New York Ignores Students With Autism in 'Race to the Top'

Interesting item from the Age of Autism:

Several weeks ago New York received the good news that our state was one of the ten winners of federal "Race to the Top" education grants. More than $700 million federal dollars will be made available to our schools. It is doubtful, though, that any of that will be spent on special education, and especially not on student with autism. While New York schools are supposedly "racing to the top," the state Board of Regents recently voted to gut basic minimum standards of education for students with autism with the expressed goal of rolling back state educational standards to the minimums allowed under federal law. In other words for students with autism the goal is a "race to the bottom."
Describing their efforts to cut education for students with autism as "mandate relief" the New York Regents voted to do the following:
• Eliminate the minimum required amount of speech therapy specified for students with autism
• Eliminate maximum class sizes for students with autism
• Expand public school speech therapists’ work load to 65 sessions per week
• Eliminate the requirement that a student’s teacher have access to a copy of a student’s individual education plan (IEP)