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Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007

In a recent Courier-Journal article, Jefferson County’s teachers boss Brent McKim belittles Rep. Stan Lee’s proposal to help the state’s 109,000 special-needs students by offering them the opportunity to obtain the education and services they need.

He accuses Lee and the program’s supporters of engaging in “a cynical effort to use this particular group of students to advance their privatization agenda.”

Is it really “cynical” to allow just a portion of current tax dollars already designated for the education of our state’s neediest students to be used to provide a better education and needed services for those children?

Does McKim consider it “cynical” for parents of special-needs children who have endured the humiliation, pain and suffering of a public-education system that has ignored or failed them to have the liberty to choose a better school – and a better life – for their children?

There’s a big difference in the cynicism McKim complains about and the concerns of thousands of Kentucky parents that their special-needs children are not receiving the education and/or services they need.

There is justifiable cynicism about the way Kentucky ignores its special-needs students. In 2005, more than 81 percent of the state’s elementary schools were not required to report their learning-disabled students’ test scores because of state policies designed to protect failing schools and hinder an honest assessment of Kentucky’s embarrassing education system.

Parents are justifiably cynical about an education system that wants the bounty funding it receives for special-needs children – and the more severe the disability, the more funding schools receive – and yet fights them tooth and nail in their attempts to provide a better opportunity for their children.

Parents’ claims that Kentucky’s education system has failed them are supported by failing test scores, dismal graduation and remediation rates and their own individual efforts to secure the public education their children deserve. Many of these parents have been forced to spend hundreds of hours in mediation hearings and thousands of dollars seeking relief in court.

Their cynicism is more than justified. Their willingness to act is commendable. McKim’s claims are neither.

Contact the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky's free-market think tank, at (270) 782-2140.

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