Palin and Special Needs Children
I understand that Sarah Palin’s fans find her critics loathesome and our motives dubious, but I wonder how they feel about the fact that her two national appearances have been so packed full of lies. To site the most obvious example, the story she’s now told in both of her appearances before national audiences about how “I told the Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ for that Bridge to Nowhere” is an enormously appealing story. But to me, the appeal wore off when I learned it wasn’t true. Similarly, this is a nice idea:
To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.
But then you read:
However, a comment here notes that Palin actually slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%. Budgets: FY 2007 (pre-Palin), 2008, 2009 (all pdfs).
Well that’s less appealing. Republicans who’ll cut social services for people in need are as common as politicians who favor pork for their home state.
99 Responses to “Palin and Special Needs Children”
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September 4th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Well, technically, she didn’t say she would advocate for them, just that she would be “a friend and advocate”, so, yeah, she’ll be your friend and advocate against your special needs kids which aren’t hers.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Of course special needs funding should be cut–clearly these children should just be home-schooled along with the pregnant girls and the children who need to be protected from crazy ideas like evolution and birth control in the classroom. This is what irks me beyond words about the Republican party; they stop caring about children once they are out of the womb.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Nice line at the end. To me, last night’s convention hauled out the standard villians – elites, the media, elites in cities, media elites….The exception, ofcourse, was no mention of Hillary. Added to this list is now Washington insiders. These, I think, play extremely well to the base, and even some moderates. The problem is that fundamentally these villians are either straw men, or problems the Republicans have created over the past eight years. As a result, they have to lie, and put passion and rhetoric above substance and policy.
This election may turn on the actions of the media. If Matt and others cry foul at fundamental lies and errors but the mainstream media provide only tepid pushback the voters will vote with gut feelings and emotions – precisely what has driven me crazy (especially when these are based on lies…). So, Obama has to win the emotions of swing voters, and if the press can show Palin and McCain fairly and accurately they will be much less appealing emotionally, and will be soundly defeated. Otherwise, it will be very close.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Yeah, but if being an advocate doesn’t involve funding programs, then what is she talking about–saying nice things about the ‘cognitively challenged’? Well, that would be the whole Republican party. As for her lies about her record, none of the Republicans I have questioned are bothered about them. Why is this?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Two points:
(1) Of course, she needs to say a bit more about what it means to be a “friend & advocate” – but given the speeches last night, it seems plausible that she wouldn’t see being an “advocate for” as connected to “funding programs for”. Instead: making the case that the disabled are to be “cherished”, “culture of value of every human life,” etc…
(2) Both of those budgets pre-dated the birth of her kid. Since she seems to be linking her parentage of a Down baby with her “advocacy”, it isn’t too clear what we get by looking at her positions pre-baby.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:33 am
No executive experience
Obama seems to have left out this job from his resume ..
“Recently [1995] he [Obama] was appointed president of the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant, which will distribute some $50 million in grants to public-school reform efforts.”
… I wonder why … this would be an excellent comeback for Obama to all those complaints that he never had executive experience or handled a payroll.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:35 am
You mean cite, not site.
Faith without works is dead. Praising special-needs parents while cutting funding is exactly parallel to praising the moral choice of going through with a pregnancy while cutting funding for a home for young, poor unwed mothers.
Or praising rescue workers while cutting investment in infrastructure, or worshiping soldiers on a golden altar while denying veterans’ benefits.
It seems so much easier to construct a narrative out of lies, fear, and contempt than to make the case for real things. I sure hope Obama’s campaign is up to it.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Maybe now that she’s dealing with both a DS kid and a preggy teen, she’ll be more sensitive to the needs of others in those situations.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:36 am
When an anti-science right-winger starts taking up “special needs” causes, does anyone else wonder what her position is on autism and anti-vaccination crackpottery? ‘Cause whatever the most lunatic and irresponsible position is, I bet she shares it.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am
The quote on slashing special needs funding by 62% is flat out wrong. The reason that that budget page dropped 62% was that a program called “Alaska Challenge Youth Academy” that was included in 2007 was moved to a separate budget item in 2008 (where it’s funding increased).
Please be more careful in raising these issues, getting one wrong does way more damage than you gain getting ten right.
