A new report released today says that for the 160,000 students with special needs, educational options and services have not improved much during the past seven years of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein's education reforms. Students in self-contained special education settings - classes comprised only of students with special needs - fare the worst, with only a 5 percent high-school graduation rate.  

 The report was released by the ARISE Coalition, an association of 33 different organizations and individuals devoted to New York's children with special needs.  ARISE was founded by Advocates for Children of New York, Insideschools' parent organization.

Since the Department of Education is considering reorganizing the special education bureaucracy for the third time since Mayor Bloomberg took control of the system, the specific recommendations for reform included in the report are especially timely. But also of great weigth are the stories along the margins - beside the statistics, recommendations, graphs and charts - of specific families who have struggled to gain the best education for their children. Read the full report - and the poignant stories - here.

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