Fuck you, Sarah Palin. Fuck you.
Oct. 24th, 2008 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janradderI so sick of you using special needs kids as a political football to benefit you're campaign.
You continue to talk about how you know what it's like to have a special needs kid. Listen lady, you've got an infant with Down's Syndrome but you don't know shit yet about raising a kid with special needs. You don't know what it's like to watch your kid flip out at school and home and confound you and his teachers alike. You don't know what it's like to take your kid from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what's wrong with your kid. You don't know what it's like to go from therapy session to therapy session, looking for anything that will help your kid have some semblance of a normal life. You don't know what it's like to live with a special needs kid, to deal with their obsessions, their tantrums, their inability to break from routines or to watch them try to interact with (or maybe just ignore) other kids their age who seem so much more advanced than your child. I have a six year old son with Asperger's Disorder and Tourette's syndrome and I've been through those things. As Trig gets older and the differences between him and "normal" kids grow, you will know what it's like to be the parent of a special needs kid but right now you don't. So just shut up about saying how you understand.
Now as to your "solutions" or offers of "help" in regards to those special needs kids. First, you talk about families not being able to afford various therapies without private insurance. Well, your running mate wants to do away with any requirements for insurance companies to really cover anything so how do you think families will get those therapies now? Are you expecting the insurance companies to cover them out of the kindness of their own hearts?
Next you talk about offering "school choice" to families of special needs kids so that they can use vouchers to attend public or private school. Do you not realize that private schools don't offer special ed and, under federal law, aren't required to? Do you realize that that's part of why private schools get higher test scores? Because they get to weed out the undesirables? Or are you talking about segregating special needs kids in their own private schools so no one has to see them? What exactly do you really hope to accomplish by offering those vouchers?
Lastly, special education in this country is so underfunded, it's pathetic. While it's true that under the Americans with Disabilities Act schools were required to provide more special ed services, there was no increase in funding to those schools. So an already underfunded system had to stretch it's budget even further (think maybe that's why we've seen public school test scores go down in the last 18 years?). You and other Republicans like to say "we can't just throw money at the problem" as an excuse to not fund education, but listen. If the schools don't have the money, they can't create those special ed programs you talk about. They just can't. Programs cost money and your solution of re-prioritizing allocations is bullshit. All it does is take money from one underfunded program and give it to another. So, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul but Peter doesn't really have jack shit to begin with so now everyone's screwed.
If you really care about special needs reform, then try proposing something that will actually make a difference. Don't stand on a stage, say you understand what it's like to be us and then propose policies that will make things worse for our families and say you're really doing it for our own good. All that does is turn special needs kids into another plot device for your campaign.
You continue to talk about how you know what it's like to have a special needs kid. Listen lady, you've got an infant with Down's Syndrome but you don't know shit yet about raising a kid with special needs. You don't know what it's like to watch your kid flip out at school and home and confound you and his teachers alike. You don't know what it's like to take your kid from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what's wrong with your kid. You don't know what it's like to go from therapy session to therapy session, looking for anything that will help your kid have some semblance of a normal life. You don't know what it's like to live with a special needs kid, to deal with their obsessions, their tantrums, their inability to break from routines or to watch them try to interact with (or maybe just ignore) other kids their age who seem so much more advanced than your child. I have a six year old son with Asperger's Disorder and Tourette's syndrome and I've been through those things. As Trig gets older and the differences between him and "normal" kids grow, you will know what it's like to be the parent of a special needs kid but right now you don't. So just shut up about saying how you understand.
Now as to your "solutions" or offers of "help" in regards to those special needs kids. First, you talk about families not being able to afford various therapies without private insurance. Well, your running mate wants to do away with any requirements for insurance companies to really cover anything so how do you think families will get those therapies now? Are you expecting the insurance companies to cover them out of the kindness of their own hearts?
Next you talk about offering "school choice" to families of special needs kids so that they can use vouchers to attend public or private school. Do you not realize that private schools don't offer special ed and, under federal law, aren't required to? Do you realize that that's part of why private schools get higher test scores? Because they get to weed out the undesirables? Or are you talking about segregating special needs kids in their own private schools so no one has to see them? What exactly do you really hope to accomplish by offering those vouchers?
Lastly, special education in this country is so underfunded, it's pathetic. While it's true that under the Americans with Disabilities Act schools were required to provide more special ed services, there was no increase in funding to those schools. So an already underfunded system had to stretch it's budget even further (think maybe that's why we've seen public school test scores go down in the last 18 years?). You and other Republicans like to say "we can't just throw money at the problem" as an excuse to not fund education, but listen. If the schools don't have the money, they can't create those special ed programs you talk about. They just can't. Programs cost money and your solution of re-prioritizing allocations is bullshit. All it does is take money from one underfunded program and give it to another. So, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul but Peter doesn't really have jack shit to begin with so now everyone's screwed.
If you really care about special needs reform, then try proposing something that will actually make a difference. Don't stand on a stage, say you understand what it's like to be us and then propose policies that will make things worse for our families and say you're really doing it for our own good. All that does is turn special needs kids into another plot device for your campaign.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 02:10 pm (UTC)http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/22/91245/036/191/638503
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Date: 2008-10-25 03:56 pm (UTC)