July 26, 2018, Pasadena News Now: Pasadena Unified Contends with Ballooning Special Education Costs About 25% of the District’s budget funds programs for just 16% of its students http://www.pasadenanow.com/main/pasadena-unified-contends-with-ballooning-special-education-costs/#.W1pCttVKivE While the Pasadena Unified School District continues working to make cuts to reign in multi-million-dollar budget shortfalls projected over the next few years, it’s increasingly struggling to fund special education, as both the costs, and the share of the costs that the District is responsible to pay, rise year-over-year. The PUSD Board of Education will consider during Thursday’s meeting whether to approve the Special Education Local Plan Area’s proposed plan as it stands, as well as the special education budget for the 2018-2019 school year. District staff recommends they do. … Anticipated spending for special ed in the 2017-2018 year is expected to top $57.5 million, he wrote in an op-ed last month. That amounts to nearly 25 percent of the District’s entire $234-million budget, though special ed students make up about 16 percent of the student body…. And the shortfall is expected to be even greater for the 2018-2019 school year, with about $32.5 million of District funds going to special education…. Pasadena is home to many children’s institutions that take care of kids with special needs, and enroll them into the PUSD, Phelps said. But at the same time, “Our general enrollment has been going down for decades.”… “The federal government has never funded special education at a level that is even half of its promise to fund up to 40-percent of special education costs, forcing states and local educational agencies to cover remaining costs,” Phelps wrote in the op-ed. “While the population of students requiring special education and services continues to grow, federal funding has not grown and has even decreased at times.” Meanwhile, “The total cost per pupil for special education has risen in the last three years, from $15,000 to over $21,000,” Phelps 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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