Rep. Scharnhorst discusses Bryce's Law

Missouri Education: In need of reform

A parent's responsibility to educate; Missouri's responsibility to make it possible

Helping Children is a Parent’s Responsibility was the title of an insensitive, ill-conceived letter in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today. The author says,

“At a recent Senate hearing on a bill that would provide tax credits for people who contribute to scholarships for special needs children to attend private school, one parent said it wasn't fair that the family had to make adjustments to educate a special needs child. ‘We shouldn't have to move and rearrange our lives to get what's best for our kids.’

Parents do that all the time. Surely, parents take into consideration the quality of a school district before they move into a neighborhood. Would parents have the same complaint if their child had a physical illness and needed special treatment?

As parents, we often are called on to make sacrifices for our children. The means are available. Getting children the help they need is a parental responsibility, not an entitlement.”

Aside from the pure disappointment that someone who purports to understand the needs of autistic children could so callously dismiss the lengths that parents go to educate a special needs child, I was struck by the pithy and non sequiter arguments the author gave.

I am sure that parents do take into account a school district before buying a home—but how can they take into account the endless possibilities of special needs their child could be born with? Many parents simply do not have the means to live in the best school district, as illustrated by the fact that there are tens of thousands of children enrolled in the failing St. Louis Public schools—surely that is a known fact.

What’s more, the means are not available. Parents have told legislators about multiple moves to find the right school district that could help their child, or of second mortgages, cashed out college funds and 401Ks all to pay for a private school that could help their child learn. That’s to say nothing of parents who have more than one child, or children with different disabilities, careers passed up to move or care for a child, the effect moving can have on some special needs children, and the sheer costs of testing and therapies. What else would the author have them sacrifice? When parents have exercised all of their options and still cannot get an appropriate education for their special needs child, there exists an obligation to give them another choice.

There is a plethora of tax credits in Missouri that assist families with housing, daycare, college tuition—this is one way the state can respond when a need exists that many families cannot meet. It is abhorrent to say that families who are seeking a good education for their children are doing so out of a sense of entitlement. They have advocated for the scholarship tax credit precisely because it is their responsibility to help their child succeed. That deserves respect and support, not scorn.

Finally, if it is a parents' responsibility to educate their child, then parents should be given a choice.

Rep. Schlottach, trusted with parents' rights

I read on Rep. Luke Scavuzzo’s website this quote:

“Trust is not a prize politicians get for winning. It must be earned every day by hard work. I hope I have earned your trust by representing our community with the highest standards, ensuring that our needs and values are heard in Jefferson City. I respect all members of my community and believe they should all be valued equally. I have and will continue to serve my community with the convictions of honesty and integrity.

There is still a lot of work to do. We need to increase economic development and job growth by attracting quality jobs that provide good wages, quality health care and employment security to all Missourians. We need to improve our education system from pre-kindergarten to college.”

General sentiments like that, while encouraging, don’t really tell us much. What matters is what happens that support those statements, and it really is hard to tell. Ideologically, many legislators believe they’ve been elected to offer their best judgment on an issue that many voters may not be well-informed on. Others think that their position requires them to root out the leaning of their constituents and try to replicate that sway in the legislature. Probably most are trying to strike a balance.

HB 1886, in my opinion, is one of the issues in which a parent’s view is most important. This legislation will give parents with special needs a choice about what school works best for their child, and what will best help them reach their educational goals. A tax credit scholarship program will give donated funds to special needs students to go to a private school if their parents determine that the current public school isn’t meeting their needs.

Talking to parents is the best way to learn about what struggles they are facing, why they need this choice, and the benefits they’ll be able to get for their children. Parents with special needs children are the experts on the subject, and they are asking for this opportunity for their kids. I hope Rep. Scavuzzo has a chance to ask the experts about how HB 1886 will help their children, and the difference it will make.

Charles Schlottach has been vocal and supportive of giving parents more options when it comes to their children’s education. He’s one of the stalwarts in the House who recognizes that the education we have available today isn’t enough for some, and that instead of implementing long-range plans and putting more money into a system that isn’t working for every student as it’s supposed to, we need to give Missouri parents the ability to vote with their feet and find the best education available for their child, whether it’s from a public school or not.

There’s a big difference between supporting the public schools and supporting public school children—it’s the same as the difference between supporting the diary industry and supporting dairy farmers: they go hand in hand, but if the price of milk is such that farmer’s can’t afford it for their families, what good have we done?

In education it’s the same. We need a public education system. We need to fund it, reform it, staff it, promote it—but if, after we’ve done all those things children still aren’t learning, we can’t just throw up our hands and say well, we tried! Work with what you’ve got! We need to have options for parents who have done all they could working with their public school and still need something else for their child, and we can’t limit it to those families who have the money to afford the cost of private education for special needs students.

I hope to see Charles Schlottach voting again in favor of parents’ rights, and the right that children have to an appropriate education, as he has in the past.

$300,000 in the bank?

Margaret Donnelly has spoken briefly about her bid for Attorney General of Missouri, but I have a few nagging concerns. Donnelly has come out swinging (if indirectly) at the special needs legislation proposed in both the house and the senate. HB 1886 would create a tuition tax credit scholarship for special needs students in Missouri, and would allow them to transfer to another public or private school where they could get an education that better fits their extenuating circumstances. If we can take Donnelly at her word, she’ll continue her hard-headed fight against anything that might threaten the imperviousness of the public schools. She’ll continue to do what she’s always done and turn a blind eye to the fact that Missouri’s schools cannot possibly meet the needs of every developmentally disabled or Autistic child.

Rep. Donnelly puts her campaign finance pool at a perky $300,000. Let’s contrast that to the costs facing parents and guardians of autistic children for just a second.

The Harvard School of Public Health puts the total lifetime cost of caring for an individual with autism around $3.2 million. That’s just one person! Caring for all citizens with autism is a $35 billion-a-year tab, and research is sorely underfunded compared to other high-cost diseases and disorders. Autism is growing in prevalence at an alarming rate, and we are not doing enough as a country and as a state to respond to this problem. While Margaret Donnelly is concerned about protecting the public schools, she leaves children with autism vulnerable. The estimated rate of growth of autism diagnoses is between 10% and 17%, and no matter how much money we are able to designate to public schools and their special needs programs, public education will never be able to handle that increase in students.

Looking the other way while parents take on the financial burden of a special needs child isn’t a great way to become know as “the people’s attorney.”

Zweifel + Education = a good match

Clint Zweifel is running for Missouri Treasurer, currently a Representative from Florissant. I like what he has to say: responsibility to taxpayers, a better understanding of how policy is affecting Missourians in a rocky economic period, reaching across the aisle to “get things done”, I am hopeful for his support on HB 1886, since it seems to embody all those values in addition to helping an oft-overlooked population of special needs students. He says he wants to make a difference, and in this case it’s as simple as a yes vote on this bill, and many special needs children would be able to get an education that can go beyond what their local districts are able to offer. The cost of private tuition for children with special needs is astronomical, and many parents cannot afford that even though it is essential for many learning and developmental disabilities, especially autism.