Dear Mr. Zimmerman,
I write in response to your May 6th Chalkbeat article discussing the growing costs associated with special education tuition reimbursement in New York City and the racial inequities that exist within the process.
The article raises serious concerns that deserve thoughtful discussion. It is true that many families, particularly lower-income families, Black and Latino families, immigrant families, and families without access to private evaluations, lawyers, credit, or institutional knowledge, face significant barriers in accessing educational opportunities for children with disabilities. That inequity is real and should concern all of us.
But we must also be honest about something else:
The solution is not to weaken tuition reimbursement rights or continue fighting parents who are simply trying to secure an appropriate education for their child.
The right to tuition reimbursement exists because federal law recognizes that when a public school system fails to provide a child with a Free Appropriate Public Education (“FAPE”), parents must have a remedy. That remedy was established by the United States Supreme Court decades ago under Burlington and Carter. It was never intended to benefit only wealthy families. It was intended to protect children with disabilities from being trapped in programs that cannot meet their needs.
Private school tuition cases are not the cause of New York City’s special education crisis. They exist because the public school system has failed.
The racial disparity identified in the article is real and deeply troubling. But it should not be used as an argument to weaken tuition funding remedies. It should be recognized as evidence that New York City has built an enforcement system that is easier to access if a family has money, legal knowledge, private evaluations, flexible work time, access to credit, and access to a school willing to wait for payment.
The answer is not to restrict the remedy, but to fix the public system so fewer families need to litigate in the first place.
New York City cannot point to racial disparities in Carter data as though those disparities exist in a vacuum. The City’s own delays in implementing hearing orders and paying schools are part of what makes the remedy less accessible to low-income families and families of color. If a school cannot rely on the DOE to pay promptly after an order, fewer schools can afford to float tuition. And if fewer schools can float tuition, then the remedy becomes available primarily to families with cash, credit, or unusual access to a school willing to take that risk.
For years, New York City has approached special education through a defensive litigation model rather than a proactive educational one. The City spends enormous sums litigating against parents, paying outside counsel, DOE attorneys, hearing officers, experts, administrative staff, and years of appeals, while simultaneously arguing that there is not enough money to build appropriate programs inside public schools.
That approach is backwards.
The financial reality is this: educating a student with significant needs in a New York City public school is already extraordinarily expensive. A specialized 6:1:1 classroom with a full-time paraprofessional, related services, transportation, administrative oversight, occupational therapy, speech therapy, counseling, and behavioral support can easily cost the DOE well in excess of $150,000 per student annually, and in some cases substantially more. Yet despite these expenditures, many students still do not receive meaningful educational benefit.
At the same time, the City continues to spend millions upon millions litigating claims that often could have been resolved through early settlement, programmatic reform, or direct educational investment.
If New York City genuinely wants to reduce special education costs and improve equity, there are far better solutions available than attacking tuition reimbursement rights.
Here are a few:
Stop Over-Litigating Cases
Many hearings could be avoided entirely through earlier settlements and more collaborative resolution practices. Every fully litigated case requires attorneys, hearing officers, motion practice, testimony, evaluations, appeals, and administrative staffing. Those costs add up quickly.
Reducing unnecessary litigation would save the City significant funds that could instead be directed toward classrooms and services.
More importantly, earlier resolution would reduce the harm to children. A child who needs an appropriate placement, speech therapy, counseling, occupational therapy, reading intervention, or behavioral support cannot wait years while adults litigate.
Children do not get their developmental years back.
Create More High-Quality Public Programs
Programs such as ASD Nest, Horizon, AIMS, and ACES demonstrate that New York City can create strong public school options when resources, staffing, and training are prioritized properly.
Why shouldn’t every district have ample access to programs like these?
Why shouldn’t every elementary school have literacy-based intervention classrooms utilizing evidence-based methodologies?
“Bringing students back” cannot simply be a budget slogan. It has to mean real capacity: trained staff, specialized programs, small enough classes, related services, behavioral supports, evidence-based literacy instruction, and placements that can actually implement the IEP.
Invest in Reading Instruction Early
One of the most preventable educational failures in New York City is the delayed identification and remediation of reading disabilities.
Every public school should have:
- Orton-Gillingham-based reading instruction beginning in early elementary school
- Teachers certified in structured literacy methodologies
- Early screening for dyslexia and language-based learning disabilities
- Intensive intervention before children fall years behind
- Meaningful progress monitoring so families do not have to wait until a child is in crisis
By second grade, schools already know which children are struggling to read. Waiting until middle school to intervene is both educationally harmful and financially irresponsible.
Far too many tuition reimbursement cases begin with years of ignored warning signs: a child who cannot decode, cannot write, cannot access the curriculum, and is promoted from grade to grade without receiving the instruction they need. By the time the family reaches due process, the child has often lost years.
Expand Access, Not Bureaucracy
If policymakers are truly concerned about inequity, then the answer is to expand access to educational choice, not reduce it.
There should be mechanisms that allow lower-income families to access appropriate placements without years of litigation. Voucher systems, direct funding models, or streamlined administrative pathways could dramatically reduce legal costs while increasing fairness and accessibility.
The racial gap in Carter funding is not evidence that the remedy is illegitimate. It is evidence that New York City has made enforcement of special education rights too dependent on race, wealth, legal access, credit, and the ability to wait out DOE delay.
The answer is not to take away Carter or Connors relief.
The answer is to make DOE provide FAPE on the front end and when it fails, to make the remedy timely, accessible, and real for every family.
Pay and Train Teachers Properly
No reform effort will succeed unless New York City aggressively recruits, trains, and retains highly qualified special education teachers and related service providers.
We cannot continue expecting classrooms to succeed while schools face:
- chronic staffing shortages,
- provider vacancies,
- inconsistent implementation of IEPs,
- insufficient training in evidence-based methodologies; and
- a lack of meaningful support for teachers working with students with complex needs.
Children with disabilities should not lose educational years because the system cannot maintain staffing stability.
If New York City wants to reduce private tuition spending, it must reduce meritorious claims. That means timely evaluations, appropriate IEPs, appropriate placements, evidence-based reading instruction, enough related-service providers, functioning bilingual services, and prompt implementation of orders.
Restricting remedies does not create public capacity.
Parents Are Not the Enemy
Let me be clear:
Parents are not the enemy of public education.
Most families would gladly choose an appropriate public school program if one genuinely met their child’s needs. Families do not pursue litigation because they want conflict. They do so because their child has one childhood, one educational timeline, and no ability to recover lost developmental years.
The City should not use equity language to justify restricting remedies. Equity means that all families have the same practical ability to enforce IDEA that wealthy families have.
The answer to inequity is not fewer protections.
The answer is better schools, earlier intervention, meaningful literacy instruction, qualified teachers, and a system that prioritizes educational outcomes over litigation strategy.
Special education should never become a political talking point about budgets while ignoring the human reality underneath it: these are children.
And children do not get their years back.
Sincerely,
Regina
