Nov 24, 2019, Stock Daily Dish: Special education enrollment in California is up. No one can say exactly why https://stockdailydish.com/special-education-enrollment-in-california-is-up-no-one-can-say-exactly-why/ Neda Raheem is a 34-year-old mother of twin boys and a physician assistant. Her boys seemed normal and healthy at first, but when they were 14 months old, doctors sensed they might have a condition. The boys were diagnosed with autism and cerebral palsy. Three months into preschool, the family moved from West Sacramento to Elk Grove in part because the schools offer more options for special education students. It’s the type of decision parents across the Central Valley are facing with increasing regularity, as autism diagnoses soar and parents seek classrooms with better options for their children. Special education enrollment has surged in the last decade, with more than 96,000 students pouring into school districts across the state, according to data from the California Department of Education. One of the drivers has been a marked increase in students with autism and other behavioral delays, a Bee analysis shows. At the same time, the number of students with other disabilities grew modestly or decreased between the 2009 and 2018 school years. Although the trend is undeniable, no one can say exactly why it’s happening. …Outpacing population growth, the surge has put pressure on some school district budgets and administrative support systems in the Central Valley and beyond. State and federal funding have not kept up with the shift in special education enrollment, forcing school districts from Sacramento to Fresno to dig deeper into their general funds to pay as the number of students swells…. “It’s the concentration of students within that number and that’s where it’s affected a lot of schools because services for students with autism can be very expensive.” The increased prevalence of autism has been a medical mystery for years. Awareness has grown, experts say. Teachers are trained to recognize the disorder. And in 2013, the medical definition of autism was changed, grouping a number of conditions like Asperger’s syndrome and pervasive development disorder under the umbrella of autism. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder jumped 16 percent between 2012 and 2014. Although the medical and education definitions are not the same, California schools saw an 18 percent increase in autism enrollment for the same period. But organizations like the MIND Institute at UC Davis have been working to bring the two definitions closer together by training teachers and other professionals to identify the symptoms. “The increase isn’t just in California but it is nationwide, probably worldwide,” said Aubyn Stahmer, who oversees community treatment research at the MIND Institute. “The diagnostic definitions have broadened a little bit and that explains some of it and awareness has really increased quite a bit.” Funding challenge In requiring school districts to offer special education, the federal government agreed to pay about 40 percent of the per student cost. Hoffman said the reality has often been much less, between 12 and 15 percent of the cost…. Kalpakoff sees an upside in the increase. If there are more students being diagnosed, she said it shows the school system must be doing a good job identifying children in need. … “We are having to do more to recruit teachers, and in some cases, we are helping to cover the cost of credentialing current staff interested in becoming special education teachers.”…
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
Search
bottom of page