Brian McCready, New Haven Register, January 31, 2010
Amity Regional School District officials say it just doesn’t make sense: Why is the district being punished for having too many white autistic kids?
{snip}
It’s a thorny issue for all sides. When one racial group—black, white or otherwise—appears to be getting a disproportionate amount of special education funding, red flags go up at the federal Department of Education. But local educators said they are powerless to control the racial makeup of their community and who is diagnosed with autism, which is under the special education umbrella.
{snip} The issue also hints at a hidden trend: Parents of autistic children may be moving to certain communities because the public school district has a good reputation for educating autistic children.
Amity Superintendent of Schools John Brady said he is frustrated and shocked. His dilemma began last year when the district—which serves Bethany, Orange and Woodbridge—received a letter from the state Department of Education. The state told Amity it has too many white students who are diagnosed as autistic when compared to other racial subgroups. Amity last year had 38 white autistic students, one Asian and one black.
Amity and Vernon are the only two school systems in the state and among only a handful nationwide to have a “significant disproportionate” amount of white autistic students, state officials said.
Such a classification requires the district to divert 15 percent of its Individual with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, federal funds, or $67,000 in Amity’s case this year, toward programs designed to reduce those numbers.
{snip}
If the number of white autistic students at Amity does not decline, the district may face the further loss of federal funds, which would have to be absorbed by taxpayers, Brady said. The amount of the loss is not yet known and Brady said there is nothing Amity can do to change the numbers.
{snip}
BUREAUCRACY
Mary Kuseler, assistant director for the Washington-based American Association of School Administrators, said Amity finds itself in this delicate situation because of the 2004 federal IDEA law.
The origins of the law date back to 1975; it guarantees a free and appropriate education for people with disabilities. But over the years, officials started to notice increasing numbers of referrals for black males into special education.
The feds wanted to ensure students were not over identified as being in need of special education. There was a concern that some teachers, especially in impoverished districts, would identify students with behavioral issues as special education.
Kuseler said this meant many black males were taken out of a regular education classroom, when in fact they had no academic issues warranting special education classes.
{snip}
“It became a civil rights issue,” Kuseler said. “It was a well-intended rule, (to impose limits on numbers of autistic students in any district) but Amity has been caught by a rule that (it) was never meant to be caught by. It’s putting those districts in a tight position where they face the loss of money in a tough economy.”
{snip}
Brady said Amity has a 90 percent white student population so it makes sense a majority of their students with autism would be white.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on February 1, 2010)
Comments
“When one racial group—black, white or otherwise—appears to be getting a disproportionate amount of special education funding, red flags go up at the federal Department of Education.”
I want to know when a program was threatened with losing its funding because it had too many blacks or Hispanics. It seems it’s only a problem when there are “too many” whites.
The over-classification of students (black or otherwise) as special ed doesn’t have much to do with race, it has to do with money. The district gets more federal money per student that is so classified.
If we can’t help autistic students because they are white, then we can’t help sickle cell anemic students because they are black.
More insanity from the federal government. Which is why the Department of Education should simply be eliminated. The money would be kept at the state and local community level and they couldn’t possibly do a worse job of distributing it than the federal government does.
Now even diseases are required to have racial equality.
This is an interesting article, as I work with autistic children. Our class consists of three white children, two Mexican children, and two black children. Of the white children, two are quite intelligent and speak well but have problems with eye contact, the other has a more severe case. One of the black children has problems with speech and is a bit below average intelligence, but the other is a kid with a bad temper who hits people and yells. One of the Mexican children can barely talk but has no behavioral problems, while the other talks a lot and has a temper. I guess that the Amity Regional School District is getting into “trouble” because they might not be taking on some of the more severe cases, which may be black or Hispanic kids. Or maybe that’s just the demographics, stuff happens. I’ve been a lurker on the website and keep up the good work, it’s where I get a lot of my news.
Meanwhile, school districts are castigated for classifying too many blacks and too few whites as mentally retarded.
With over medicating of society going on full speed, I am not surprised at the huge increase in diagnoses of autisim. While there are real cases to be sure I would guess that a huge majority of what passes as “high functioning autism” would have merely been overlooked as quirky behavior a generation ago. I in no way want to trivialize the real and heartbreaking cases of autism that do exist but I think that money thrown at kids with “autism” and other “special needs” keep the diagnoses coming. “Crazy money” being given out to ghetto residents is another racket, kids act normally for ghetto dwellers are diagnosed with some sort of behavioral disorder and money is thrown at their parents.
Spartan24 may have a point. Some of the kids I work with, especially two of the white kids, seem to have a high-functioning autism. They both can talk well, can count and identify letters, but have trouble with eye contact and are shy, but no real behavioral problems. My younger brother has autism and their cases are a lot less severe, my guess is that kids got put in here because they’re shy and not outgoing, I think it is being overdiagnosed.
“…Brady said Amity has a 90 percent white student population so it makes sense a majority of their students with autism would be white…”
Well, yes. You don’t need a PhD in mathematics to be able to understand that!
