Ok, it's a day late but here is the post on the Child Hating Right and what they are doing to children. Especially children with disabilities. Like mine. First some ground work...
A National call-in day on April 29th was organized by parents and advocates of children with disabilities to show their unified opposition to changes in IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) by House Resolution 1350. Representatives Mike Castle (R-DE) and John A. Boehner (R-OH) of the Education and Workforce committee urged congressional members to ignore the phone calls and faxes of thousands, and base their decision on large educational organizations' interests --instead of children first. The concerns that HR 1350 would weaken the rights of children with disabilities to have access to a free and appropriate education were dismissed as "inaccurate". The letter lists unprecedented support from education leaders, but fails to list support from parents, families and advocates who have the greatest long term vested interest in the lifetime outcomes for children with disabilities.
Now I work for an organization whose main focus is the inclusion of people with disabilities into "regular life". Up until this year this is just something I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. But now it's personal. My 4 year old son has just recently been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrom, which is a form of Autism. He may need to have certain accommodations to be able to succeed in a "regular" classroom with the same curriculum that all the other students have. But under IDEA (as it stands now), he is entitled to these accommodations and to the same education every other child in the United States is entitled to. Under the new version of this bill (HR 1350) schools will not be required to consider his disability in certain circumstances and make accommodations if needed. This is the first step back to the stone age (pre 1975) when school systems were allowed to take highly intelligent children who, with just a little bit of help could be wonderfully capable, contributing members of society, and shove them in the art room with crayons and paste and graduate them with absolutely no useful edcation whatsoever. Which then led to them being forced to rely on public services because they weren't equiped to support themselves.
And the fact that Special Interest groups were given additional weight by congress people at all is annoying enough but when these self same congresspeople write letters to other congresspeople encouraging them to ingnore large blocks of their constituency it borders on governmental malfeasance! And to ignore the parties most affected by the legislation is just spitting in the face of democracy.
In one of my other blogs I referred to the process of "No Child Left Behind" as "No Child With Absolutely 'Normal' Aptitude in All Testable Areas Left Behind" and that is exactly what it is. These Special Interest Groups are the Corporate Educational Institutions who rely on the tax dollars schools bring in for their bread and butter. And the tax money under "No Child Left Behind" and HR 1350 will be based on test scores. So by excluding children with disabilities from the general curriculum and thereby the general testing processes, these scores, they feel, will go up. Bringing in more money.
But by this process they will also be producing more adults who, once again, will be less capable of functioning independently in "regular life" and putting more of a drain on special services requiring more tax dollars or just not getting any services at all and living on the streets. My feeling is that GW and the rest of that lot would prefer the latter.
So now the Conservatives have declared war on the environment and on Children with Disabilities and their families. Add that to the list: the UN, the Arab nations, North Korea, France...
at 11:53 AM :: ~#~
