Help the public schools, not the voucher schools

[Thom Little]

Palm Beach Post
Editorial
Friday, Nov. 25, 2005


When Gov. Bush senses a threat to the education budget, he rushes to counter it — as long as the threat is to the education budget of voucher schools. For the public schools that serve most of Florida's children, Gov. Bush often is the threat to the education budget.

The Florida Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the constitutionality of Gov. Bush's original voucher program, which pays private school tuition for students at public schools that receive two F's on the FCAT-based rating system. Other voucher programs target disabled students and poor students. Most private voucher schools are religious, and the court might rule that the state does not permit them to get state money in the form of vouchers.

As The Post reported Nov. 16, the governor's office secretly has developed a plan to skirt such a ruling by switching the way the state pays for vouchers that go to disabled students. Rather than take the money directly from the treasury, the state would give corporations that contributed to a private voucher fund a dollar-for-dollar tax break. Whether the courts would let the state get away with such a flimsy technicality is unknown.

In fact, so-called corporate vouchers already use the tax-break dodge. The Post has reported regularly on abuses that riddle the system, which has almost no financial or academic oversight. An Ocala businessman was convicted of taking nearly $270,000 in corporate voucher money while providing vouchers to zero students. The governor's office has resisted meaningful reform and now is plotting to set up a similarly unaccountable system for another voucher program. We say "plotting" because Gov. Bush's top education aide, Patricia Levesque, for two weeks denied that there was a plan to get around a court ruling.



http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/11/25/a16a_vouchermoney_edit_1125.html

[MichiganVote]

1. Private schools don't want disabled or at risk students

[mzteris]

2. neither do the public schools..... n/t

[MichiganVote]

3. Public schools are mandated to assist disabled kids and at risk

Not so for private schools.

[mzteris]

4. They may be

"mandated", but they do little to actually help them, and from what I've heard from LD parents from all around the country - administrators either through incompentence, inference - or more rarely, directly - "encourage" the parents to take their children elsewhere.

[MichiganVote]

5. It isn't a "may be". Its the law that every student is entitled to FAPE

Free and Appropriate Public Education. As to the charge that "they" do little to help them I will say this, speak to the locale. To paint the entire educational system in the US with one brush hardly proves your point. Have you done a study? Can you cite a study for readers to refer to? Opinions count for little w/o facts.


I have known educators who are unethical. They are unethical in both their personal and professional lives and do not target kids with disabilities anymore than any other group or person. I've known plenty of the church types who equally unethical. The majority of educators that I have known at every level public education in Michigan are caring, ethical and trying very hard to rise above these kinds of accusations that are tossed out without backup.

And I will add this, sometimes students are referred to another school, usually in district, because it so happens that school DOES have better services for the student. Very few school systems are sending kids to other districts these days because they lose the money. Whereas private schools can be choosy about what berries they will use to make their jam, public schools take them all as they find em'.

[mzteris]

6. My "may be" was sarcastic

they ARE mandated, but not ALL do as they are supposed to do.

Kind of like the states artificially making it look like their kids meet NCLB by lowering the testing standards, eh?

Anyway, no, I didn't do a "study", but as stated, I have heard from parentS- as in many more than one - from across the United States - as in more than ONE state and more than one school district - who have been - and some still are - subjected to poor treatment by the ps system because of their children's special needs.

In all fairness, many of those aren't being "deliberately" inadequate, some of them just ARE inadequate.

And, of course, there are some schools doing a very good job. They're just few and far between.

The state of NC still does not have anyone on the State level - nor the county I live in (and it's one of the more highly performing counties) who is qualifed to work with AG/LD kids, one or the other, but no one who knows how to work properly with a child who has BOTH.

I personally know more than a dozen parents (not just the ones I've spoken with online across the country) who have had the ps system tell them they "can't help" their children properly - or this good one, "here's what we're offering, take it or leave it."

My personal fav is the "we're the experts and you're not, so how dare you question our methods? *WE know what's best for YOUR child." :rofl:

[MichiganVote]

7. mz, I don't deny there are many inadequate educators

And there are several reoccuring reasons that I see for this inadequacy, perceived or otherwise. First, it may seem that colleges are preparing students for the classroom but in reality they are not. The kinds of classes that student teachers in regular ed. or special ed. require to prepare for the diverse needs of any of the learners today are just not available at the college level. Same with administrators.

