JANUARY 19, 2004
CRISIS IN CONFIDENCE OR CRISIS IN COURAGE?
We parents, families, and advocacy organizations are at an interesting crossroads. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] is being reauthorized. We, as individuals and as members of the larger formal and informal disability community, are expected by all to assume leadership roles in preserving IDEA for our children. We are being asked to assume these roles while at the same time being told by Congress that whatever we do, it is not going to be enough to save IDEA as we know it. What are we supposed to do?
We have debated this among ourselves for weeks [OK, really for months] now. We take turns advancing the positions, but we argue two basic points. Point 1 is the Crisis in Confidence position parents, families, and organizations are so overwhelmed by the wholesale gutting of public services and supports to people with disabilities occurring over our collective protests that we have lost faith in our ability even to speak effectively for ourselves and our families, let alone for the community as a whole. How can we dare to speak out now for the larger community when we have been so unsuccessful at preserving existing levels of basic service for our immediate loved ones? I cannot make a difference in the IDEA struggle, so why bother?
Position 2 is the Crisis in Courage position We are being told and warned that things are going to get tight and that the federal and state governments are going to be [and already have started] cutting services. The more we protest against these services cuts, and against proposals like the IDEA reauthorization, the more likely our efforts will backfire, and our efforts will be used against us and our children. In other words, just go along silently with what is happening now, and it will work out better for families in both the short term and the long term.
We and our Our Children Left Behind [OCLB] teammates have tried in the daily OCLB home pages to inspire our readers to ignore or overcome the lack of self confidence and the calls to apathy that have marked the IDEA reauthorization battle. In our own statement of confidence and courage, we have resolved in this and our future home pages to highlight the word REAUTHORIZATION to remind our readers and ourselves about how deceptive Congress and those who support gutting IDEA have been in the quest to force these changes upon us. Reauthorization? Poppycock! We are not fooled.
Today, on the national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, we are reminded about how demeaning and self-effacing the process of poll taxes and literacy tests must have been to those who tried to vote in the South in the 50s and 60s. The system was so thoroughly manipulated that even voting rights were cast as a personal issue, with the blame for the loss of the right on the person to whom the vote belonged. How clever and devious. Talk about a crisis in confidence! Who would want to speak out against that, especially if the reply was, Why should you count? Youre too poor to vote, and besides that, you cant even read the ballot.
Dr. King and the civil rights movement also taught us about courage. Last week we wrote about bridges. We personally remember the news stories from Selma, Alabama in the 60s, when the police and sheriff were at the bridge on the edge of the city waiting for the voting rights marchers to arrive. That bridge to nowhere became the bridge to everywhere because of the courage of those who crossed it knowing what they would have to walk through. We remember the dogs and the fire hoses. We remember the church bombings and the murders of the marchers. And we always remember the courage of those who marched, and sat, and spoke out. How easy it would have been for them to just not march and to remain silent and accepting of the status quo.
We think it is hard to compare the current IDEA reauthorization battle with the great and courageous civil rights battles of the past including the decades long battle that first opened the public school doors to children who had disabilities in 1975. It really is too easy to take the early civil rights pioneers efforts for granted. After all, IDEA really is nearly 30 years old. Who would ever expect Congress to begin taking it away from our children and from us now, after we all have had it for so long?
We finally have agreed between ourselves that the current IDEA battle and the current battlefield advantage owned by Congress and the school administrators and lobbyists truly does reflect both a crisis in confidence within the parent/family/advocacy community, and a wider crisis in courage extending from our community and into the broader community.
Our OCLB teammates and we believe that inspirational action will help overcome individual deficits in confidence and courage. But we all deceive ourselves if we think mere inspiration alone is going to save IDEA and other disability-related rights and services from the destructive axes of the current Congress. Just look at what the courts have done to OUR Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA]. Where has Congress been in changing the ADA to correct the flaws found by the courts? Do you really believe the ADA is on this Congress agenda? What about community-based Medicaid waivers? How about true access to medications for all people with disabilities? Have we as a group shown both the confidence and courage to stop these actions and to preserve services and rights for our children and future generations? Have any members of Congress truly stepped out onto the House or Senate floors and said, Enough is enough?
We, the current movement of people dedicated to civil rights for people with disabilities, must take a moment to remember and embrace the confidence and courage shown by the civil rights heroes of the past. No doubt these heroes had their own crises in confidence and courage at that point in history when they were acting to change life for themselves, their families and their communities. We must honor their sacrifices and their successes. Without them our task would be even more daunting.
But even as we honor our forerunners, we also must summon the confidence and courage within ourselves to carry on our fight for IDEA, and against those who would steal it from our children and from us. It is not enough that a few of us work harder and write more. Mere inspiration will not save us from the dangers our community faces from the present Congress and the present political climate. If we are to save what we have won, we must add to our voices.
Are you in a crisis of confidence? Do you believe the battle is lost? Do you question the personal risks you might face if you speak out against what is happening? If you do, you are one of us, and we are one of you. We have decided for ourselves, however, that we cannot stand or sit by silently while all is taken from our children and from us.
Our individual voices are not strong enough, and do not carry far enough. Your voice will boost our confidence and strengthen our courage to continue the fight. We will win with enough voices united in confidence and courage. Weve seen that in history. We must make that our history.
Tricia & Calvin Luker, 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.
