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Elizabeth
United Kingdom
241 Posts |
 Posted - 07/30/2006 : 10:21:06
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I've just found this article on today's "Guardian" website (it's published in "The Observer", its sister paper). Its title is "US child expert quits Britain over 'hidden crisis' in special needs and the full e-mail address is http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1833449,00.html.
Reporter Anushka Asthana interviews Janis Newcomen, who will shortly be returning to the US after seven years working as an NHS neuropsychologist in Hastings, East Sussex. The first paragraph reads "It was always my intention eventually to return home to the United States, but I'm going years early because in all conscience I can no longer participate in a corrupt and dysfunctional system that is dishonest in its treatment and management of children with special needs." She goes on to say 'The system is in crisis, but it is like the emperor's new clothes - nobody is willing to tell the truth.'
There are thirty paragraphs detailing what is wrong with the (lack of) provision for special needs children of all diagnoses.
Run off copies of this article to show to anybody who will listen to support what you've already told them about the lack of provision of special needs for your autistic child.
edited to add P.S.
P.S. In fairness to "The Observer"'s circulation figures I'll be off up the road to buy a copy ASAP.
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Edited by - Elizabeth on 07/30/2006 10:49:09 |
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John Stone
United Kingdom
1254 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 20:10:55
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What is depressingly significant about this is that such is the cowed uniformity of the profession now that it takes someone who is leaving the country to speak out. There is little doubt to my mind that this situation has been methodically created.
Some may have seen the pathetic self-exculpatory little piece by former education minister Estelle Morris:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1828287,00.html
All they need
Special schools need to feel protected
Estelle Morris
Tuesday July 25, 2006
Guardian
"The select committee report on special needs sounded all too familiar. Threats to special schools, lack of clarity, too much bureaucracy and poor mainstream provision - all reflecting, at the very least, frustration but, probably, more like despair in the parents of the nation's 1.5 million children with special educational needs.
"It echoed the arguments that were around when I was a junior education minister. And when I read the comments by the present minister, Andrew Adonis, those looked familiar as well - huge extra investment, government not against special schools, and the importance of parental choice. I'm sure at some point I said pretty much the same.
"So what's happening? Has nothing changed? I accept the select committee report reflects accurately the dissatisfaction of many in the sector, which must be taken seriously. But, if the government feels a bit "misunderstood", I have some sympathy there too.
"When Labour came to power, there was a strong voice from parents who felt they had been denied the right to choose a mainstream education. And remember, after almost two decades of under-investment in schools, heads were often ill-equipped to respond to parents' wishes. Even the lack of a lift or a ramp prevented some parents from securing their choice of school.
"Against that background, a move to greater inclusion was promoted. Denying a child a mainstream place just because the school couldn't accommodate a wheelchair is not acceptable. I know the government has never had an agenda of closing all special schools, but I also know many people believe it has. My take on this is that the government - including in my time - didn't get its message across to begin with, and has failed to do so since. Some local authorities wilfully used this as an excuse to close special schools, and any closure, whatever its justification, was seen as part of this process.
"It has become very difficult to discuss new ways of meeting the needs of all special needs children, because parents fear special schools will be shut out as part of the answer. The government must, once and for all, persuade people that it means no harm to special schools. It can't say its hands are tied and it's up to local authorities. If there is a national entitlement to choose a special school, it will have to be nationally guaranteed. If we can run academies direct from Whitehall, we can protect special schools from there too.
"That might free us to take this debate forward. At the moment, only about 1% of children are educated in special schools and the rest of the 20% who are judged to have special needs are in mainstream schools. It is unthinkable that the answer is to have all these children in special schools, so we have to face up to the challenge of equipping schools to meet their needs.
"School buildings are far more suitable, but we're a long way from teachers having the skills and support they need. I'm not convinced it can all be done in initial training, and teachers and pupils in mainstream schools should benefit from the teaching expertise in special schools. So we need some innovation in closer working or co-location between the types of schools, more flexible use of specialist staff, and the training of specialist staff for mainstream schools. But, until the government can reassure people about the secure future of special schools, it won't get away from the starting post.