See more detail here
September 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Sorry, forgot link
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/9/3/163229/8631/40#c40
September 4th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Neo, William Ayers was also on that board; the Obama camp doesn’t want to play up that association. In some circles, he becomes a terrorist by osmosis.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Yeah, I found that speech fantastically misleading, like when she came out and said he would raise taxes on, basically, everyone and everything.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Palin also has the experience of joining in with an anti-American secessionist movement whose leader was killed in a deal regarding plastic explosives.
Wonder why she doesn’t mention her valuable experience in the Alaska Independence Party?
Wonder why she doesn’t seek to establish her outside-the-Beltway ‘I ain’t from Washington’ credibility by listing her approval of a secessionist fringe party whose leader announces his disgust at the American flag and demanded to be buried outside U.S. territory?
Why do Republicans seek to hide their past?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:42 am
1) Sarah Palin’s entire speech was standard Republican two-faced bullshit. If she actually believed anything she said, WHY IS SHE A REPUBLICAN?
2) If she’s “for life”, why does she support a Party that has probably killed more LIVING Iraqi children than Saddam Hussein? Along with 4100 plus US soldiers.
3) If she is for the common citizen, why does she support a party that’s stolen $3.5 Trillion out of the Social Security/Medicare Trust Funds. A Party that gave our richest plutocrats $2 Trillion in tax funds to go off and create jobs in CHINA –while laying off real AMericans here at home.
4) If she is against government spending, why is she supporting a Republican president who is leaving us $5 TRILLION deeper in debt than when he came in? A Party whose last 3 Presidents PERSONALLY SIGNED OFF on over $8 TRILLION of federal debt.
5)Palin is a REPUBLICAN! If she actually believes her speech , then she’s a fucking moron who doesn’t understand what the Republican Party is. Or else she’s a dishonest whore for Big Oil who’s lying to the AMerican people. Probably both.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:42 am
This isn’t true either. If you bother looking at the documents, you can see that one program, the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy Program is included in the budget for 2007 but not in 2008. This accounts for nearly all of the discrepancy. You could also see, with a simple search, that the same program is still funded in 2008 (pdf), just on a separate program sheet (in fact, funding was increased, by the governor, by about 50%).
September 4th, 2008 at 8:45 am
It wouldn’t matter so much — all politicians hedge their bets, so to speak — but she’s been presented first and last as a Christian. Well, not first. The first thing we were presented with was the Bridge to Nowhere whopper. And that she had a risky amniocentesis even though she wasn’t going to have an abortion. But “Christian” is woven through that. I bet there were even Christian reasons why her husband wanted Alaska to secede from the union. And Christian reasons for being in a beauty contest. (Recalls Eddie Izzard’s sermon about the wonderful makeup Jesus wore when he entered Jerusalem.)
September 4th, 2008 at 8:49 am
1) Of course, Obama’s Campaign staff are showing the customary lack of a SPINE! While the Republicans flinging vicious lies at Democrats, our leaders curl up and whimper.
News flash to David Plouffe: the Boogie Man is not going to go away. It’s kinda stupid to expect mercy from someone who’s high point in life was dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages.
2) Anyone remember that little jogging ditty from “An Officer and A Gentleman”?
“Five Gook kids in a Free Fire Zone
Just carrying their books, walking on home
Last kid go home alone
Napalm sticks to kids
Spotted a gook family sitting in a ditch
little baby sucking on momma’s tit
Dow Chemical don’t give a shit
Napalm sticks to Kids”
September 4th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I was pleased to see that NPR this morning, immediately after their summary of the Palin speech, ran a much longer story about Palin’s history with earmarks, in particular the Bridge to Nowhere. So at least one news outlet is calling her on the facts of the speech.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:01 am
It’s like the people who rail against the estate tax who are too cheap to give their kids any money when their alive.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Palin’s not just a Christian, she’s a Magic Christian.
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin_iraq_war
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a “task that is from God.”
In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it “God’s will.”
———
So God is not only bloodthirsty and greedy, he’s also on the side of the oil and gas companies. Of course, one follows from the other.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Here’s the thing about the right and DS…
Palin is campaigning on the fact that she refused to abort the pregnancy, EVEN THOUGH the child had DS–as if it’s some hugely unorthodox thing to bring a DS fetus to term.
What they’re doing is replacing “without a brain” with “Down Syndrome” in the media consciousness. Because bringing a braindead child to term really shows a (crazy) commitment to avoid abortion. Bringing a DS child to term shows, well, that you wanted to have another baby.
