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From: moth@dartmouth.edu (Tom Leathrum)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: HANDICAPPED KID WINS COURT CASE
Message-ID: <15866@handicap.news>
Date: 30 May 91 13:08:52 GMT
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Reply-To: moth@dartmouth.edu (Tom Leathrum)
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Index Number: 15866

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>  TB>    WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court Monday refused to hear
>  TB> an appeal by Oklahoma officials who challenged a handicapped
>  TB> child's right to a special educational program, free of
>  TB> charge, during the summer.
> 
>  TB> DISABILITY RIGHTS NOW!!! EVEN DISABLED KIDS HAVE RIGHTS!!!!!!
>      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> So, what are you asking for in this case?
> 
> Do you think that the kid should have the special education program or not?
> 
> In my opinion, the kid shouldn't. If she is going to regress that
> much in 40 days, then what happens when she leaves school
> altogether?
> 
> The quality of education for other handicapped people will suffer
> if all the other parents of handicapped kids shove them into summer
> school just to get rid of them during the day.
> 
> This looks very much like the disability rights people trying to
> take more than they have a right to.

I just HAD to respond to this one.  You're missing an
often-overlooked and very important point here.  Even as someone
who teaches college-level calculus, I know the difference summer
vacation can make.  These difficulties, which high school teachers
have to deal with every fall, become quite dramatic when you start
talking about special education.  Kids forget.  Just because it
took you two years to teach it to a kid doesn't mean it will take
more than one summer vacation for that kid to forget it.  The thing
is, in a special education program, it is quite common for a simple
task like brushing teeth to take two years of teaching, let alone
anything as complicated as filling in a job application.  These
kids have a RIGHT to be taught these things, just like any other
kid, but they need special attention to make sure the teaching
stays with them.  The court case put the responsibility for that
special attention where it belongs:  with the educators, not the
kids.

I know I'm opening up a totally different can of worms here, but I
personally would support a nation-wide conversion to a 12-month
public school schedule for all children.  We are one of the few
industrialized nations in the world that doesn't already have such
a schedule.  It doesn't make sense for a "superpower" to base its
school schedules on an agricultural calendar.

Regards,
Tom Leathrum
moth@dartmouth.edu
-----
"The imagination is God's gift to make the act of self-examination bearable."
     -- from "Six Degrees of Separation"