On Special Education

At two recent town hall meetings, both Barack Obama and John McCain reiterated their desire to see more money go to special education. Obama's comments, made Aug. 19 in Raleigh, N.C., were posted on YouTube:

An audience member told Obama, a Democrat, about her experiences with her 3-year-old son, who has Down syndrome. She said she was told by doctors that her son was lucky to be getting benefits because he "wasn't really going to be anything in life." She then asked Obama his views on the word "retardation" and on including children with disabilities in daily life. A partial transcript of his response:

In terms of terminology...I think the world retardation is backwards, that's old, we need to put that to bed...Substantively, one of the great victories of the last 30 years has been a change in attitudes towards disabilities. It used to be that people weren't going to get the kinds of services that they needed...

Unfortunately, though, we still don't fund these provisions adequately. And nowhere is that more true than in the education system...that is why I have said that as president, my goal will be to achieve full funding of special education because no child is disposable, every child is special and we should make sure that we have resources in place without taking funding from other children....

McCain's comments came during an Aug. 20 town hall meeting in Las Cruces, N.M. You can go right to his comments by searching on "special education," but here's an excerpt:

But I'd also like to mention one other aspect of the issue of education, two points. One, No Child Left Behind needs to be reauthorized. We need to learn the lessons. We don't need to discard it completely.

The second thing is, one, a terrible thing that's happened in America recently, as I know you all know, is the rise of autism. We don't know. We don't know what causes it. There's a huge debate going on now about vaccinations. And I've read and studied and gotten briefings, and I don't know all the answers.

But I do know it's a fact that autism is on a dramatic rise in the United States of America. And we've got to find the cause of it.

But, meanwhile, we're going to have to increase funding for special education. I mean, it's just -- it's just a fact. And that's expensive, but it seems to me the kind of country we are, that that should have one of our priorities, along with our most gifted.

Notice that McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, stays away from the topic of autism and vaccines, which he waded into a few months ago.

Thanks to the Disability News blog run by Patricia E. Bauer for both of those links.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

...somewhat. This information has been available for a while from different sources, but the Council for Exceptional Children has created a voter guide (pdf) that lists the education platforms of the presidential candidates. But don't look for anything from Charles "Chuck" Baldwin (Constitution), Bob Barr (Libertarian) or Cynthia McKinney (Green); their websites are silent on the issue, the CEC says. Barr said he did support that Texas district that is allowing teachers to carry guns to school, though.

For more political news, be sure to tune in to the Campaign K-12 blog. My colleagues will be closely following the Republican and Democratic national conventions during the next two weeks.

Thanks to Jim Gerl for pointing out the CEC document.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Honestly, I've been so starved for political news this year that actually relates to special education, I'll even take this tidbit, nestled in a speech that former New Hampshire governor and current Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen made Wednesday:

"The federal government has made a commitment to the states to ensure children with disabilities receive an equal opportunity for an excellent education, and we should honor that commitment by setting a goal of fully funding IDEA within eight years. ... We need a senator who will fight for special education funding instead of voting against it eight times. We need a new direction on special education, and we need a new senator."

That not-so-veiled attack would appear to be aimed at her opponent, incumbent Republican John E. Sununu.

Supporting "full funding" of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act seems to be a safe bet for candidates; both Barack Obama and John McCain say they're for it. Now, if I could just get them to say a little more...

Posted by Christina Samuels at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Savings plans for college education, also known as "529 plans," have been grown tremendously in popularity since they were created in 1996. In those plans, parents can sock away money in different investments to grow free from federal and state income tax until a child is ready to attend college. The money can then be used for tuition and other expenses.

A group of congressional leaders wants to expand this tax-free account concept to youth with disabilities, in order to pay for qualified expenses.

The Washington Post had a favorable editorial in the paper today about the plans currently working their way through Congress. Senators Robert Casey (D-Pa.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have cosponsored a bill, and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) also has a proposal. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, a Republican from Florida, has a similar bill working in the House.

It sounds like a great idea; to receive federal benefits, people with disabilities have to impoverish themselves. Distributions under these accounts would not count toward an individual's income limits, so should not affect receipt of Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.

