With all the drama surrounding St. Louis Public Schools any discussion on the subject sounds like a marvelous notion to kick off some progress, so education professionals are preparing their thinking caps for the latest round of The St. Louis Regional Education Round-table’s “Gateway to 21st Century Education” series.
The issue du jour is “Special Needs Education in St. Louis.” The chat is happening this Wednesday, bright n’ early, from 7:30 to 10 a.m. at St. Louis RCGA’s Regional Collaboration Center (at the corner of Broadway and Pine Street), One Metropolitan Square, Suite 1200, St. Louis.
A variety of education players will be on-hand, including C. K. “Chip†Casteel Jr., Senior Vice President of Public Policy for RCGA and moderator Anna Rich, director of the St. Louis Learning Disabilities Program. Discussion panelist members include Dave Roland of the Show Me Institute, David Thomas of Logos School and Patricia Hardman of the Florida McKay Coalition.
The panel will Special Education diagnosis, services and “new national trends on creating more financial support for children with special needs.”
March 25th, 2008 at 2:03 am
These people have….answers.
Dave Roland came to the Show-Me Institute after three years in the nation’s capital as an attorney with the Institute for Justice, where he litigated school choice, economic liberty, and property rights cases in state and federal courts. Dave earned undergraduate degrees in political science and Biblical studies at Abilene (TX) Christian University before studying law and religion at Vanderbilt University, where he received his M.T.S. and his law degree in 2004. While attending Vanderbilt, Dave wrote a series of essays for the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center about the First Amendment and public education, and he clerked for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberties in Washington, D.C. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, presented expert testimony about school choice before several state legislatures.
Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Services, Inc., a leader in the developmental disability service industry, announced today that Dr. David Thomas of Chesterfield, Mo., has been elected to its Board of Directors, to help guide the future of Bethesda and establishes its policies.
Dr. Thomas, the chief executive officer of Logos Schools., a non-profit day treatment facility for at-risk adolescents, was the vice president of the Independent Schools of St. Louis from 2001-2005.
Florida instituted a school voucher program, called the “McKay Voucher Program”, which was designed to help low-income families get a good education for disabled kids. But there’s always someone ready to benefit from a benign system. One of the key architects of the McKay law is the head of a school, the Dyslexia Research Institute, that not only recieves funds but is benefittting mightily from a new change in the law. Patricia Hardman then re-rigged the law
When Tammy Jackson [a voucher parent] complained to Hardman that she couldn’t afford a $2,500 tuition increase and that it wasn’t fair to expel Jarvis in the middle of a school year, “Dr. Hardman said, ‘We frankly don’t care. This is a business,’ ” Jackson said.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Is the public allowed to attend this meeting?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
It would appear to be a meeting not exactly timed to invite nosy questions from teachers or parents.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:08 am
As a board member of Dyslexia Research Institute and an avid advocate for individuals with disabilities in both public and private schools, it always saddens me when obvious opponents to parental choice in education, especially ones who do not post under their names, make statements about those, such as Dr. Patricia Hardman, who have worked in the field of disabilities for over 35 years.
Blogs are supposed to be brief so I won’t belabor the mistakes in Kjoe’s blog:
1) The Florida McKay Scholarship is not for low income parents with children with disabilities, it is for all parents with children with disabilities.
2) True, Dr. Hardman was one of the key architects in helping to develop the program. It’s interesting that he thinks a private school educator has the power to “re-rig†the law. If anything, the accountability measures put into place in 2006 that Dr. Hardman helped to develop placed more stringent oversight measures on the program.
3) We love quotes! Especially since it is difficult for a school to discuss a parent/student situation. However, the questions I would ask of the parent would be: How much of a scholarship was given to the student to offset any tuition raise? What was the student’s attendance rate? Did the parent follow through on contracted responsibilities?
I’d rather focus on why Dr. Hardman was brought to Louisville:
1) Dr. Hardman has worked in the field of dyslexia/learning disabilities since the early 1970s.
2) She has advocated in Florida legislation for individuals with disabilities, assisting in crafting legislation that allows college students with disabilities to substitute math and foreign language requirements if their disabilities make these subjects a handicapping condition; assisted in legislation to allow students with disabilities to receive appropriate accommodations on the FCAT, the test required for graduation; assisted in legislation that has helped to develop the McKay Scholarship Program which gives parents with children with disabilities more options for their education.
3) She has developed a reading, writing and math curriculum designed for individuals with dyslexia, ADD and related learning disabilities. Her teacher trainer program is certified at the Tutor and Teacher level by the International Multisensorial Structured Language Education Council.
4) She has served on national and state boards and commissions to further the rights and services to individuals with disabilities.
St. Louis should be proud of the decision to bring Dr. Hardman to their round table. She brings a depth of experience and knowledge that may help guide them to developing more options for children with disabilities.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I apologize for posting what I found to be most revealing of the people on the panel, but the original post of “A variety of education players will be on-hand,” began to look more and more suspicious as I googled the names.
It began to look to me like a rally of vouchers and privatization of public schools advocates—so—either I was unfair in attempting to point that out, or the original post did not really go much beyond a vague press release.
As I said in the first place—these people have answers—but sometimes we need clues about where those answers are coming from.
Which does not necessarily make their answers wrong.
