Can We Please Give them Back to Mexico? (Part CCCXLIV)

Texas is at it again. It is now arbitrarily denying special ed services to meet a quota set by state regulators:

During the first week of school at Shadow Forest Elementary, a frail kindergartner named Roanin Walker had a meltdown at recess. Overwhelmed by the shrieking and giggling, he hid by the swings and then tried to escape the playground, hitting a classmate and biting a teacher before being restrained.

The principal called Roanin's mother.

"There's been an incident."

Heidi Walker was frightened, but as she hurried to the Humble school that day in 2014, she felt strangely relieved.

She had warned school administrators months earlier that her 5-year-old had been diagnosed with a disability similar to autism. Now they would understand, she thought. Surely they would give him the therapy and counseling he needed.

Walker knew the law was on her side. Since 1975, Congress has required public schools in the United States to provide specialized education services to all eligible children with any type of disability.

But what she didn't know is that in Texas, unelected state officials have quietly devised a system that has kept thousands of disabled kids like Roanin out of special education.

………

More than a dozen teachers and administrators from across the state told the Chronicle they have delayed or denied special education to disabled students in order to stay below the 8.5 percent benchmark. They revealed a variety of methods, from putting kids into a cheaper alternative program known as "Section 504" to persuading parents to pull their children out of public school altogether.

"We were basically told in a staff meeting that we needed to lower the number of kids in special ed at all costs," said Jamie Womack Williams, who taught in the Tyler Independent School District until 2010. "It was all a numbers game."

………

"It's extremely disturbing," said longtime education advocate Jonathan Kozol, who described the policy as a cap on special education meant to save money.

"It's completely incompatible with federal law," Kozol said. "It looks as if they're actually punishing districts that meet the needs of kids."

In a statement, Texas Education Agency officials denied they had kept disabled students out of special education and said their guideline calling for enrollments of 8.5 percent was not a cap or a target but an "indicator" of performance by school districts. They said state-by-state comparisons were inappropriate and attributed the state's dramatic declines in special educations enrollments to new teaching techniques that have lowered the number of children with "learning disabilities," such as dyslexia.

In fact, despite the number of children affected, no one has studied Texas' 32 percent drop in special education enrollment.

………

There is no agreed-upon number for what percentage of kids have a disability that requires special education services.

The best approximation may be 15.4 percent. That's how many U.S. kids ages 2-8 whom doctors have diagnosed with a mental, behavioral or developmental disorder, according to a March 2016 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's a long read, and it is infuriating.

H/t Diane Ravitch.

This is So Not a Surprise

In news that surprise no one, Eve Moskowitz's Success Academy has been sued for systematic discrimination against disabled students:

When it was revealed that a Brooklyn school run by the Success Academy charter network was systematically pushing out struggling and disabled students identified on a "Got to Go" list, the company's head Eva Moskowitz said the list was the work of a rogue principal, unrepresentative of any broader policy. Critics of the lucrative, influential 36-school network have long alleged that it maintains high test scores by pressuring parents of students with disabilities to pull them from its schools. A federal civil rights complaint filed yesterday by 13 parents along with politicians and advocacy groups bolsters the case, alleging that difficulties faced by special-needs kids are actually the result of a company-wide policy that has been in effect for years.

"Success Academy operates schools in some of the most distressed neighborhoods of this city and receives considerable public funding but fails to serve students with disabilities in accordance with the law," Legal Services NYC direct Raun Rasmussen said in a statement. "These children deserve better."

………

When it was revealed that a Brooklyn school run by the Success Academy charter network was systematically pushing out struggling and disabled students identified on a "Got to Go" list, the company's head Eva Moskowitz said the list was the work of a rogue principal, unrepresentative of any broader policy. Critics of the lucrative, influential 36-school network have long alleged that it maintains high test scores by pressuring parents of students with disabilities to pull them from its schools. A federal civil rights complaint filed yesterday by 13 parents along with politicians and advocacy groups bolsters the case, alleging that difficulties faced by special-needs kids are actually the result of a company-wide policy that has been in effect for years.

"Success Academy operates schools in some of the most distressed neighborhoods of this city and receives considerable public funding but fails to serve students with disabilities in accordance with the law," Legal Services NYC direct Raun Rasmussen said in a statement. "These children deserve better."

 ………

The other cases all echo this one, with some variations—some parents have already withdrawn their child, one was expelled in his fourth year, and some parents, like Jackson, are still fighting to receive special education within Success schools.

Each set of allegations involves school administrators ignoring or downplaying disability diagnoses, and when confronted with them, failing to provide such support measures as small classes or paraprofessionals. When behavioral problems arise with the inadequately accommodated special-needs child, rather than reassessing, the schools allegedly suspend the kids, force parents to pick them up early, and in some cases, call paramedics to take them to emergency rooms.

