Writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, David Casas says a growing number of Georgia parents are using vouchers to get their children with disabilities into private schools. Almost 1,600 students used the “Georgia Special Needs Scholarships” this year, and an increasing number of private schools are participating.

Republican state representative Casas was a sponsor of the bill creating the vouchers, which grant students with disabilities partial tuition to private schools. Parents had sought the vouchers as a way to get their children out of low-performing schools or inadequate programs. It is estimated that some 200,000 students are eligible for the vouchers statewide.

An excerpt:

It is enormously challenging to be the parent of a child with special needs.

Hopefully the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship is bringing some sense of normalcy to children and their parents who are finding hope in smaller classrooms, different schools and happier educational environments.

See earlier posts here and here.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Seventeen-year-old Anne Jennings was selected homecoming queen at Libertyville High School north of Chicago earlier this month. She has Down syndrome.

“Before, I was just plain me,” said Jennings, selected by student vote out of 17 nominated girls. “When I was queen, it changed. It’s amazing. Everyone loves me. I love me.”

See earlier posts on a Texas homecoming queen here and here.

(Tribune photo)

From the New York Daily News, New York Times, New York Post and elsewhere:

A bus driver and matron have been arrested in the case of a 3-year-old boy with autism who was left unattended on a Bronx school bus for a full school day. Jose Gabriel Lopez was discovered missing when his mother went to pick him up at school and was told that he had never arrived. Police found him dehydrated and hungry, still strapped in his carseat on the bus.

An editorial in the New York Daily News said the incident is…

… just the latest shameful example of drivers forgetting children entrusted to their care.

The Daily News investigations team has documented dozens of cases of children who fell asleep on school buses and woke up, alone, in dark parking lots. Or were dropped off far from home.

See also:

Guy who left kid on bus had booze raps — New York Daily News

Say they are used excessively for children with behavioral disorders

AP/Los Angeles Times:

Education specialists say schools are increasingly using isolation rooms to discipline students with behavioral disorders, and say the time-outs are probably doing more harm than good. “It really is a form of abuse,” said Ken Merrell, head of the Department for Special Education and Clinical Sciences at the University of Oregon, who said the rooms may be unsafe.

A family is suing the Iowa school district that left their 8-year-old daughter with autism alone in a time-out room for three hours.

A staffer at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund said it regularly receives complaints from parents who say their child’s disability has been exacerbated by the practice.

See also:

Teen: Time-out made me feel like a school prisoner — CBS2 in Chicago

Padded room raises concerns at school — Pocono [PA] Record

Anne Sutton, writing for the Associated Press from Juneau, says programs and spending for children with disabilities “haven’t been a highlight” during Sarah Palin’s 21 months in office as Alaska’s governor.

The Department of Health and Social Services did not see its budget go up during her first year, although her second year brought a 6 percent increase.

The governor also pushed through an increase in education funds for severely disabled students, which rose from $26,900 to $49,300 per student this year. (The term “severely disabled student” was not defined.)

She approved the expenditure of $500,000 for diagnosing autism, and also $250,000 to train early intervention workers. But she cut in half a request for $550,000 for an indoor training facility for Special Olympics Alaska.

In an email interview with her hometown newspaper published September 30, Palin touted her record supporting children with disabilities.

“It is our hope that by providing the necessary funding support, we can touch more children with special needs who did not have opportunities before due to the prohibitive costs of providing the appropriate care,” Palin wrote to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Earlier post here: Factcheckers say many claims about Palin are false, misleading

In their last debate before election day, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama were asked by moderator Bob Schieffer about  the qualifications of their respective running mates.

McCain praised Sarah Palin as someone with strong expertise in helping “very special needs children,” and someone with more understanding of autism than “almost any American that I know.”

Obama countered that it will take increased funding — not an across-the-board spending freeze — to support programs and research for children with disabilities.

See also, from CNBC: Unanswered questions on special needs

Here’s the excerpt of the debate, as transcribed by CNN:

McCain on Palin: … She’ll be my partner. She understands reform. And, by the way, she also understands special-needs families. She understands that autism is on the rise, that we’ve got to find out what’s causing it, and we’ve got to reach out to these families, and help them, and give them the help they need as they raise these very special needs children.

She understands that better than almost any American that I know. I’m proud of her.

And she has ignited our party and people all over America that have never been involved in the political process. And I can’t tell how proud I am of her and her family.

Her husband’s a pretty tough guy, by the way, too.

Schieffer: Do you think she’s qualified to be president?

Obama: You know, I think it’s — that’s going to be up to the American people. I think that, obviously, she’s a capable politician who has, I think, excited the — a base in the Republican Party.

And I think it’s very commendable the work she’s done on behalf of special needs. I agree with that, John.

(more…)

From the  [UK] Times, BBC:

A British report has found that many students with learning disabilities feel neglected and unprotected at school, and want safe areas where they can spend time during class breaks. More than half of students with severe learning disabilities in England are educated in mainstream schools.

The University of Cambridge study found that some young people felt worried or anxious between lessons, when they might get picked on, teased or bullied or when they simply did not know what to do with themselves. Many also found moving around a busy school or college site extremely stressful.

“[Pupils] told us how frightening it was to be on the stairs at busy times. Playgrounds, social areas or common rooms were often not seen as good places to go because young people felt that they might get picked on, teased or bullied when they were out of the classroom.

The students also said they wanted representation in student-run government organizations. The report said it was “noticeable” that students with disabilities were not included in such groups, and sometimes did not even know they existed.

The report –”What about us?” — comes from Cambridge’s education faculty and the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities.