JANUARY 22, 2004
TURNING THE TIDE
Late Monday evening, America received the news that Senator John Kerry had won a decisive victory over his Democratic competitors in the Iowa caucuses. Just two short weeks earlier, Senator Kerry released his detailed platform on disability issues. Almost immediately, he began surging in the polls. Coincidence? I dont think so.
Senator Kerry went far beyond the shallow full funding sound bite to develop a platform for special education that espouses compliance, monitoring, accountability, and due process protections. His competitors, including the current administration, would be wise to take note.
As the IDEA reauthorization bills await action on the Senate floor, our presidential candidates must recognize that this and other disability rights issues are increasingly likely to become significant blips on the campaign issue radar. Senator Kerry has obviously already come to this realization, and it has turned the tide of his campaign.
Parents and children, on the other hand, have yet to turn the tide of this IDEA reauthorization process. While were making a splash, thanks to our daily commentary and the contributions of our dedicated Web site visitors, the threat of the loss of short-term objectives, due process protections, access to legal representation, already inadequate funding (to pre-referrals), and annual IEPs still looms over us like an impending tsunami.
We are grateful for the regular inclusion of OCLBs work in other education forums, such as Education News and Bridges4Kids (to name just two), and on the many special education listservs. We are grateful to TASH and CLE for having the courage to vociferously denounce S.1248. Media attention to parent concerns also appears to be picking up. Some policymakers are really starting to listen, and were very hopeful that the heroic example set by the Michigan State Board of Education will be replicated in other states. Yet we cannot afford to just tread water now.
It is now more important that ever to make all the candidates, Congress, and the current administration aware of the IDEA issues that are important to parents and students. Let them know that were drowning in the code talk. Let them know that we dont swallow the full funding sound bite. Let them know that the school lobbyists cries for bureaucratic life boats are not based upon data but rather upon administrative convenience and performance anxiety. Let them know that when IDEA finally comes to shore, it must not sweep away our children in its potentially turbulent currents.
Supply-side principles simply do not float on the tides of education, even if you sail with them on other seas. Making the journey easier on the school administrators will not trickle down into a quality, individualized education for our kids. There is not one shred of data that even remotely suggests that ceding to the school lobbyists demands would translate into improved educational outcomes. Not one. (See Data Disconnect) Yet were facing the very real possibility that those demands will be codified because Congress has been both deluged and deluded by the school lobbyists and administrators.
We can turn the IDEA reauthorization tide just as Senator Kerry turned the tide of his campaign, and we can protect the bridge built by IDEA 97. For as so beautifully put by my teammates:
Quote:
The whole education community, and the larger community in which it exists, have been enriched beyond measure by this beautifully aging but well maintained bridge now called IDEA.
(See Bridging the Education Gap)
Keep writing. Keep calling. Keep up the good work!
Debi Lewis, today's parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.com
©2004 Our Children Left Behind.
Our Children Left Behind [OCLB] was created and is owned/operated by parent volunteers (Sandy Alperstein, Tricia & Calvin Luker, Shari Krishnan, and Debi Lewis). Permission to forward, copy, and/or post this article is granted provided that it is unedited and attributed to the author(s) and www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com. For more about OCLB or to share information, please contact parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.com.