 ………

Meanwhile, the State University of New York, which licenses charter schools, is planning to investigate Success's alleged pressure tactics, according to a New York Post report.

This is how charter schools work, because this is what we pay them for.

Essentially, they get paid for high test scores, and the easiest way to do this is to make sure that under-performing or difficult students never enroll, and to make sure that those who do enroll leave.

Now We Know Why Bill DiBlasio Turned Down a few Charter Applications

You may have read about the battle between Bill DiBlasio and political hack/Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz over the allocation of public spaces for some of her schools, with New York Governor and complete tool, Mario Cuomo rather unsurprisingly taking her side.

What you may not be aware of is that the DiBlasio administration approved 36 of 45 applications, and 5 of 8 for Success Academy.

What you may also not know is that the requests by Moscowitz would have taken space from a puclic school literally doing therapy for disabled students in the halls:

From now on, she will apply four criteria in reviewing proposed co-locations. She won’t put elementary and high schools in the same building. She won’t keep approving small schools that only require more high-paid supervisors to run them. She won’t approve co-locations that require expensive renovations of school properties.

And, most importantly, she won’t allow reduced services or seats for special education students.

“These are the most vulnerable and highest needs kids in our system,” Fariña said, but “they were the first kids to lose space or be moved” under the prior administration.

No one is happier about her policy change than the parents and staff at the Mickey Mantle school, a program for autistic and emotionally disturbed children that was slated to lose space and seats to the proposed expansion of Success Academy.

“Our school already lost a music, a theater arts and an art room the past few years,” said Barry Daub, principal at Mickey Mantle. Those losses happened to make room for Harlem Success 1, launched in the same building in 2006.

Mickey Mantle would have lost enrollment and even more space if Fariña had approved the Success Academy expansion.

“We would be doing physical and occupational therapy in the halls,” Daub said..

(emphasis mine)

Charter advocates don't care.

More often than not, they do not serve the disabled community.  They lack the resources to do so, and they have absolutely no interests in developing those capabilities.

They just want to make sure that the senior executives, and their Wall Street backers stay on the gravy train. (Moscowitz, who has fewer than 7000 students in her schools, is paid more than the New York City Schools Chancellor, who manages more than a million students)

Another Nail in the Anti-Vaxxers Delusions

Researchers have determined that indicatations of autism are present in children in the first 6 months of life:

An early indication of autism can be identified in babies under six months old, a study suggests.

US researchers, writing in Nature, analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three.

They found children later diagnosed with autism initially developed normally but showed diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - between two and six months of age.

A UK expert said the findings raise hope for early interventions.

In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues.

They found infants later diagnosed with autism had shown a steady decline in attention to the eyes of other people from the age of two months onwards, when watching videos of natural human interactions.

Lead researcher Dr Warren Jones told BBC News: "It tells us for the first time that it's possible to detect some signs of autism in the first months of life.

"These are the earliest signs of autism that we've ever observed."

I'm not surprised by this study.

My wife pegged Charlie as being on the spectrum in his first week outside of the womb. She knew something was different in the first 5 minutes.

Of course, she is a trained special educator, so it's in her profession.

What this means is that autism is present well before when know-nothings claim that vaccinations "cause" autism.

Can we please stop listening to Jenny McCarthy Now?

This Cracked Me Up

I showed this to Charlie, who is on the spectrum, and he found it hysterically funny too.

The autism spectrum is orthogonal to a sense of humor.

H/t Autism: Different, Not Less.

OK, SNL Still Has It

Saturday Night Lives take on an "Even Tempered Apology from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel":

Congress Passes Hate Crimes Legislation

Obama is expected to sign it.

One surprise:

The 68-29 vote was a victory for civil rights groups that have long sought to expand the federal statute beyond attacks motivated by religion, race, color or national origin.

The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign, includes penalties for assaults based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity.

(emphasis mine)

For some reason, I thought that disability was already a protected class.

In fact, Sharon,* who does special ed consulting and advocacy, thought that the disabled were already a protected class too.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Deep Thought

I was talking with Sharon^* about her special education consulting and advocacy business today, and told her about some friends of mine who raise Morgan horses, who would front load purchases before a given year, and then end load purchases after the end of the year, so as to create a profit every 5 years or so, because otherwise the IRS would call it a hobby, and would not allow them to deduct expenses from other income.

Then I told her that this was completely different from her business.

Then I thought about it, and told her it was completely the same as her business: Both people have to shovel loads of horsesh$#, only hers comes from school administrators.

BTW, if you kid has unmet special education needs, you want to contact her, she's a pit bull, Or maybe a Tazmanian Devil, for her clients.....

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Well, This is Disturbing

Seriously, it actually made me feel a bit weepy.