A Modest Muckraker Proposal

If you don’t want to be held responsible for educating disabled kids, well - give ‘em vouchers and let them go to school somewhere that does!

The special education muckrakers are just soooo tired of hearing state, district and school administrators complain that they’re on No Child Left Behind “failing” or “needs improvement” lists just because of disabled kids scores. Or because they didn’t bother testing enough kids with disabilities in the first place.

A recent USDOE-funded study showed that on average, US schools spent 1.91 times as much for kids with disabilities as for their non-disabled students. Check it out at: http://csef.air.org/publications/seep/national/Final_SEEP_Report_5.PDF. Too bad taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth! Other studies show that when states, districts and schools get more special education money, they use it to classify more kids as disabled rather than selecting, and training staff in, research-validated methodologies of remediation and instruction for the kids with disabilities they already have. In fact, the data shows - and even OSER’s Assistant Secretary Pasternack admits - that all the big bucks spent on IDEA for the last twenty years has not improved disabled kids’ outcomes one whit!

So, despite educrat and speducrat excuses such as that IDEA (and NCLB) are not fully funded - fact is, if you really pump a huge amount more money into the American speducation system, what you’re gonna get is the same miserable outcomes - but for more kids. Period. Then the educrats and speducrats will have to come up with a whole new round of excuses . . . but then, that’s what they’re being paid for, nu? Well, sometimes that’s what it sounds like.

The Modest Muckraker Proposal

The Congress should pass a law: Every time a state, district or school administrator excuses being on a No Child Left Behind “failing” or “needs improvement” list by claiming that it’s just because of disabled kids’ scores (or forgetting to test enough of them in the first place) . . .

Give their parents vouchers for the full amount of federal, state and local money spent on their kids’public miseducation for the 2002-2003 school year, and let them put their children in some school, district or state which doesn’t want to evade responsibility for disabled kids’ outcomes. Period!

Educrats - Speducrats - Think of the advantages! All those malcontent parents . . . gone. All those kids who just can’t cut the mustard . . . gone. All those nasty NCLB “failing” lists . . . gone. And, as a bonus, since all studies show that kids classified as disabled tend to be more minority, and poorer, than the remainder of the American public school student body as a whole, . . . well, you get it.

Sure you’ll lose the money. But think of the benefits: no more bothersome IEP meetings. No more evaluations. No more cumbersome paperwork “documenting” provision of services. No more compliance monitoring or reviews. No more manifestation determinations, functional behavioral assessments, goals, objectives, compliance timetables, mediations, hearings, attorney’s fees . . . . Why the increase in your staff’s morale alone should make up for the fact that you’ve lost 25% of your budget. And think of what you’ll save just on paper!

Think about it. These parents don’t want you. You don’t really want their kids. So let’s work out an amicable separation. You go your way: they go theirs.

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