Kids With Disabilities Abused in Our Schools

Like the journalists being imprisoned in North Korea that I wrote about a couple entries ago, here's another story the MSM isn't reporting. I would think it would be a huge story.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) recently came out with a report that children with disabilities, autistic children, and other distressed children, were being seriously abused and some have been murdered. Nothing is being done about this by the Dept of Education. Nothing.

From the GAO report:
"GAO also examined the details of 10 restraint and seclusion cases in which there was a criminal conviction, a finding of civil or administrative liability, or a large financial settlement. The cases share the following common themes: they involved children with disabilities who were restrained and secluded, often in cases where they were not physically aggressive and their parents did not give consent; restraints that block air to the lungs can be deadly; teachers and staff in the cases were often not trained on the use of seclusion and restraints; and teachers and staff from at least 5 of the 10 cases continue to be employed as educators.

GAO did find hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of these methods on school children during the past two decades. Examples of these cases include a 7 year old purportedly dying after being held face down for hours by school staff, 5 year olds allegedly being tied to chairs with bungee cords and duct tape by their teacher and suffering broken arms and bloody noses, and a 13 year old reportedly hanging himself in a seclusion room after prolonged confinement."

In Texas a teacher sat on one of these children and the kid died. It was ruled a homicide, charges were not filed and the "teacher" is now in Virgina "teaching" kids with disabilities. Just one more example. A California teacher repeatedly abused a seven year old autistic girl. The teacher is now "teaching" kids with disabilities in another school district.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has nothing to say about this. Well, not exactly nothing. He did say he "will ask state school chiefs around the country about the use of restraints and confinement of pupils in the classroom."

Of course this is where I make my cynical and snide observation. Do you think if these were Catholic Church schools there would be massive reporting? If it were private Christian schools, you could be sure there would there be massive reporting and the Dept of Ed crushing the abusers. Something else. We certainly must treat terrorists and other enemies of the United States lovingly, but disabled kids in our school system? Not so much. Lets go ahead and let them be tortured, for real.

A Friend Asks Why Her Child Suffers So

There are no words of comfort that will suffice for something so terrible as a parent's suffering child. I've never thought anyone exempt from human suffering. I've experienced and seen too much of it; by all of us. Putting, possibly, in some perspective, Peter writes: "Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God."

Oswald Chambers addressed the suffering of the sanctified, a child: "The sufferings of the sanctified are caused by growing into the idea of the will of God. God did not spare His own Son, and He does not spare His sanctified ones from the requirements of saintship. A child is a perfect specimen of the genus homo, so is a man. The child as it develops, suffers; it is a false mercy that spares a child any requirements of its nature to complete the full stature of manhood, and it is a false mercy that spares the sanctified child of God any of the requirements of its nature to complete 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ'. We do not evolve into holiness, it is a gift - we evolve in it, attainment after attainment, becoming sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus. That is Paul's meaning in Philippians 3:12, 13, 'reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal'.

A child in the natural world is not fit for life unless it is perfectly healthy; sanctification is spiritual health, 'perfect soundness'. May the God of peace sanctify us wholly so that we are no longer sickly souls retarding His purposes, but made 'perfect through suffering'. Oh, that from every heart may rise the yearning longing, as from the apostle Paul."

I grieve for my friend, and her suffering child. I grieve for any suffering. I grieve too, for the suffering of Christ, and that we all fall so short of His sacrifice that will provide for us if we but fully embrace and accept it.