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Al
Gore once said “When you have the facts on your
side, argue the facts. When you have the law on
your side, argue the law. When you have neither,
holler!”
In
the debate over how to help students with
disabilities, opponents of proposals offered by
Senate Majority Leader Walter Stosch, R-Henrico,
have neither the facts nor the law on their side
… and hope to win by hollering the loudest.
Stosch
this year introduced a bill creating a Tuition
Assistance Grant for students with disabilities.
It provided that if a student with disabilities
were not making progress in school, a portion of
the taxpayer money already being spent in the
public schools could be redirected to an
alternative private placement, licensed by the
Department of Education, at the parents’ choice.
Let’s
keep in mind that these students are among the
most fragile in our society. They did not choose
the hard path in life they have been handed. They
are subject to a written Individual Education Plan
(IEP) involving teams of educators each time the
plan is changed. Public schools already spend, on
average, $16,000 per child per year for their
education (the Stosch bill capped the grant at
$10,000 per year). And the societal costs of not
educating a student with disabilities -- not to
mention the personal cost to the child --
skyrocket as they enter adulthood.
More
than 2,400 children are in such private placements
now. The difference between current practice and
Stosch’s proposal is that Stosch would empower
parents to make decisions about their children;
current practice lets local School Boards make the
placement, and at the full cost – often
more than $50,000 a year.
Stosch’s
proposal would help end divisive conflicts over
the development of IEPs and the best placement for
disabled students in public schools by giving
parents another option. It would provide an
additional educational alternative for children
whose special needs already make them more
difficult to teach. And it likely would have saved
money by giving parents the right to choose
alternatives costing taxpayers a fraction of what
they are already paying for education.
Nor
would the proposal have led to a massive exodus:
In Ohio, all of about 300 students use a similar
grant. In Colorado, fewer than 500 students
do.
By
and large, parents are satisfied with the strong
efforts made by the public education system. But
Stosch’s bill aims at children who very simply
are not able to receive an education in a system
built on “one size fits all.” They need a very
individualized kind of education, and their
parents deserve a chance to provide it.
It’s
a measure that would give opportunities to kids
like David Rudolph, who got poor grades, was held
back twice but now attends a private school for
disabilities, is making straight A's and is
starring on the school basketball team. To give
their child a chance, his parents refinanced their
home, told his sister she couldn’t go to the
college of her choice, and even now cannot afford
next year’s $13,000 tuition.
It’s
a bill designed to level the playing field for
students like David Henck, a child with Asperger
Syndrome who was bullied and threatened with being
shot in elementary school. When his parents went
through the “due process” hearing School
Boards insist upon to get him a better placement
in an alternative private setting, they were
denied. And then it turned out the principal
misrepresented the facts of the case and was
indicted on perjury charges.
For
many, Stosch's idea is common sense. But not for
the Virginia School Boards Association (VSBA) and
its colleagues in the Virginia Education
Association and the Virginia Association of School
Superintendents.
Instead,
they released a flurry of attacks on the plan’s
sponsor. Even when the bill was “carried over”
in committee and survived in the House as a budget
amendment offering grants of only $2,400, the VSBA
issued a series of misleading e-mails to local
school board members.
Among
the distortions: Claiming the amendment cost
$10,000 per student, that it would violate federal
law, that it would require spending local funds to
make up any difference in private school tuition,
and that it would take millions of dollars out of
the budget – not one of which is true. A
comparison of the claims and the reality can be
found here.
Finally,
opponents went so far as to insult parents by
insisting that only private placements done as a
result of decisions involving school system staff
can “ensure that this placement is in the best
interests of the student.”
What
they are saying is: “Parents really don’t know
what’s in the best interests of their child.”
But
who knows what's best for the child -- an educator
who might spend six hours a day with the child, or
parents who live, breathe and eat with their
child, nurturing the child since birth and caring
for him the other 18 hours a day? These parents
deserve better than insults. School Board members
deserve better than the misleading information
they’ve been handed by their association.
Taxpayers deserve better than to be told a $2,400
tuition assistance grant is somehow more expensive
than the current $16,000 annual cost per child.
The
Stosch bill still lives, albeit in a weaker form,
through the budget amendment offered by Del. Phil
Hamilton, R-Newport News. When the General
Assembly gets around to passing a budget, it would
be a shame if this chance at offering educational
opportunities for the frailest among us
disappeared in the cross-fire between the House
and the Senate.
--
April 17, 2006
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