Second, most students with special needs present one or more physical, neurological, sensory or psychiatric issues. The most difficult students are those who have all of these and they are more and more common. These are the students public schools and special education departments are having the most trouble placing. The law requires that students be placed in the least restrictive environment and therein lies the rub. Sometimes parents push for a placement that is too restrictive usually with their child's best interests in mind. They'll say things like, "He/she learns best 1:1 or in small groups". Well, don't we all?

Sometimes its the reverse. Educators are pushing for a student to be placed in a setting that is too restrictive before it has been shown that the student can function well enough with accomodations and modifications. The rub in this is that not enough educators or parents know how to do this effectively.

The government provides public education for all children in the United States in the mode of a Chevy. Trouble is, no one wants a Chevy when it comes to their child. They want a Benz. So the schools have parents of smart kids who want the equivalent of a private education and parents of kids with disabilities who want a school that acts as a treatment center. In the middle are the at risk kids who have seldom progressed well in school b/c they are often slow and the system cannot/does not wait for them.

Any educator who would respond to a parents concerns with a "we're the experts" attitude or statement is unprofessional. And there is no reason to do so because there are very specific steps that parents can take to debate their child's placement, i.e., mediation. Granted parents don't win all the time but neither do the schools.

I am very familiar with the NC students who arrive in Michigan and I agree, NC and other southern states are in sore need of training. They are going to get it b/c the law is shifting and more and more special ed. students will be placed in reg. ed. placements with supports. The days of categorical programs for a full day of special education services is over. Districts can't afford them and students generally do better without them.

Either way or anyway....education is going to get very expensive someday in the US. The bill is being prepared as we speak.

[mzteris]

8. Thank you

for saying very eloquently what I was trying to say.

A few items of note:

**First, it may seem that colleges are preparing students for the classroom but in reality they are not. **

Did you see this?

N.Y. Times column stirs debate: 'Are Japan's schools really better?'

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/051125/kyodo/d8e3pn381.html

I've said for years that all new teachers should have to serve as teachers aides for at least one year, preferably two, before they're allowed "their own" classrooms. Speaking of teacher's "aide" - why should they be so unqualified in the first place? Maybe that's a state by state thing...


***The government provides public education for all children in the United States in the mode of a Chevy. Trouble is, no one wants a Chevy when it comes to their child. They want a Benz. So the schools have parents of smart kids who want the equivalent of a private education and parents of kids with disabilities who want a school that acts as a treatment center. In the middle are the at risk kids who have seldom progressed well in school b/c they are often slow and the system cannot/does not wait for them. ***

Very good analogy. And therein lies the real problem I think. There is NO "average kid". How could anyone hope for a "one size fits all" to really truly "fit" any one when in actuality it "fits" no one?

**Any educator who would respond to a parents concerns with a "we're the experts" attitude or statement is unprofessional. And there is no reason to do so because there are very specific steps that parents can take to debate their child's placement, i.e., mediation. Granted parents don't win all the time but neither do the schools.**

The problem is, even if the parents "win", the chld still loses due to a hostile environment.

We could have gone to court over our son, but by that time the atmosphere in the school was so poisonous, it made no sense to try and keep him there.

[MichiganVote]

9. Well, I'm sorry you had such a negative experience. As a school

employee I have had some very tough cases and not everyone is in love with me but in the main the prime reason why I see some schools struggle is b/c they don't make the parents feel listened to. Few parents set out to be unreasonable unless they're crazy and I've had a few of those too. Most just want to make sure they are doing everything they can for their kids.

I suspect that education will become more specialized without becoming exclusionary in the future. However it will be an evolving process with forces that are resistant on all sides. There will never be enough money in the system of education to satisfy everyone. As Special Education pulls back from certifying so many kids, regular education is going to have a tiger by the tail. They will pull very hard for Special Education to again pick up the lion's share of the load. In some areas that will happen but in other areas, specialized reading programming and improved behavioral treatments will be initiated on a more regular basis.

Good luck!