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.
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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
(UK) Kettering: County spends $614M on out-of-area special needs places
Central EnglandA Kettering special educational needs school is expanding to another site in order to cater for more pupils.The Isebrook School is creating a new linked facility at the former Age Concern building in School Lane.The school, which is part of the Creating Tomorrow academy trust, will lease the building from Northamptonshire County Council at a cost of £28,000 year [$36K U.S.].The move comes amidst a huge shortage of special educational need school places in Northamptonshire and a report to be considered by the county council tomorrow (October 14) estimates the expansion of the school could save the local education authority £43,365 [$56K] per pupil, and make an annual saving this year to the school’s budget of just under half a million pounds.Currently the local education authority is sending hundreds of students out-of-county for special education, which is taking a sizeable sum out of the annual £475m [$614M] schools budget.This summer the education officer in charge of SEN place planning said the system was at breaking point and pointed to data that showed that more than half of Northants primary school pupils with an educational health care plan now wish to be educated in a special school. This is a figure well above the national average.Currently Isebrook School educates 206 pupils at its main site in Eastleigh Road and has been asked by the local education authority to increase this to 224 from September next year.It has applied to the ESFA to increase its capacity to 252….