Two Reporters Covering Education in the Midwest Followed the Money ... to a School in New York

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https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-public-money-shrub-oak-school

Two Reporters Covering Education in the Midwest Followed the Money … to a School in New York

Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen are based in Chicago and cover the Midwest. But when they looked into where vulnerable Illinois students wound up, they found themselves at an unregulated, for-profit school in New York.

by Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen
July 12, 5 a.m. EDT

ProPublica’s journalists live and work all over the country. We’re both based in Chicago, and, along with several of our colleagues, we are focused on telling stories about the Midwest. In recent years, the two of us have teamed up to cover ticketing and the use of seclusion and restraint in Illinois school districts.

But if you’ve seen our work lately, you know we’ve been reporting on troubling conditions at an unregulated, for-profit boarding school for autistic students in New York — not exactly in our backyard. We’d been getting tips for a while from local sources who were worried about the effect of a 2022 Illinois law that made it easier for school districts to use public money to send students with disabilities to far-away schools.

And then we heard concerns that students were being mistreated at one of those schools: Shrub Oak International School in Mohegan Lake, New York. Black eyes and bruises. Insufficient staffing. Medical neglect. No kitchen.

At least 15 Illinois students were enrolled there this past school year using state and local taxpayer dollars at $573,200 each. No state outside of New York sends more students to Shrub Oak than Illinois.

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[Midnight Writer]

1. At $573,200 for each student, we could build and staff a dedicated facility here in Illinois.

[shrike3]

2. One of the best news sources around.