Dr. James Dobson and Dr. Laura Schlessinger join many others in believing that the time has come for parents to withdraw their children from the government schools. There is no doubt that the public school system, as a whole, is failing to provide our nation with an educated and thoughtful citizenry. The news from special education classrooms is even more dismal.
I have been involved with special education since I was given my first assignment, at age five, to teach color names to my young deaf brother. I spent the years of my youth immersed in a world where parents often had to pressure districts to provide services for the children. That trend has only worsened, while the battles have become harsher, and more legally complex.
With alarm and frustration I have spent these fifty years watching every educational ‘reform’ fail. Although some laws have made special education placements more accessible, none have noticeably improved education for anyone, let alone the disabled – not IDEA; not Section 504; not School-to-Work; not procedural safeguards; not Goals 2000; not the Department of Education, not the division of Civil Rights, not the IEP and three-year evaluation process. When I predict that no reform, of any kind, costing any amount of money, led by any political party, will improve the deplorable state of government schooling, I probably speak for many others, as well.
All students, special education children included, should receive support in transitioning to a different model for schooling. Presently there are two main routes for removing children from government schools – into homeschooling, or into private/parochial schools. Both avenues present serious obstacles for special needs children, and those advocating an end to government education must consider these problems and plan ways to provide the needed supports.
Those who would encourage these families to homeschool must understand that most parents of disabled children have no faith in their ability to meet the educational needs of these children. These parents are constantly reminded of their child’s deficiencies, and of their child’s need for ‘special’ meetings to plan ‘special’ programs, staffed by ‘special’ teachers with ‘special’ certifications. Since diagnosis, these parents have been encouraged to believe that there is no way they can do for their own child, and no way their child will ever ‘make it’ without the support of government programs.
The other exit from a special placement would entail enrollment in a private or parochial school. However, few local non-state schools have provisions in place for serving children with severe handicapping conditions, and most parents will be like mine – unwilling to send their child away from home to a boarding school – assuming they would even have the means to pay for such a placement. Actually, most families will lack the funding for any non-state school.
Our son is homeschooled, but the decision was difficult and has involved sacrifices – the loss of my husband’s income, cancellation of plans to enlarge our small home; simpler vacations and fewer extras. Consider – if it was worrisome for our family, with me a certified teacher, to remove a normal third grader with an eleventh-grade reading level, how might parents of – say an autistic, visually impaired child – feel about taking this student home to provide multiple therapies and classes that would meet the unique and often difficult needs of such a child. To expect these parents to immediately have confidence in their ability to do this, is to expect too much.
Most families of special needs children will need: skilled mentoring, if the decision is made to homeschool; financial support, if they are to place a child in private or parochial school. The time to begin developing these services and supports has come, for until such safety nets are in place, these parents and children will be held hostage by special education programming. ALL children have the right to leave the government schools, but until help arrives, parents of special needs children have no choice but to fight on for quality interim services.
January 18, 2003
