Why target some of our most vulnerable students?

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local parent voices off

Why target some of our most vulnerable students?

The Lowell Sun

Article Last Updated: 06/22/2008 06:35:39 AM EDT

I appreciated Ms. Young's recent letter " Every child deserves an

excellent education. " I too found Ms. Myers' article, " Special ed

busting budgets " to be lacking. As if the parents of children with

special needs don't have enough worry, concern, guilt and hard work

taking care of the children they love, now they have to worry about

their neighbors questioning how much " their " child costs to educate.

My 4-year-old autistic/hyperlexic son recently carried a wreath in

our town's Memorial Day parade to honor veterans who have and

continue to serve our country. I find it ironic that while I ensure

my child grows up understanding the ultimate sacrifice others made so

all Americans would have freedom to learn, to grow, to contribute to

our society and to complain about it; ignorance of his unique

learning style and future potential have some people feeling that he

(and others like him) should at best be shut away in an institution

until they die. Which is the larger expense to the taxpayer -- to

educate a child for 12 to 15 years or institutionalize them for a

lifetime?

Whether my son follows in the footsteps of fellow autistics

Borcherds (Fields Medal winner), Wiltshire (artist), Vernon

(Nobel Prize winner), or Chuck Studzienko (Walgreens employee),

access to an appropriate education during his formative years will

ensure that he spends his adult years contributing to the future tax

base instead of drawing from it.

The federal government hemorrhages money at an alarming rate on some

truly ridiculous expenditures, yet IDEA is funded at a fraction of

what it should be. Those promised but yet-to-be-delivered dollars

would go a long way to serving the educational needs of special-

education students, as would mandating reimbursement by health

insurers for therapeutic services provided by school districts such

as occupational therapy/physical therapy and speech therapy.

Pitting " regular ed " parents against " special ed " parents simply

takes the light off of many bigger local school budget issues --

bloated administration, costly fringe benefits, overly generous

pensions, and salary increases disconnected from performance and

routinely exceeding each towns' growth model (in Westford, staff

salaries make up about 80 percent of the school budget, not special-

education services). Proper contract negotiations would go a long way

towards reining in costs and would benefit everyone.