From the Daily News:The Department of Education missed a June 15 deadline to find spots for thousands of kindergartners with disabilities - and now the city could be liable for their tuition in private schools, officials acknowledged.
The holdup is also causing panic for families who are still waiting to hear where their kids are going to kindergarten next year.
Education officials said they were still figuring out precisely how many kids were without seats and therefore unable to provide a firm number of how many children are left without assignments - and how much it will cost the city.
While most public school kids already have seats, education officials were struggling to find assignments for the 15,500 incoming kindergartners with special needs because of changes to the city's special education program.
The kids who don't have seats yet are entitled to a private education paid for by the city under a 1988 legal ruling.
The city already spends about $100 million to educate about 4,000 kids in this situation - and now the cost could skyrocket.
7 comments:
the n.y.c. d.o.e only has $21,000,000,000.00 (BILLION) in the 2011-12 budget to spend. What a shame ? could you send them some more money ?
What morons! Fire these idiots already - someone or groups of planners whom were responsible should lose their jobs. There are idiots at the top (Bloomberg) middle management and shuffling - "no my yob" bottom - they should all be let go for the 100M loss!
“When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.”
- Albert Shanker, President of the Teachers Union (United Federation of Teachers) from 1964 to 1984, President of the Teachers Union (American Federation of Teachers) from 1974 to 1997
Ineptness? Perhaps.Probably. Or a ploy to lay off city teachers, thus "saving" in one area. There is not one budget; there are budgetS, and they will find $$ for this. Wake up--Walcott is no better than the others.
Special needs education is a fantastic business. What qualifies as "special needs" often is nothing more then a rambunctious teenage boy.
In the old days he'd spend a Wed afternoon with the gym teacher to impress upon him the need for self discipline. Now the same kid gets sent to a special school and they get anywhere from $25K to $50K per 9 month year to teach him self esteem.
they also get one-two "teacher/aides" per seven children in one classroom.
at the P.S.130 Q building,@42nd avenue/201street,40 buses drop off and pick-up 50 "pupils"daily.
the cost per pupil is now about $60,000.00 per year.
the test scores in math and language arts will show a sad 0.5% are scoring at level four,(passable ).
education is not the objective ,because it is impossible, sadly.
wasted taxpayer money when the system is broke.
Look up the per pupil costs in special ed schools and compare them to the negotiated fee NYC pays the private schools to educate these children and you will see the private schools cost the taxpayer less. Many of them are also better for these children than the bureaucracy laden public schools.
Post a Comment