The landmark building on Chambers Street that is home to
Trenton Central High School is crumbling as students sit in the classrooms
trying to learn. Case in point, just last Tuesday water from heavy rains made
it through the roof into the classroom walls and activated a fire alarm.
“The fire alarm does not just go off
when there is a fire, but also when it has contact with water” said head
custodian Larry Loper.
More then to 2,000 students had to
evacuate the building and stand in the rain while firefighters secured the
building and turned the alarm off.
About four decades ago, most of the children S.S.I. covered had severe physical handicaps or mental retardation that made it difficult for parents to hold jobs — about 1 percent of all poor children. But now 55 percent of the disabilities it covers are fuzzier intellectual disabilities short of mental retardation, where the diagnosis is less clear-cut. More than 1.2 million children across America — a full 8 percent of all low-income children — are now enrolled in S.S.I. as disabled, at an annual cost of more than $9 billion
That is a burden on taxpayers, of course, but it can be even worse for children whose families have a huge stake in their failing in school. Those kids may never recover: a 2009 study found that nearly two-thirds of these children make the transition at age 18 into S.S.I. for the adult disabled. They may never hold a job in their entire lives and are condemned to a life of poverty on the dole — and that’s the outcome of a program intended to fight poverty.