May 25, 2017, Chicago CBS: Parents Say CPS Ignores Hundreds Of Special-Needs Kids http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/05/25/parents-say-cps-ignores-hundreds-of-special-needs-kids/
Some parents call it a crisis: Hundreds of kids, in need of special education services, aren’t getting them.
Her mom says Laila, who has autism, was thriving after three years in a Chicago Public Schools classroom, coupled with services and goals in the child’s Individual Education Plan.
When CPS took Laila’s IEP away, she regressed.
“I was angry, I was disappointed,” the mother says. “I began fighting.”
Despite an autism diagnosis from three medical professionals, CPS hasn’t budged.
Christine Palmieri’s son miles also has autism and a habit of trying to leave his school building.
Even with an IEP and that history of leaving school, it took six months for her and a lawyer to get Miles a classroom aide.
Advocates say both are part of a bigger special education problem with funding at its core.
“The barriers that we are seeing families face, these all violate the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,” says Amy Zimmerman of Legal Council for Health Justice.
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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.)
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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
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