News

Alabama's public schools have seen such an enormous increase in the number of autistic children in the last two decades that educators are struggling to find ways to train teachers to deal with these students.

In 1991, just three students in Alabama's public schools were diagnosed with autism. During the 2007-08 school year, the number was 2,737, and that number is expected to continue to climb.

The diagnosis of autism has expanded so rapidly over the past two decades that only a small percentage of Alabama schools have programs dedicated to it. And in those that do, the programs sometimes are run by teachers with no formal training in the subject.

Birmingham city schools' enrollment dropped by 868 students this year, and the system will lose more than $5.5 million in state funding next year as a result, new attendance reports show.
School systems submitted their 20-days-after-Labor-Day attendance reports and the state will certify them next week. That official enrollment number - called "average daily membership" - is what the state uses to fund schools. Growing schools receive more state money as a result, but schools with declining enrollment lose funding for teachers, principals, assistant principals, counselors and librarians.

Gov. Bob Riley plans to put $6 million into the proposed education budget next year to fund a pilot program for teacher merit pay in the state's neediest school systems.
The governor said the idea is worth pushing even though a 2007 attempt to get legislative approval for such a program failed.
"There is not another segment of society that doesn't reward its workers for a job well done," Riley said in an interview last week. "I think merit pay works, and I think it's something teachers want."