A Modest Solution

Our board members will be forced into the untenable, miserable position of having to make additional cuts to the MDUSD budget. I do not envy their position, nor the pressure they will feel from panicked parents who see our infrastructure crumble in front of our eyes. As a parent of three children, one with disabilities, I feel this pull and tug daily. Yet the child I represent at board meetings, state budget meetings and in the community is my child with a disability. If you have a child with a disability, you know why. The threat that all children face now is not new to us. Our kids cost more. That is reason enough for resentment. 

Here are some objections and refuting talking points I am keeping in mind as I work with the board, neighbors, friends and legislators to advocate for our students and help others 'walk a mile in our kids walkers.'

The first and most important point is this. We are a community. Either we serve students with disabilities or we hang a sign at the district border that says "We don't serve your kind here." If we do decide to do the right thing, the civilized and ethical thing, then we should do it with as much pride as we do, say, football, band, robotics, and Honors courses. Right now we are uncommitted. We have parents irate that students might have to pay a fee to play extracurricular sports. At the same time, some of our students have to sit on the sidelines at recess because they cannot get to the play structures. We have a district that has spent tens of thousands of dollars in court, losing the argument that playgrounds don't have to be accessible to all students.Where are the indignant parents speaking for the disabled? Arguing that special education costs too much, not crying that those kids can't play. What does the board say? Nothing in defense of our kids, no apology for the playground structures, no shame at the fiscal waste. 

1. Misconception: We need to cut spending. The governor and Republican minority claim we can cut spending and get out of the budget crisis. This is a revenue problem, not a spending problem. A majority of voters locally and throughout the state support tax increases. School districts have cut to the bone. The state needs to raise more money for the services we, proudly and rightly provide our citizens. We used to be an educational leader, now our per student spending matches our test scores: lowest in the country. If we want a first class educational system, we need to spend at least as much as New York. That would require doubling our per pupil spending and place us roughly in the top third of states.  Until then, we get what we pay for. 
   
2. Misconception: Special education is too expensive! Parents of regular education students have noticed that special education takes up 23% of the total budget. At about 11% of the total population, that means our kids with special needs are roughly twice as expensive as regular ed kids. Actually, 2:1 expenses is a really good ratio. While we have some students who require minimal services, I know that many children are more severe. Mine for instance has an aide, a nurse, and occupational therapist, speech therapist, assitive technology specialist, physical therapist, computer and a class of eight. Her education is more than 10 times what her sister costs the district. We have managed to keep our program costs reasonably low and our services for special education students are something we should be as proud of as our sports and Advanced Placement services. 
   
3. Partial truth: There is a lot of fraud, waste and abuse in special education! The district should be forthcoming about waste and abuse. It has spent significant sums of money in court fighting  students' rights. The money now allocated to resurface playgrounds is an example. Had those been properly installed, or had the district remedied the improper installation at the request of the Spieler class rather than going to court to appeal, that money wasted would now be available to hire teachers. The district should be as compliant with law as possible; it is the right, and least expensive thing to do.

Systematic abuse, not excessive service for disabled students, is the norm. Remember the nineties and early 2000's? Gosh, life was good! Unemployment was low, housing prices were rising fast, the governor still had seven Hummers. That was the economic context under which the consent decree in our district came into being. When money was flowing and business was booming, the district was forced to admit systematically violating the rights of students with disabilities. They agreed under a consent decree monitored by the federal court to set aside 20 million dollars over ten years-- a scant 2 million a year-- to remedy their ways. During the consent decree they managed to waste additional money fighting students with disabilities, wasting staggering sums of money and then having to do what the law required anyway. Now that times are bad, they say they cannot afford to special education. What's new? The Nazi's used this same propaganda to incite support of forced sterilization and euthanasia of the disabled. No one ever wants to spend money on children with disabilities. That is why we have IDEA and ADA. Otherwise, we might eat our young when we got hungry enough. 

if the army had to hold a bakesale

I was thinking of a protest slogan from the Vietnam War era, "Wouldn't it be great if our schools had all the money they needed and the military had to hold a bakesale to buy a bomber?" when I attended the school board meeting this week. 

Special Education parents had rallied to discuss the many items on the list of budget reductions that included firing nurses, occupational therapists, speech therapists, classroom aides,  and others.  

The JROTC program was also on the reductions list-- to reduce the army officer teachers to two, and combine the 100 students into two classes. (That may sound like a lot of students per teacher, but most high school teachers-- math, English, science, history etc-- see over 120 students daily.) The JROTC staff had really helped the students to organize and prepare for the meeting, bringing in community members, family and students to speak very passionately in favor of the program.  They had speakers address the board for nearly an hour. 

Somehow in all of this, the special education parents who came to speak were shuffled to the end of the meeting and their time was cut from three minutes each to one minute each.  It seemed like an accidental oversight or mistake, but it really felt that we, that our children, mattered less. It did not help that Mr. Eberhardt, the board president, told every special ed speaker to "wrap it up." 

One of the JROTC staff said, "We are not here to recruit your children... this is a leadership program. We could have used the McDonald's model. But we used the Army model." Yes, but if the program did use the McDonald's model, the Army wouldn't  pay for it. Why? Uh, well, it is a recruitment program.  

Why is this a special education topic? 

The Army funds the JROTC at 50%. The federal government does not fund IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities in Special Education Act) to even the mandated 40% level that Congress wrote into the law. 

