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 Commentary:
Maximum Convenience or Maximum Courage?
by Tricia and Calvin Luker,
Our Children Left
Behind, September 1, 2003
For more articles like this
visit
https://www.bridges4kids.org.
The fall, 2003 IEP season is upon us. How many families have
received school notices of IEP dates without being consulted
about the date, time or place in advance? How many families have
been consulted in advance of the IEP Team meeting about proposed
2003-2004 goals and objectives? How many families have been
included in other aspects of IEP Team meeting planning in
advance of the meeting date? The Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act [IDEA] ’97 makes family participation a core
principle of the IEP process. How is this core principle playing
out in reality? Is IDEA truly about the children, or is it about
the schools and their administrative convenience?
The practical reality of IDEA and the IEP development process is
that it is school- driven and school-focused, rather than
child-driven and child-focused. Active and involved parents can
change that balance, but only with significant personal effort
and dedicated support from other parents or advocates. Whatever
the dreams of IDEA ’97 -- or for that matter a declared goal of
current IDEA reauthorization -- to improve parent participation
in the IEP process, IDEA ’97 still is administered to the
school’s convenience and benefit rather than the families.
Now consider the IDEA reauthorization process. What are the key
components? They are reduced meetings, reduced paperwork,
increased school discretion to change programming without parent
involvement or consent and restricted parent access to
independent dispute resolution options. Guess who is driving
this process? Is it parents, or is it the schools?
Our Children Left Behind has tried over the past several months
to highlight the flaws in the IDEA reauthorization proposals.
We’ve tried to alert parents and families to the functional
issues of HR 1350 and S 1248, and to suggest parent responses to
these proposals. We’ve tried broader educational efforts to help
families understand the political process in which these changes
are being considered. We’ve suggested strategies parents can use
to inform their legislators about their children’s needs and
experiences. But we keep coming back to the core question – why
is Congress trying to force this IDEA reauthorization on us now?
Make no mistake about it. IDEA reauthorization is being proposed
for school administrative convenience. You read the
justifications for the harsh proposals contained in HR 1350 and
they speak to school issues, not to child issues. There isn’t
anything in there intended to help individual students. It is
all for the schools. S 1248, while less onerous, still speaks to
school issues and needs rather than the needs and issues of
individual students.
How many times have we been in situations where someone has
pushed an agenda upon us saying that they know better what our
children need than we do? Too many. How many times have
administrators or politicians pushed programs on families
claiming they are for the families’ benefits rather than the
benefit of administrative convenience? Too many. When are we
going to start holding legislators, policy makers and
administrators accountable for their actions – the actions they
claim are for our benefit and for our children’s benefit?
The time is now. We either use it – the power of accountability
– or we lose it. HR 1350 and S 1248 pay lip service to the idea
that it is for the kids. It is not for the kids. It is for the
schools. Members of Congress are mouthing the same platitudes,
perhaps without realizing how much they are hurting children in
the name of helping them.
The present Administration likes to pay homage to the greater
principle of accountability in government and in schools. How
can Congress gut special education in the name of the 6.5
million students when the true purpose is not to make schools
more accountable, but rather to make them less accountable to
the needs to those 6.5 million children. What is honest about
using students’ needs to justify legislation that cuts student
rights and benefits?
We like to think that education is a non-partisan issue – that
everyone favors strong educational programs. But we see no
evidence that this Administration or this Congress truly is
listening to the parents and children whose educational needs
are being bandied about like a political football. The
administrators have the power and the money, not the children
and families. The driving force is administrative convenience
rather than individual need. We primary stakeholders – students
and parents -- have been cut out of the process.
In the school setting, it takes courage for parents to buck
school convenience and to insist on IEP times, dates and places
that are convenient to the parents rather than to the schools.
It takes courage to question and sometimes reject school IEP
proposals that are made in the name of the student, but are in
fact for the convenience for the school. It takes courage to sit
alone in a room with administrators and say “I will not let you
do this to my child.” It takes courage to choose to do the right
thing rather than the to do the convenient thing.
Such is the case in Congress. For us as parents it takes courage
to contact our legislators and expose our family needs to public
scrutiny. It takes courage to tell Congress to stop using our
children as pawns to justify programs that will improve school
convenience but directly injure our children. It takes courage
to tell an elected office holder or a President that we see
through their charade and reject their proposals that only will
injure our children and families. It takes courage to say “no”
when the political thing is to say “yes.” But we know in our
hearts that we must have that courage because our children hold
us accountable for protecting them and making sure that they get
what they need to be safe, secure and whole.
We need Congress to be courageous, as well. We need individual
Senators and members of Congress to have the courage of their
conviction and commitment to children reject proposals made in
the names of children but for the benefit of schools. We need
our Congress to reject the idea that individual planning steals
from the broader educational setting. We need our Congress to
reject the easy political path of going along with this
Administration’s IDEA reauthorization proposals, and have the
courage to speak up for the primary stakeholders – children and
families – who will be irreparably damaged by the proposed
changes to IDEA. We need our Congress to have the courage and
commitment to speak and vote for us, rather than for the
convenience of the schools or the political expedience of
partisan politics.
September is zero month in the IDEA reauthorization debate. Have
the courage to contact your federal legislators and hold them
accountable to you and your child. Don’t let Congress take the
easy route and use your children to pass laws that will your
children. Tell your federal legislators to have the courage to
say “no” to HR 1350 and S 1248. Tell them to the right thing and
not the easy thing. After all, isn’t that what we teach our
children?
Copyright 2003 by Tricia
and Calvin Luker. Permission to forward, copy and post this
article is granted so long as it is attributed to the authors
and
www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com.
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