Klarinet Archive - Posting 000336.txt from 2004/05

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: re: no one left behind
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 11:52:30 -0400


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Bell [mailto:bell@-----.net]
>
> My belief is that EVERY child is entitled to an appropriate education and
> that every child can learn. It isn't easy- and ultimately won't be cheap
> to achieve this.............
> Take Care,
> Anne
>
I doubt if anyone really disagrees with you in a general way. But it's the
expense that sends most people into their respective camps. This can't be
done on the income from local property taxes (the predominant way of funding
public education in the U.S.), which sets up a competitive situation that
shouldn't exist between parents and advocates of "normal" kids and those of
"special needs" kids, whatever the needs may be. We can all knock our own
and each others' heads against the wall until the system is simply too
paralyzed by lawsuits to function meaningfully, but until the problem of how
to finance our ideals has been grappled with and solved, we will continue to
waste time, money, breath, internet bandwidth and every other resource
arguing about who deserves, who is guaranteed, who needs, and who ultimately
gets the best education possible.

Right now, as an "insider" I don't think any child is getting all he/she
could in an ideal world or even in a strongly funded version of the real
one. And I don't really know what the solution is to the problem of funding
all the legal mandates, general and special, that in the U.S. have been
issued at both the state and national levels. Unfortunately, nobody else
does either, and so the clamor goes on, to remain unabated, I'm afraid, well
beyond my own planned retirement, as we argue over what children deserve
instead of how to pay the expense of providing it.

Frustrated in Pennsylvania,
Karl Krelove

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