Callin Show Tonight: 5:00 pm EST
Discussion about "Loudoun County: A Culture War in Four Acts." Link below
As mentioned yesterday, I’m hosting a Callin show tonight about the series, “Loudoun County: A Culture War in Four Acts.” Should be an interesting, and perhaps contentious discussion about a story that reads like a comedy, but was unfortunately quite serious. Click here at 5 pm EST tonight.
As a school psychologist, I think I can provide a perspective that was missing from your callers and the subjects of your wonderful four-part series. One caller, a mother with several kids who mentioned possible connections between the children of Merrick Garland's kids and educational policy, had a terrific narrative but it missed the real history of what got us here. She mentioned Trump's statement of local control in education. That is an easy thing to say when one's frame of reference is less than forty years, but the system we have in place is well over forty years old. Most of the challenges we face with social justice do stem with disabilities laws. Students, and adults, with disabilities are historically marginalized populations. When we created laws that address providing support for adults, and later students, with disabilities, those laws were so generalized to be used by other populations that were never the intended focuses of the laws themselves. We created a model intended to distinguish individuals with special challenges, and intended to focus that model on specific disabilities. That model required qualified practitioners of psychological and other assessments, what I do for a living, to assess individuals sufficiently to identify or rule out if an individual meets the description. It was so significant with blindness, for instance, that visually impaired individuals had specific stipulations of the 1040 tax forms as a deduction, a stipulation missing for every other disability. Again, that was over 40 years ago, at a time where being disabled really meant the student had a handicap and not a harder to identify disability that can be interpreted only, but not seen. Today, the incentive is in BEING DISABLED. The most obvious example of that is with the autism community. In 1980, statistics of the prevalence of autism indicated prevalence in over 1:20,000. In the last month, the CDC identified the prevalence as 1:44 children with an autism-spectrum disorder. Genetics did not change significantly in just over two generations, but what did change was lifestyles and a failure to deal with the challenges of keeping up. We recognized that disabilities law could be justified to provide supports for individuals to keep ahead, and sold the notion that medications (Adderall, Abilify, et.al.) could play a part in that model. We did not sell the notion of working any harder than necessary so not to be disabled. We sold the notion that with medications, legal ones, we would limit the responsibility of working with our kids. That notion also led to the secondary effect of expecting medications would be used in the same way that we EXPECT cell phones and updated technology to be used, screw the potential problems. This model contributed to the present financial divide: bright, educated persons with kids knew not to buy into what was being sold. Suggestible individuals bought into the model hook, line, and sinker, and so did the social justice population. Similar to accommodating for blindness and giving tax breaks, social justice advocates saw the disabilities model to benefit themselves. Since a federal law was passed and signed by President Ford in 1975, PL 94-142, we followed with policies that expanded that laws reach. Back to the caller with five kids, I get her perspective, and she is very bright, but that world view is limited. Now, as other callers and maybe she said, I cannot remember if she did at the moment, should we "blow up" the whole model? Clearly, it depends on what we are blowing up. It also depends on what we need to do to make up for lost services that are expected. Finally, you cannot blow up a model that has so much support in the courts. There were opportunities where we could have redefined what this model looks like (America 2000, in 1990; Goals 2000, in 1993; IDEA 1997; No Child Left Behind; IDEiA, 2004; Race to the Top), but all of those changes built the model to be stronger, not weaker, and not even close to blowing it up. Last, and maybe most importantly, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation created huge problems with their education policies. They weren't just wrong with their focuses on education, going back to 1995, at least, they were MONUMENTALLY WRONG. They sold the point of view that gave us ego maniacs like Michelle Rhee and other "Waiting for Superman" fans who promised to show the way, which they never could and never did. The Gates Foundation threw Gates Grants at schools with the goal of increasing test scores, and they offered, from what I could tell, no original ideas. Education is too complicated a model just to throw money at it, and being a state's rights model cannot be magically changed based on test scores. To change education, we have to change our attitudes toward education, and that includes the attitude that there is an absolute best school and school system such as the Loudoun County Schools. But when parent want the best for their kids, and have only eighteen years to secure what they want for them, the expectation is to get what they want for their kids, NOW. Were we to focus on education as the best we can provide our kids, rather than the best that can be sold to parents for our kids, we will be better off.
I was able to listen to this episode (and others) here:
https://www.callin.com/show/tk-live-VOaYFhTeLH