Education Students Out of Schools, Article Critique Example

In my community a strike has been on for approximately four weeks. Transportation services, which were expected to take special needs students to and from school had been interrupted. There has not been a school bus strike in New York City since 1979. Some 9,000 bus drivers were off the job and 150,000 students were unable to ride buses on a regular basis to be transported to school. This was in response to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to put approximately 1,000 bus routes up to be operated by private companies through a bidding process. This was due to financial difficulties encountered by the city (CNN Staff, 2013).

Two questions needed to be answered by the mayor; bus operators and department of education. First how worthwhile it is to deprive the nation’s children quality transportation services by offering tenders to companies that cannot prove their credibility? Why punish the nation’s poor by further denying their children benefits of reliable transportation services to and from school? Precisely, children who ride New York City school buses are those whose parents cannot afford alternative transportation to take them there.

Importantly, special needs education students are vulnerable when travelling on other means of transportation for school. There are attendants on these buses who take care of their needs should complications arise. When they are taken to and from school on the regular New York Transit buses parents/guardian have to be with them for safety. Therefore, New York Transit school bus strike has greatly impacted special needs education programs than the regular school elementary, middle and high school curricula. For five weeks they lost contact with learning that is pertinent to their social, spiritual and mental progress. A large number of them had to be kept at home, sometimes unattended because parents must go to work to pay bills and keep food on the table.

All around the country there are reductions in spending. It would appear that social services are first attacked as if taxpayers are not contributing to these structures. The cost of healthcare is tremendous and those who cannot afford get poor quality through Medicaid and Medicare interventions. The next target is education. Many programs have been deducted from the curriculum as a cost reduction syndrome infects the nation

One wonders, however, how there is $350 million available to tract down health care professionals for Medicaid and Medicare fraud when only $3 million dollars is mis represented as fraudulent transitions. Again millions are poured into organizing wars abroad as well as building larger prisons to incarcerate people who are convicted for minor crimes and are no threat to the community (CDSS, 2013). These are all unnecessary costs, which could be challenged into more productive services for the nation’s educational programs such as special needs; healthcare and school transportation.

It is unimaginable how New York Mayor could even think about divesting school transportation into the hands of private companies creating unsafe conditions for the nation’s children. This strike has created irreparable damage to special needs education students due to the number of them who were out of school or had to struggle for alternative means of transportation. Most parents lost hours of work taking them on public buses or were simply fired from their jobs.

Works cited

CDSS. Welfare Fraud Stories.2013. Accessed on 29th March, 2013 from http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/fraud/pg270.htm

CNN Staff. NYC five-week school bus strike ending, 150,000 students will ride again. CNN.US, February 18^th 2013.