It’s pretty insulting to act like Down Syndrome is some existentially invalidating affliction, against which death would be preferable.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Jim Jeffords is pissed off!
September 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am
And as common as apparently corrupt politicians who call themselves reformers.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Matt, I think Mario at #16 has you. You should post a correction.
In any case, the assumption that “will advocate for” always means “thinks the government should spend more taxpayer money on”, is a classic Democratic Party mistake.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Am I the only person who finds it disturbing that she named her son Trig? It’s to “tri” for someone with Trisomy-21 syndrome. Like if your kid had a cleft palate, would you name it Clef after the music symbol?
September 4th, 2008 at 9:52 am
It does appear that those who say that a program transferred around (but not cut) accounts for the discrepancy. I hope Matt puts an update. The mistake is understandable, though.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I think her nickname needs to be: “Pretty-Faced Liar.”
September 4th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Right! Go after Sarah; go after Hillary.. Luke, Don, Jay, Mario, Matt, Jeffrey, El Cid, Rupert, Jim, Michael, David, and the rest of you GUYS; and she also doesn’t stand in front of a urinal. Try the issues.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Well, the Obama campaign needs to start running ads with a shot of her saying that crap, and then the fact that she cut budgets or lobbied for earmarks. Saying it on a blog is nice, but let’s see these attack ads.
I live in North Carolina, a state that’s contested. Yet I’m not seeing any of this.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:10 am
3 words : “Facts don’t matter”.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:10 am
“Mommy”, I think Sarah Palin is strong enough to stand on her record and her policy beliefs, and she doesn’t need people like you issuing sexist “defenses” as though a woman’s too weak to deal with actual politics, and it’s all about what stall she uses in a bathroom. You can take your misogyny and patronizing elsewhere.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Sure “Mommy”…… issues would be nice. I heard nothing about the economy last night.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I thought the emphasis on the word “advocate” was a little odd. I’m sure she was told to emphasize it so that it would be quoted, but I think she overdid it a little.
The reality is that the Republicans do everything they can to diminish the social services which help special needs children. They cut funding for education. They cut funding for head start and burden it with unnecessary “phonics” requirements. They cut funding for children’s health insurance.
And, if McCain does what he promises to do with the budget, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He’ll have to take a big chunk out of every social service this country offers.
Palin’s kids will be fine. Trig can get care from the same medical centers that are currently engineering Dick Cheney. It’s the rest of the nations’ kids who should quake in their tiny little shoes.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Washington Monthly has already printed a retraction about the error!!!!!
September 4th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.
I assumed she was talking about St. McCain, not herself.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
What is the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy program and why did it get budget increases while everything else regarding special education was either cut or remained flat?
When you look at the overall special education budget once you take out this program their were cuts or effective cuts for services.
If I were a reporter for a major paper I’d be looking into this.
Now, I’ve heard that Palin has a nephew with autism. I’d be questioning if he was at this school. If that’s the case, then she saw that a program that directly benefited a member of her family was well funding, while basically hurting everyone elses.
And, if true, I would imagine that you’d see the numbers for pre-school special ed services go up just when her son needed them.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Is everyone on here so fanatically democratic and in love with Obama? I find Sarah Palin to be compelling and would like to know more about her. It is good that people are pointing out that she cut the budget , looking to call her a hypocrite, but what exactly did she cut? Was it wasteful spending? Just because it is for special needs doesn’t mean it makes sense to spend a ton of money. Why not give a full explanation of what she eliminated before you call her out.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
She slashed funding until now that she has had a special needs child it will become important to her to milk it because if she isn’t veep of the white house, she sure as heck isn’t going to get any help in her own state because of her past decisions to CUT FUNDING!
And I heard she got the funding for the bridge to nowhere, but do we even know where that money went???
September 4th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Yeah, I don’t quite get this one myself. When I was pregnant they asked me if I wanted an amnio, and I asked the midwife, “Would any of this information be valuable to me unless I was choosing whether or not to abort?” And she said, “no.” And devout pro-choicer me said “no” to the amnio, and that was that.
