Feb 13, 2019, Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle: Treyger demands DOE hire special education ‘Czar’ https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/02/13/treyger-demands-doe-hire-special-education-czar/ Special education students are in danger of getting lost in the shuffle in the massive New York City public school system, according to a Brooklyn lawmaker who is demanding that a point person be hired to oversee the implementation of services to children with special needs. Councilmember Mark Treyger, a Democrat whose district includes Coney Island, Gravesend and parts of Bensonhurst, said he will introduce a resolution in the City Council on Wednesday calling on the Department of Education (DOE) to appoint a special education “czar” to ensure that students with disabilities receive all of the services to which they are entitled. … As Treyger envisions it, the duties of a special education “czar” would include checking in regularly with every school in New York to make sure kids enrolled in special education programs are getting all of the services they need. Approximately 220,000 children currently enrolled in the city’s vast school system are classified as special education students who qualify for Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). That number represents about 20 percent of the 1.1 million school children in the city. … Treyger, a former high school teacher, said he has heard complaints from parents about a lack of paraprofessionals in certain classrooms and about children not getting the chance to work with a speech therapist. … Treyger said he was deeply troubled by statistics showing special education students in jeopardy of falling behind in critical areas. … According to the DOE’s own data, only 78 percent of students with disabilities are receiving all of the services they are entitled to under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, he said. “And our four-year graduation rate for special education students is only 50.4 percent,” he added. …
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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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