"Forty years ago, some special needs children were termed "uneducable". Now they gain degrees. That's the progress that has been made. Deciding how we use the knowledge we now have about how children learn, whatever their abilities, is what the special needs debate needs to address.
"I do hope that the responses to this select committee report will at last allow this to happen.*
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
The Guardian did not, of course, publish my response or anyone else's. I wrote:
"Oh dear, it really looks as if Estelle Morris was truly out of her depth as a minister. I do not suppose that any of the thousands of letters she must have received over the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill were complaining about making mainstream schools more accessible to the physically disabled. This is a very flimsy pretext for the Government's negligence in failing to provide appropriate education over the range of disabilities. Blaming local government for superficial inclusion policies which could always be traced back to Whitehall will scarcely do either.
"Plenty of people warned her."
Of course, on top of the SEN and Disability Act they rolled out "Fair Funding" which was driven by Whitehall and implemented by local government which left SEN families and schools in open conflict over funding when previously they would have had a joint interest in applying to the local authority. On top of this they introduced the fabricated illness guidelines:
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/qualityprotects/info/publications/childprot.shtml
which enables schools to subject parents they are in conflict with to traumatic investigations. The truth is that these measures were instituted at the level of central government, without democratic consultation, and without legislation.
Everyone will recall how the Prime Minister pretended to listen when he was ambushed by Maria Hutchings before the last election, but when the manifesto was published the policy remained disingenuously to delegate policy to the local authorities.
What is absolutely deplorable is that they all walk away claiming it is nothing really to do with them. But you bet, it is.
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Edited by - John Stone on 07/31/2006 14:03:23 |
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John Stone
United Kingdom
1254 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 21:33:26
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| Dr Newcomen may unfortunately be disappointed to find things have deteriorated in a comparable fashion in the US. |
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scotmum
104 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 12:27:54
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| The same Anushka Athana who wrote this article recently put her name to another article about MMR in which she merely regurgitated the government propoganda that MMR was perfectly safe, epidemics of measles on the way, 13 boy already died (no elaboration of course), Wakefield discredited, non-vaccinating parents selfish idiots etc, etc, etc. |
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John Stone
United Kingdom
1254 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 16:25:57
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| She's a Guardian newspaper journalist. |
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scotmum
104 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 18:38:15
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Unfortunately, neither the Guardian nor the Independent (Christina Odone never misses an opportunity to villify non-vaccinators) rarely publish anything (even letters) which are critical of vaccination in any way. Its interesting that the left-wing press is the most pro-vaccine (socialist = state control?) whereas the right wing tabloids (in particular the Express whose campaign was the driving force behind getting the compensation raised to 100k) are interested in listening to parents of vaccine-damaged children.
This also applies in the US where the states which allow parents to opt out of mandatory school vaccines tend (with the notable exception of California) to be in the mid-west and are therefore mainly republican right wing states. |
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John Stone
United Kingdom
1254 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 20:35:31
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The media screws began to be tightened c.2003. I even recall that as late December 2003 there were several sympathetic articles in the Observer, at the time of the 'Hear the Silence' debate. There is no doubt that in the Guardian the propaganda has been systematic, with poisoned remarks being scattered in columns which have little to do with the issue. The only time letters expressing contrary views were allowed was when Melanie Phillips claimed her right of reply over an attack by Ben Goldacre, and this was only so that the usual suspects could publish replies to Phillips's article when it appeared. It may be that the reasons lie in Government patronage of the Guardian (which by arbitrary tradition has the monopoly of advertising public appointments - something which it could easily lose to the The Times).
It is obvious that if a case needs to be defended in this way that it is flawed. Whether things would would have unfolded so wretchedly if Paul Foot had still been alive is open to question. The whole thing is a bitter betrayal of his memory, apart from anything else.
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Elizabeth
United Kingdom
241 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2006 : 10:12:53
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| The latest edition of "Schafer Autism Report", Tuesday 1st August 2006, Vol.10. No.135 includes this article in its invaluable digest of happenings in the World of Autism. |
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The Observer 30/7/2006 'hidden crisis'