I wonder what the leading expert on autism, Jenny McCarthy, has to say about this issue?
The’ll probably have to end the program, due to whites being the only one’s that reject theirselves.
“I want to know when a program was threatened with losing its funding because it had too many blacks or Hispanics”.
Aiding blacks and hispanics is practically the definition of social programs. Non-whites get outreach centers, neighborhood community centers (obsessed with black or hispanic nationalism) child care and rent and utility and income subsidies, and non-white government employmees to run the programs… non-whites get social programs… while whites are governed by social sanctions - laws.
Why is it under the very noses of those doing all they can to promote ‘diversity’ why is it there that benefits are paid out to the different races most unequally?
Can this diversity agenda get anymore ridiculous? I could at least understand—if not condone—them actively forcing institutions and organizations to hire, promote, and seek out minority applicants and so forth. However….seeking out minority autistic people or face a threat of losing funding???? What???
Why aren’t more white children diagnosed with sickle cell anemia? White families are being denied the government assistance for this disease. Isn’t this a form of discrimination?
Perhaps if the programs for Autism and Sickle Cell were to be combined, the numbers might go up to more of an even (i.e.: acceptable) level. After all, Sickle Cell patients are disproportionately black, which means that the programs for Sickle Cell are unfair, thus, must either be integrated or terminated.
The simple fact that whites don’t get Sickle Cell should have nothing to do with it.
“This hints at a hidden trend: parents of autistic children may be moving to certain communities because they have a good reputation for educating autistic children.”
Funding must also be cut and/or denied for kidney stone diagnoses and treatment, prostrate cancer, because they occur most often in white males. When we can deny basic health care because it helps whites, especially white males, we will be on our way to a “truly Diversified utopia.”
Blacks get STDs more often than whites. I guess we should stop treating them, then?
Lady Junia raises an interesting question regarding the possible over-diagnosis of autism, much as there is with the diagnosis of hyperactivity.
There’s no question that we’ve developed a tendency in this country to regard any behavioral abnormality, however benign, as a treatable pathology. Short attention spans, so-called hyperactivity, an enthusiasm deficit (depression?), etc are often treated chemically, developing what becomes a chronic and often life-long addiction.
While certainly chemical approaches to treating various mental problems have enabled many seriously handicapped persons to cope normally, there’s little question that they’re over-prescribed and often addictive.
Not only do I think that minor behavioral differences are grossly overdiagnosed (I read somewhere that there are classes in elementary school where more than 50% of students are on some sort of medication for hyperactivity) but I have to wonder what will happen to these kids when they get into the real world. Kids who would have been OK with maybe a little extra help (to overcome shyness etc…) will have no idea how to react or deal with normal stresses. I have seen articles where people with supposed learning or behavioral disorders are given extra time to finish the bar exam and other professional exams. The kids who really do have behavioral disorders are often allowed to terrorize the rest of the class without any teacher intervention since the kids have a “right” to an education. Never mind about your kid’s right to the same thing. Like all of the other situations where I have mentioned this before, it is better to get your kids out of public school NOW, before they get labeled with some sort of screwy disorder that does not really exist. If you put your kids in to public school and they do get labeled, it will follow them to a private school.
If it’s true that high-functioning autistics tend to have superior math ability, it’s not surprising that there are few Blacks in that category.
I thought the goal of medicine is to eliminate disease and illnesses. Why are certain diseases like AIDS and now, autism (the current “disease of the month”) being politicized?
Come to think of it, why are diseases, defects and disabilities that would not be tolerated in barnyard animals, celebrated in humans?
Consider this: In many Western states in the USA, if bison wander too close to cattle ranches, they are immediately shot. Why? Because of the fear of brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort. So, abortion is bad for domestic cattle, but considered a birthright of human females, from age 11 and up.
Well I guess that settles it. Rev. AL and Rev. Jesse demand that more blacks be diagnosed with Autism just so the money keeps coming from the government. Do you think that sounds crazy? Do you think it couldn’t happen? Yes and No. With the way this country is run, anything is possible.
To quote Spartan24
Could this be the reason the lower and upper class continue to get further and further apart financially? More and more kids are protected from the very stresses in childhood that create the behaviors needed in the real world. Most of this through medication or government subsidies. It forces them into a lower social class, or even to crime as they get into the real world.
The fix? I’ll quote WR the elder:
The feds can not possibly distribute funds properly. They must do it evenly based on “suggested” proper demographics. They will never do a better job then if the local community decided where to put the funds. Abolish the Federal Department of Education. At a minimum, hand the power over to the states. At best, hand it back to the local governments, the town halls. We, the people, know whats best for our communities!!!
“If the number of white autistic students does not decline, the district may face further loss of federal funds, which would have to be absorbed by taxpayers”
No matter how you cut it, this cost is STILL absorbed by “taxpayers”, one way or another. The federal government is not some self-sustaining entity with endless funds from miraculous sources. Do these people imagine that federal funds simply fall out of the sky, as money from Heaven?
Every last dollar, ultimately, comes from taxpayers, somewhere. Thus, instead of the locality paying, we are ALL paying.
