More Evidence That Government Justifies Its Existence By Bothering People
The excerpt below is the end of a letter from a mother about her dying son, Ethan Rediske, 11, who has cerebral palsy and is blind. The state of Florida is requiring her to prove that her son still can't take another standardized test and can therefore keep his waiver:
Why is Ethan Rediske not meeting his 6th-grade hospital homebound curriculum requirements? BECAUSE HE IS IN A MORPHINE COMA. We expect him to go any day. He is tenaciously clinging to life.
Story by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post. Via @Popehat.
More from the story:
Ethan wasn't the only brain-damaged child in Florida to be forced to take a standardized test; I have written in the past about Michael, another Florida boy who was born with only a brain stem -- not a brain -- and can't tell the difference between an apple and an orange, but was also forced to take a version of the FCAT last year. (See here, here and here.) There are many others in Florida and across the country as well.Why does Florida -- and other states, as well as the U.S. Department of Education -- force kids with impaired cognitive ability to take standardized tests? Because, they say, nearly every child can learn something and be assessed in some fashion. Even, apparently, a boy born without a brain.
Publicity last year in Florida about some of these cases sparked interest among some state lawmakers to pass legislation to make it easier for severely disabled students to get waivers from taking these tests. The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter warning lawmakers to keep assessing all children, and one Florida Education Department spokesman told me that "waivers do not apply to students with a chronic situation." Legislation did get passed but it wasn't what some had hoped. It allows parents to request a waiver (Michael's parents abandoned him shortly after he was born, and he lives in an Orlando care facility for children called the Russell House), and the state has set out a long series of actions that have to be taken -- including approval by the education commission -- to get a waiver.
Looks like a policy issue to me. It's not like this program can exist without testing of some kind.
Sorry, folks. You've been dealt a really bad hand, but you have to play it.
Radwaste at February 6, 2014 4:56 AM
This is all about the cash. The state wants those special-ed $$$ from the federal slush pool.
Cousin Dave at February 6, 2014 6:34 AM
Read the article. The way I understand it, they want to government employed teacher to keep showing up at the hospital because her presence calms him, even though he is beyond benefiting from educational services paid for by the state.
Solution, pay the teacher out of your own pocket to come by after work hours, and stop expecting the taxpayers to pay her for you even though your child cant comply with the requirements to remain in the home bound education program.
Isab at February 6, 2014 7:49 AM
Isab is right. Ethan is required to keep being tested because Ethan is still receiving educational benefits - daily visits from a teacher - on the taxpayer's dime. If he is in a coma, about to die, and they want the required progress reports to stop, then they should have the teacher stop coming. The teacher is there to teach kids who can't go to school due to a disability, not to bring light to the eyes of a dying child.
This sounds heartless, but it is not the taxpayer's job to comfort the dying. If we are paying for a child's education and that child is no longer able to learn, then stop the services, which will in turn stop the testing.
Beth Cartwright at February 6, 2014 9:26 AM
Washington Post:
Why does Florida — and other states, as well as the U.S. Department of Education — force kids with impaired cognitive ability to take standardized tests?
Me:
Why is the mother of a child in a morphine coma demanding that the state send a private teacher to his bedside?
Sounds like people bothering the government, not the government bothering people. Busybodying works both ways.
Kevin at February 6, 2014 12:40 PM
It sounds like a combination of bureaucratese and zero thought policies.
Earlier on the child maybe had a chance but once you enter them into the system, you can't get them out of it without an act of Congress or your state's governor.
If you know the child doesn't have a chance but has been entered into the system the parents are now guilty of willful truancy and unlimited entanglement in the court system.
The teacher is probably paid based on "providing educational opportunity" even if the educator knows the child is going to die. Basically she is paid to show up for X hours per day. That is in her NEA/AFT contract.
The Common Core/NLCB standards say you have to test every kid regardless of the waste of time that human thought and compassion would provide.
But what irritates me to no end was this comment:
That comment sounds like:
No, we don't. There is a reason that the Ninth Amendment exists:
The government, as it stands now, exists at our pleasure and should only do what we say it can do.
Jim P. at February 6, 2014 6:43 PM
JimP, chill. You have a serious rash today, don't you?
Policy is not assertive, imperious, of even particularly vindictive.
It just doesn't care.
Not a case of shouting demands to obey the state. You're making that up (not the first time you've done that with one of my posts, either).
Meanwhile, some manner of test still needs to happen.
Sorry. Sometimes life sucks, like when the state DOT throws your dead puppy in a dumpster when they find it on the road. Good dog, just dumb enough to get smooshed, doesn't get a burial service as you would prefer because all the DOT needs to do is get the body off the road so it doesn't cause another problem. Policy.
Radwaste at February 7, 2014 6:17 AM
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