Before you privatize special ed...

Farming out special ed? First check out New York's experience with privatization. Here's the findings of the first of 18 audits being conducted by the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, of the preschool special education program, a $2 billion system that relies almost exclusively on private contractors, many of them for-profit companies, to deliver services to 3- and 4-year-olds. 

NYT reports that companies employing “special education itinerant teachers,” who provide individual instruction at homes, day-care centers or preschools, can charge as much as $122 an hour for these services, under rates set by the State Education Department. The annual bill sometimes exceeds $100,000 per child. 

The first three audits, which have already led to criminal charges, are to be released on Monday.

“This money was intended to give our most vulnerable children the services they needed,” Mr. DiNapoli said. “Instead, the money was used for contractors to landscape their second homes or for no-show jobs. Special-needs kids were shortchanged by contractors that had figured out how to game the system.”