March 26th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Look Robyn—there are counterintuitive thoughts going on for me—one of the major complaints about charter and voucher schools is the danger that they will cherry-pick the best and easiest to educate students, leaving those in more difficult categories to be dumped upon the public schools.
So when I see people talking about wanting to handle the special needs students first— intuition should tell me that if they did that, then the public schools would have an easier job, because an important, but burdensome responsibility is being taken care of by others.
But when I started googling—-I found points of view which point in the other direction. This is an editorial from the Palm Beach Post—which I know nothing about, and must google to check on the source. (Wikipedia characterizes it as a highly respected paper, not only in Florida but nationwide. It is liberal. It has a section online called newspapers in education.)
Voucher abuses grow while reforms dwindle
Palm Beach Post editorial
Saturday, April 17, 2004
What happens in Florida when a school blows its annual budget of $300,000 in a single semester, leaving nothing to pay teachers? What happens when a school cheats its students academically by conducting multiple classes simultaneously in a single classroom?
The school is held accountable. The school is shut down. That’s what happened in Palm Beach County, where the school board closed the charter school Sheldon Klasfeld had run — dismally — in suburban Boca Raton.
But because this is Florida, where vouchers are exempt — for ideological reasons — from all accountability, the school then is reborn at the same site with the same operator. And this time, because it has become a private school using vouchers, the school board has no authority to act.
The Legislature could act but won’t, despite a litany of abuses detailed during the past year in The Palm Beach Post. “Reforms” in House and Senate bills advancing in the Legislature barely provide the financial oversight necessary to prevent outright stealing.
There will be no assurance that the money provides an adequate education. Voucher “reforms” have no meaningful academic oversight because Gov. Bush and the Legislature are enthralled by the advice of ideologues such as Patricia Hardman and John Kirtley.
Ms. Hardman styles herself an expert on special education even though a Leon County judge three years ago discounted her testimony because she “is not currently certified as a teacher in Florida or any other state, and holds no certificate in the area of special education in Florida or any other state.” Ms. Hardman runs a school that takes $247,000 in McKay vouchers, which are supposed to help disabled students, and has — via eagerly accepted e-mails to the governor and a privileged seat at the witness table in legislative hearings — successfully opposed any move to require that McKay schools be accredited, use certified teachers or offer any special education programs.
Mr. Kirtley, whose contributions to the Republican Party helped to create corporate tax-credit vouchers and who runs organizations that distribute the vouchers, has successfully opposed requirements that voucher schools take the FCAT at all or report results on alternate standardized tests. Instead, Mr. Kirtley wants an independent firm — hired at a cost of up to $700,000 — to provide only a statewide average of voucher students’ scores. That approach, of course, would provide no guidance to parents, lawmakers or anyone wondering whether a specific school is getting good academic results.
Voucher abuses are rampant, while the proposed reforms are minuscule. People who have run failed schools but don’t want to get out of the “education” business are happy. Nobody else should be.
March 26th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this——I am just trying to imagine a dinner party with Robynn, Patricia, and SLPS board member Rick Sullivan. Would they discuss education? Politics? Homebuilding?
Gulf to Bay Construction & Development was started by a dedicated team of professionals, Dr. Patricia Hardman, Gary Lister and Robyn Rennick. Together, they bring over 20 years of knowledge and experience in building quality homes and commercial buildings throughout the Panhandle.
The Jasmine model is very impressive.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Mr/Ms Anonymous KJOE This will be my last post on this issue.
I would suggest, if readers want to read about some of the issues discussed and debated on the scholarship programs, they go to http://www.mckaycoalition.com and read the Position Papers and Talking Points.
Go to http://www.dyslexia-add.org if you would like information on Dyslexia Research Institute.
For disclosure, The Coaltion of McKay Scholarship Schools is a private, non-profit organization of private schools and individuals that have worked to make the McKay Scholarship Program a viable resource for Florida’s parents and children. It is run by a volunteer board who give freely of their time and energies. I am the past president.
I would also say that while the Palm Beach Post is a reputable paper, tt has a strong, negative bias against any choice in education program. I have never seen any positive report concerning the scholarship programs in the Palm Beach Post. They have lambasted any person who supports choices in education including Dr. Hardman. The Post is a great place to goggle if you want to have totally negative views.
I would wish Missouri well in developing options for children with disabilities.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Mr/Ms Anonymous KJOE This will be my last post on this issue.
what? There is nothing anonymous (or impressive, for that matter) about me. I advertized where I do my music gigs on this site for 3 or 4 weeks, mainly as a way of supporting the good work done by Antonio at this site. I refer to conversations I have with my state senator, who drops in from time to time. From time to time, I am apologetic about being an outsider as I post things here.
I would also say that while the Palm Beach Post is a reputable paper, tt has a strong, negative bias against any choice in education program.
Moreso than the Post Dispatch?
“Special Needs Education” is an enormously complex issue. I was probing for a political bias, or agenda by googling the names and organizations, because sometimes that is illuminating.
Best case scenario on this presentation seems to me that it has ideas and solutions which go straight to the heart of a difficult, challenging issue–how to best educate students with special needs. A matter with which public education needs all the help it can get.
Worst case scenario would be that a political, or ideological agenda is being advanced using the children it is supposed to help.