Special ed students in NYC are placed in separate classrooms more often than in the rest of the state, and more than twice as often as the national average.
Today the New York Times published the results of a state report on special education, reporting that educational officials called New York City's statistics "disturbing." Of particular concern is the lack of special ed integration into regular classrooms:
New York State recommends that students with disabilities be integrated into the general population in regular classrooms wherever possible, saying that they benefit academically and socially from the broader contact.But in 2006-7, 9.4 percent of students in New York City were taught in separate settings, compared with 6.8 percent for the state. The city’s number was more than twice the national average of 4 percent, state officials said. That is virtually unchanged from a decade ago, when 9.5 percent of special education students were in segregated classrooms in the city, the report said.
Although the article did contain some praise for Chancellor Klein's special education policies, overall the city's progress in this area is clearly lagging.
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