{"id":281,"date":"2010-07-01T09:32:48","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T09:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-should-your-taxes-pay-for-thoughts-on-education-and-disability.html"},"modified":"2010-07-01T09:32:48","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T09:32:48","slug":"what-should-your-taxes-pay-for-thoughts-on-education-and-disability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-should-your-taxes-pay-for-thoughts-on-education-and-disability.html","title":{"rendered":"What Should Your Taxes Pay For? Thoughts on Education and Disability"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"busandschoolhouse.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday afternoon, Penny couldn’t have been more excited
\nwhen I said, “Pen, would you like to do a worksheet that your teacher sent home
\nfor you?” “Homework? Yes!”<\/p>\n

We sat at the kitchen table. She circled the “tall” person,
\nthe person “in front,” the item “behind.” She named three things you can find
\non a playground. She wrote “SLIDE” with my help. We had a great time, and I’m
\never thankful for her teachers who sent us home for the summer with a stack of
\nworksheets Penny will enjoy. <\/p>\n

A week ago Sunday, the New York Times ran a cover story<\/a>
\nabout educating children with severe disabilities. The article describes
\nDonovan, a young man who suffered a serious brain injury as an infant. He is
\nblind. Most days, his hands are covered by large mitts to prevent him from
\nharming himself. He has difficulty expressing himself in a way that is clear
\nhis aids or teachers. He receives his education through the public school
\nsystem, at triple the cost of educating a “typical” student. From the way the
\narticle describes his situation, it is hard to conclude that Donovan is
\nlearning. From what I can tell, Donovan’s physical needs must be addressed
\nbefore any educational goals can be achieved. For instance, one day a teacher
\nmassaged his hands and arms, leaving them relaxed enough that he didn’t need to
\nwear his mitts for the rest of the day. Most days, for whatever reason, there
\nis no massage and the mitts are on. <\/p>\n

But is it the school’s responsibility to address those
\nphysical needs? And should taxpayers pay the high bill for his education,
\nespecially when it isn’t clear what he’s learning? Should we as a society care
\nabout Donovan? Should we care about Penny? Should we spend money to care for them?
\nTo educate them? And if so, how? <\/p>\n

In 1975, Congress passed a bill that mandated education for
\nchildren with disabilities. That education has taken many forms in the
\nintervening decades, and it still varies in quality from state to state and
\nschool to school. For Penny, the emphasis upon learning in an integrated
\nsetting and the assumption that she will have academic goals just like the
\nother kids, has been a great gift. She loves school. She loves her teachers and
\nfriends. Special education seems to be “working” for Penny. It doesn’t seem to
\nbe “working for Donovan. <\/p>\n

And yet even as I write my “success” story, the questions
\nremain. A team of seven individuals attended to Penny’s needs this past school
\nyear–the school psychologist, who administered her Individualized Education
\nPlan (IEP), her two classroom teachers and the classroom aide, her speech
\ntherapist, physical therapist, and occupational therapist. The pre-school
\nprogram itself only exists because of kids like Penny. Because it is
\neducationally appropriate for her to learn alongside typical peers, eight
\ntypically-developing kids in our district get a free spot in pre-school. So
\neducating Penny (at least from the perspective of the public schools) starts
\nearlier than it does for most kids. It involves more people. And it costs more.\n<\/p>\n

Is it worth it?<\/p>\n

It’s worth it for Penny. She’s thriving–physically, emotionally, socially, academically. I hope that it is worth it for everyone else. I hope it is worth it for the kids in her classroom who are growing up with the expectation that they can be friends with kids who are different from them.<\/p>\n

It comes down to a question of value. But that value is not measurable with dollars and cents. It can never be plotted on a chart or a graph. One person, in commenting on the New York Times article, wrote about diverting funds from programs for academically gifted kids rather than changing the funding structure for kids with disabilities: “Folks, we are polishing stones and dulling diamonds. We are consigning our best and brightest to mediocrity. We are spending 5 to 10 times as much on students who will never be the backbone of society, never be able to consistently hold a job.”<\/p>\n

If all that matters is whether we produce workers who will prosper economically, then he’s right. Donovan, and perhaps Penny, should be left behind. But if instead we recognize the inherent value of every human being, the question becomes much more complicated. Donovan and Penny–like you and I–have value because they are human beings, created in the image of God. That value has been bestowed upon them. They have gifts to offer their communities, if only the rest of us have the humility and wisdom to receive those gifts.<\/p>\n

So where does it leave us? It still begs the question of how to best care for individuals with severe disabilities, how to ensure that their physical needs are met first so that they might flourish in other aspects of their being. But it also holds forth the hope that we are becoming a culture in which differences, even intellectual differences, are of value to all of us. Perhaps someday we’ll be able to see the worth of all these kids. Perhaps someday we’ll be able to see that they are all diamonds.  <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Thoughts on Education and Disability"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}