Dalton’s counting on the federal election to fly way under the radar on any kind of accountability on the education file. Of that we can be certain.

The model of the funding model, allows the ability of boards not to target their funds for the specific population. Looking at SE alone, steady increases in funding are apparent.

From the Ministry of Education - a document reports for the year 2006 to 2007.

Students formally identified as exceptional by an IPRC - 198385
Student not formally identified as exceptional by an IPRC, but still receiving SE services - 94583
A total of 292968 students for the year 2006 to 2007.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/speced_gap_paper.pdf

People for Education reported in their 2010 report that SE students identified and the non-identified receiving SE services have increase to 15 % of the student population.

http://www.peopleforeducation.com/annualreport/ONpublicschools2010

That is a jump about 2 %, from the starting year of 2006 to 2007. I could not find any other stats on the number of students that are receiving SE services, but P4E has reported that 30 % of schools are reporting that some SE students are not receiving any SE services, which is down from 39 % in the year 2003 to 2004.

One can assume, that there has been a steady increase of students being either formally identified or informally identified taking part in SE services since 2003 to 2004 based on the funding formula for Special Education, when one looks at the steady increases in the SE grants at the board level.  Going back to the 2006 -2007 figures, and the amount of monies in the SE grant, a total of
2, 003,504,920, divided by the total number of students receiving SE services, the amount per student spent is $6839 dollars. Further add another 2 % additional students from the 2010 P4E report, and brings the total of SE students for 2010, 298827 students. Amount per SE student for the year 2010 spent is $7517 dollars.

It is obvious here that there is something wrong with this picture. For that kind of money, every identified SE child, should be receiving a quality education, that is over and above the regular student allocation. So where is the money going to?  I have no idea where it is going to, besides the obvious things such as salaries, but parents in BC have been complaining loud and clear, that SE funds are not reaching their children, and the funds need to be track by the ministry, to ensure funds are being targeted for the education of SE children.

Back to the Ministry of Education Link, another reason could be that the money is being redirected to the regular classroom, since that is where most of the SE children are located, thanks largely to inclusive policies.

Of course the progressive policies don’t help either and probably promotes the diversion of SE funding for other purposes than the direct education of a SE student.

“Research Trends and Capacity Building
RESEARCH OVERVIEW / CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

Pedagogical philosophy of John Abbot:

Holds the belief that school is only a part of the learning process,
Is grounded in studies in cognitive research
Sees students as natural learners
Encourages teachers to try to impart independent learning on students

Abbot’s six policy considerations:

1) Weaning students off intensive reliance on the teacher and guide them toward becoming active learners with a vested interest in their own educational success
2) As students mature, teachers should see formal instruction as something to avoid and instead rely on teaching students to teach themselves
3) Professional development should be seen as a continuous process with ideally 10% of staffing expenditure devoted to it
4) Community resources should be opened up
5) Information technologies should be used to close the gap between those who can afford it and those who cannot
6) Appropriate assessment systems to gauge these new models of learning should be implemented and disseminated within the community”

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/speced_gap_paper.pdf

The numbers just do not add up, to the reality, that SE students are receiving less services, and doing less work on the educational component in reading, writing and numeracy.