Oct 5, 2018, Allentown (PA) Morning Call: SPECIAL REPORT: Why the Allentown School District is continuously in a financial hole http://www.mcall.com/news/education/mc-nws-allentown-school-district-finances-20181007-story.html It was June, and Parker, superintendent of the Allentown School District, had already erased $18 million of a staggering $28 million budget deficit through a combination of cuts, a planned tax hike and transfers from district reserves. The final $10 million would be the most painful and could involve furloughing teachers — hundreds of them. It was an option Parker did not want to take, considering the district had eliminated more than 400 positions since 2010. … Allentown School District's finances are a story of a state funding formula that favors wealthier districts, combined with rising charter school costs and the high costs of educating 17,000 students, many of whom live in poverty, don’t speak English as their first language and have learning and emotional disabilities. … Allentown also has seen a 16 percent hike in special education students, who sometimes require as much in mental health services as educational services. About 3,000 students — 17 percent of the entire enrollment — are labeled special education, which is slightly higher than Parkland’s 15 percent.
top of page
Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
bottom of page