For this posting I am putting aside all of my rants about the Army reducing its own IQ standard to increase recruiting for the current wars, the ACLUs public position that U.S. military recruiting practices among minors violates international laws,  and my convictions that Kurt Hahn and James Williams were right, there is a moral equivalent to war;  all my reasons for thinking the military does not belong in schools at all. 

For this post, my question is: given the sheer size of the military budget, and the drastic state of educational funding, should the army kick in the other fifty percent for JROTC? Why is our district paying for a military recruitment program at all? If the program is that valuable to to the army, then let them fund it. 

Or at least they could help the special education department hold a bake sale. They do a lot of community service, and what a great photo op for the army's new humanitarian image to have those handsome, uniformed cadets helping my daughter in her wheelchair as she tries to sell cupcakes outside the district office! 

I've noticed the army still has not had to hold their own bakesale. 

Is there a moral equivalent to war? It just might be funding IDEA, maybe even 50%. 

California's deep cuts to SpED

The governor that recalled a governor because the budget in California was not balanced cannot balance the budget. Things have become incredibly chaotic under the Governator than they ever were under Pete Wilson. 

Just last week, school districts, which compose their budgets for the 08-09 school year in June (six months ago), were told that they had to make additional cuts for this year. That means they have to figure out how to unspend money already spent. This after making deep cuts for the current year last spring. (Confused? That is because the whole process does not make sense-- does your paycheck get revised after it is in the bank?)

 

Who is in charge up there? Why are Californians not storming the capitol? 

 

What this means in the real world, not the land of magical thinking that Schwatzenager seems to occupy, is that classes are being combined mid-year, assistants, nurses, speech therapists are being fired mid-year and schools that somehow managed to hang onto music and athletics are losing them mid-year. One child said to the board: It seems like we just got music back, and now you are taking it away again! 

 

Last night, our board had to figure out how to make an additional 16 million dollars worth of cuts. Line by line, they went through the budget. News flash! Education is not a huge wasteful enterprise, not some pork barrel project. It is actually a pretty lean, efficient system. Well, lean. It would be more efficient with more money, actually.  So, line by line, the community looked for the corporate jet and the martini lunches, the tax sheltered golf games, the trips to conferences at exotic resorts. They just are not there. The corporate holiday party for teachers at my child's school was a box of fudge and a thank you card brought by parents and a pot luck lunch brought by teachers.  

So what they cut is jobs.

And how is laying off all of these people-- groundskeepers, custodians, carpenters, music teachers, coaches, occupational therapists, speech therapists, nurses, teachers' aides-- how exactly does that help our state economy? Now we have more people needing unemployment, in danger of losing their homes... how does that help? 

 

The mantra of the right that we have a spending problem is just getting to threadbare. The whole party wants to patch the holes in their seats. They don't seem to realize they are wearing the emperor's clothes and there is nothing to patch.

 

As a California home owner (there are still some left) our family pays less in property taxes than the state pays per year to educate two typically developing children. We have three kids, one with special needs. Those taxes need to also cover water systems, fire services, hiway patrol, 911. In short, we make a profit on our taxes and our state government. 

 

We do NOT have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem.  MORE NEW TAXES!

 

Congratulations to the right-- you have finally managed to cripple the finest public education system ever built.  The only system ever attempt to educate all it's citizens regardless of race, class, religious affiliation, gender or disability; to attempt to educate all citizens equally; to invest in social mobility and cultivate talent from every sector of society is now on it's knees, thanks to your strangle hold on funds and your anti-education agenda. Your loathing for this great equalizer has finally born fruit. The schools that can actually educate function only because they are supported by wealthy PTAs and private foundations, while the schools attended by poor and working class families are falling apart. Parents of typically developing children are calling for cuts to special education. One parent described what is happening to our district as "death by a thousand cuts." 

 

I suppose next spring you'll be complaining about test scores and blaming children, parents and teachers for those too. I blame you. I know how hard those teachers work, and how much time we spend on homework and at board meetings. Now you, the legislature, need to do your part. We need more teachers, smaller classes, more supplies and enough money to heat the buildings. Oh-- that stuff is not free. 

Shame, shame, shame on us for letting the legislature get away with this. Let's take the week off, hop on those district funded jets, go up to the capitol and demand a rescue package for our school system. And afterwards, we can go out for cocktails and plan our next golf vacation...

For more on this issue, see the article in the SF Chronicle: 

http://sfgate.com/cgi?file=/c/a/2009/01/14/MNS4159KA4.DTL

What will happen then?

I work every day for my girl. 

I joined the Community Advisory Committee on Special Education in our district.

Twice I have been to the state capitol. 

I meet with my legislator. 

I attend board meetings. 

I retained an attorney when our district refused to assess her need for a speech device. 

I applied for Medicare three times before she got it. 

Last month, a board of education member told me personally that the board was not going to cut special education. This month, huge cuts to special education are on the agenda. Our superintendent said the decision was basically already made. 

Either Gary Eberhart is a liar, or he is sadly uninformed as the board president. I actually think he is both intelligent and informed. Perhaps there is some other explanation. I hope so.

What scares me most is that these people who I work with every day, who have so little interest in my child and so much interest in their budget, will be the ones who "care" for her when I am gone. 

I hate to say that the worst thing I learned about her diagnosis is that she will most likely out live me. 

If most of the energy of most agencies now goes into finding reasons not to care for her, why should I think that will change after I die?

The true measure of a person is what they will do when they believe no one is looking. Based on what they do when people are obviously looking, I am scared for my girl.