« Get Your Kicks in District 66 | Main | Orange Sunshine »
February 21, 2006
Special Needs: County Schools Found Delinquent
I haven't seen much written about an AP story that appeared in yesterday's Knoxville paper, so I'll kick it off. This is a local story, and it deserves a serious discussion. (I don't take the local paper except weekends, and I find its website to be less than tolerable most days,* so if it was published there I don't know about it.)
Nutshell: Hamilton County schools were supposed to have been providing special education services to County Jail inmates who qualify, but apparently that hasn't been happening. The state (Department of Education) has stepped in and mandated that the services be resumed. HCDE, for its part, maintains an arm's-length "we offered, but they told us they were taking care of it" posture; furthermore, the well-known overcrowding at the county jail seems to have deterred educators for security reasons. Sheriff's Department officials were covering basic and GED classes, but nothing for special ed. It's a classic case of "oh, but I thought they were with you."
Now, the hard part: filling the gap. The school system says that it will hire/train teachers, but is sending them into the existing jail, with its current conditions, the right approach? If we wait until a new jail is built, hopefully with adequate safeguards and facilities, what happens to the youthful inmates who require these services in the meantime?
Education is a tough enough issue taken all together, but education for the mentally challenged presents its own problems. In addition, I'm all for being "tough on crime," but we need to look more broadly at some systemic solution options for where the factors behind the crime include a compromised capacity or mental illness. You know, it's the old "an ounce of prevention.." adage.
I don't want to be the only one talking on this subject, though; your ideas?
*Ironically, I take the paper on weekends so that I will have access to said intolerable website.
Education | By joe lance | 01:50 PM