teaching at UCLA School of Law.
But staff training is one thing Steel won't scrimp on. "We are investing the same amount in professional development this year," she says. "Everyone has been touched by the economy. But it is so important that our staff [be] supported. We need really good attorneys."
More Needs to Be Done to Guarantee Quality Education for At-Risk Youth, Learning Rights Tells House Subcommittees
Watch Slide Show From Official Committee Website
Janeen Steel, foreground, preparing to testify before Congress on March 12, 2009
Learning Rights Law Center is a nonprofit legal services organization whose mission is to ensure education equity for all students. Learning Rights focuses on students in the K-12 school system, including children who are in the foster care and juvenile systems.
“We can’t afford for any of our children or at-risk youth to fall through the cracks. Addressing the educational needs of students from the beginning of a child’s school career is not only economically sound, but it is simply the right thing to do,” said U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), the chair of the Healthy Families and Communities Subcommittee.
“Families and educators alike are concerned that instead of addressing the individualized needs of children, these alternative schools are pushing students out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice system.” said U.S. Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-VA), the chair of the House Crime Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee. “The school system has become a gateway into the juvenile justice system through disciplinary policies such as 'zero tolerance' that require school suspension, expulsion, and arrest for an increasing number of common student behaviors and rule violations. All students must have a challenging curriculum that will prepare them to pass state standardized tests and in many states allow them to graduate from high school.”
As witnesses explained today, letting at-risk students slip through the cracks poses severe economic losses to society. The economic cost of losing a single student, for example, is $2.2 million over a lifetime.
On January 3, 2008, Learning Rights and Janeen Steel were highlighted in an article in the South Bay's Daily Breeze. Janeen was quoted: "The statistics are that so many families are not getting what they need in special education and end up in litigation."
Click here to read about Alicia Minana, LRLC Chair, and Janeen Steel, Executive Director, in the Spring 2007 UCLA Law Alumni Magazine.
Oversight for these alternative programs varies largely by state, county and school district – making it unclear if at-risk youth are receiving the same quality of education as they would in traditional schools. Consistent regulations are needed to make sure that students can transition more smoothly between alternative education facilities and traditional schools – or that students don’t fall through the cracks.
Witnesses also explained today that early identification and assessments of problems of these students are crucial to make their time in these facilities successful.
Press Release March 12, 2009 3:45 PM WASHINGTON, D.C. – Janeen Steel, Executive Director of Learning Rights Law Center, expressed concern at a joint hearing of the Healthy Families and Communities Subcommittee and the Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee in Washington D.C. over what she sees daily in her representation of at risk and foster youth in Southern California. Ms. Steel gave moving testimony in which she shared her own troubled personal experience as a youth growing up in Los Angeles. Ms Steel, who graduated from UCLA Law after being finally diagnosed with a learning disability as an adult, astutely pointed out that she and the students she serves “are one in the same.”
“When working with youth placed in any alternative setting due to foster care placements or juvenile justice proceedings, urgency drives us to get them out as soon as possible. Priority one: These 'alternative' schools are really just warehouses for youth that society has not cared enough to invest in educating,” said Ms. Steel.