The Post editorial brings up the one pitfall: this shouldn't be used a some kind of tax shelter for the wealthy. But I know of so many families who are worried about what will happen to their children once they reach adulthood. Giving people with disabilities the same kind of assistance the country is already giving college-bound students seems quite reasonable.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow! Well, that was fast. With today's resignation of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson now becomes not only the state's first black governor, but the nation's first blind governor.

The New York Times has a profile of Paterson today, which talks about his refusal to learn Braille as a child, his parents' determination to forgo special education for him, and his subsequent high achievement.

However, he has been actively involved in disability groups, including serving on the American Foundation for the Blind's board of trustees for nine years. The board has released a statement saying that once again, Paterson is "making history."

"Paterson has shown the world that people with vision loss can lead full and independent lives—running marathons, being a great father and husband, and becoming a major political leader," says Carl R. Augusto, the president and CEO of the foundation.

But the media's depiction of Paterson's "independence"—he also doesn't use a cane or a guide dog—has struck a nerve with at least one blogger, who writes:

I'm always perplexed by these articles that talk about how "independent" someone is because they don't use a mobility aid. I remember reading an article about one woman who said her doctor suggested a cane, but she wanted to be more independent. Her solution? Make sure a coworker was around to yell to her when she was approaching the top of the stairs.

So, if we want to *look* independent (as opposed to *being* independent), maybe we're going about it all wrong. Maybe it's like a status symbol if we can have all of these people around to guide us so we don't have to rely on one of those canes or dogs.

I see the same thing in articles about braille--someone is "independent" because they spend hours and hours memorizing stuff rather than reading braille.

Is our cultural fear of blindness so great that it shapes our perceptions of what constitutes independence?

UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that Paterson is not the nation's first blind governor. That honor goes to Bob Cowley Riley, who was governor of Arkansas for 11 days in 1975. Riley, a Marine, lost his sight due to injuries he received in World War II.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

John McCain has been busy lately--clinching the Republican nomination for president, visiting the White House to receive an official endorsement from President Bush. Not too busy, however, to wade into one of the most controversial issues roiling the autism community.

According to a recent New York Times article, McCain said during a campaign stop in Texas that “It’s indisputable that autism is on the rise among children." He continued, "The question is, what’s causing it? And we go back and forth, and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.”

Many medical experts say he's half right: diagnoses of autism cases are on the rise. But, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there's no link between the communication disorder and thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once used in vaccines.

McCain's comments have rolled across the highly sensitized autism community. Campaign U., a blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, has collected a sample of critical web commentary. Many of the comments on ABC News journalist Jake Tapper's blog offer an opposing view.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

They may have other policy differences, but when it comes to special education, Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want the same thing for states--more money.

My colleague Michele McNeil has already written in her lively blog about Clinton's pledge to "fully-fund" the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

That gets into a tricky area. In 1975, when IDEA first was passed as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the law said that the federal government would eventually kick in to the states 40 percent of the nationwide average cost of educating a student. (Look at how relatively brief the special education law was, originally! Those were the days.)

The feds have never met that standard, though, despite stated intentions and "glide paths" and other attempts at meeting that 40 percent standard. President Bush's proposed fiscal 2009 budget would provide to states grants equal to about 17 percent of the average cost of educating a student.

McCain says the government's failure to meet the 40 percent funding threshold is a "disgrace." Check out his comments at a New Hampshire forum when he was asked about the topic by a mother of two children with autism:

McCain's wife, Cindy, has a master's degree in special education from the University of Southern California, and she's come up more than once when McCain is asked about education topics.

As for Obama, his disability plan fact sheet also includes a charge to fully-fund the law.

So, good news, right? The only problem is that no one makes it entirely clear where the money is going to come from. The 17 percent funding in Bush's proposed budget amounts to $11.3 billion in grants to states. More than doubling that percentage (and adding new programs, in the case of Clinton's and Obama's overall education proposals) adds up to real money. Do you think the candidates, once elected, will finally be able to achieve this goal?

Posted by Christina Samuels at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)