Mar 15, 2018, WTTW, Chicago, IL: ISBE Announces Hearings on CPS Special Education Practices https://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2018/03/15/isbe-announces-hearings-cps-special-education-practices State education officials interested in examining Chicago Public Schools’ special education offerings will kick off a series of open hearings this month after families, stakeholders and a media report stoked concerns of possible “systemic issues” late last year. The Illinois State Board of Education announced Thursday it has scheduled three hearings in its first-ever public inquiry into the district’s special education services, beginning Tuesday at the University of Chicago’s Kent College of Law. “The Public Inquiry process facilitates fair and transparent fact-finding on a matter of public concern,” ISBE wrote in a statement. “The Public Inquiry seeks to determine the facts surrounding the stated concerns while maintaining the focus on the students.” The hearings continue Wednesday, with a final session scheduled March 27. All begin at 9 a.m. inside the Kent College of Law auditorium. Special education advocates say the district has discouraged principals from funding special education students’ Individual Education Plans, and has pitted students against each other by lumping special education and general education funding together. … “What the profiles do not show, however, are the hard choices and sacrifices school districts have had to make in terms of academic opportunity in order to maintain fiscal solvency,” State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith said in a statement. “Preliminary Evidence-Based Funding numbers show the vast majority of school districts do not have adequate resources. When school districts are forced to sacrifice academic opportunity, the state loses out on tremendous human capital.”
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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.)
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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