Luke, 100% agreement with you. A Down syndrome child is a challenge and there’s a real need for more support both socially and in the government, but it’s hardly a fate worse than death.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Okay, here are some issues about McCain and Palin’s views of the special needs community for “Mommy” from a review of the McCain-Palin (they actually photoshopped her head into an earlier shot of McCain – classy!) official website as of this morning, and other choice McCain comments:
1. There is absolutely no discussion of special needs kids or adults as a group. There is a single sub page, linked at the end of the health care section, that includes a bland comment that McCain will keep investigating the causes of autism and somehow ensure access to support for people with autism – no detail at all on what that means, and no discussion at all about folks DS, CP, MS, PDD-NOS, Asperger’s, or any of the myriad other conditions that the special needs community deals with.
2. The McCain healthcare reform agenda has no mandates for private insurers to cover the special needs population. Right now, several states permit private ensurers to exclude or drastically limit coverage for treatment and basic therapy for developmental disabilities, with every company doing their best to limit exposure. McCain won’t touch that patchwork quilt of mistreatment. Rather, he’ll let insurers exclude pre-existing conditions (and yes, being born with a developmental disability is considered “pre-existing” by insurance companies) and create government run plans of last resort like state minimum auto insurance. Of course, since those plans will have to cover all the people private insurance considers untouchable, the care will likely be sub-standard, doctors won’t want to accept patients who rely on it and costs will be significantly higher than under private insurance. Which brings us to the centerpiece of the McCain healthcare reform:
3. Taxing any healthcare benefit your employer gives you and offsetting it with a tax credit for individually bought insurance worth something like half the average cost of insuring a typical person today (with no indexing to skyrocketing healthcare cost). The stated goal of this is to encourage healthy people to give up company health care so as to drive “competition” in the private insurance market. The problem with this is no one will compete to cover a special needs person without a big government subsidy. Insurance companies like to make money, and special needs people are a near certainty to cost more in care than the company gets in premiums. So again, the folks in the worst position get hit the hardest.
4. On education, McCain is no better for kids with special needs. His main proposal is vouchers for “school choice.” This ignores the fact that most private schools want nothing to do with kids with special needs. Kids with special needs are often disruptive in class settings – something most private schools won’t tolerate as a matter of policy. They also require staff time, training and special attention that in turn strains resources in a way private schools don’t like. They are perfectly within their rights to refuse to accept such students, but the net effect will be to ensure public schools end up with all the special needs kids in town and anyone else who can’t pass private school muster or can’t afford the gap between the voucher and private tuition. So like insurance, the most vulnerable get left out.
5. As it stands today, No Child Left Behind actually allows states to leave all kids with special needs behind. Because scoring on NCLB standards is based on averages, schools try very hard to “excuse” anyone they think won’t pass. Since many states mandate passage of their NCLB tests to graduate, the effect is to stunt these kids’ education and then deny them the diplomas required to get decent jobs, go to college or otherwise necessary to have a truly integrated life. Yet McCain has no plans to revisit this part of NCLB or otherwise advocate for education for special needs children.
6. The primary author of the Americans with Disabilities Act (a bill McCain co-sponsored and contributed to back in 1990), Tom Harkin of Iowa, has proposed a new law that would encourage states to transition people with developmental disabilities from state institutions (think prisons, without the armed guards but with the fences and lockdowns) to community based environments (mainly group homes). This bill – the Community Choice Act of 2007 – is, in effect, funding a central goal of the ADA, to ensure people are treated with dignity and truly integrated into their community with appropriate accommodations. It also implements the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, which requires states to offer choices to and honor the reasonable decisions of people with developmental disabilities regarding the location and setting of their state care. Guess what – McCain is on record against the bill, having all but shouted “no” at a self-advocate in a wheelchair at one of his town halls.
Sarah Palin may become an advocate for special needs families some day. But she and McCain aren’t there yet.
By contrast, if what matters to you are family connections, then know that David Axelrod (Obama’s chief strategist) has a kid with autism, his wife is a big advocate for special needs care in Illinois. If you want a policy debate, know that Obama has a series of papers laying out specific policy goals for helping the special needs community, wants to keep private insurance where possible (and make it more affordable) and augment it with first class Federal healthcare where not, has pledged fully implement Olmstead as federal law, revise NCLB to reduce the focus on all or nothing testing (and hopefully the exclusion of kids with special needs),and is a co-sponsor of the Community Choice Act of 2007.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
MattY doesn’t post corrections, so he won’t acknowledge Mario’s comment, nor will he acknowledge the fact that they got more than three times after Palin “slashed” their funding than they’d received from all government sources combined in 2006.
I was actually expecting MattY to note the WaPo’s extremely misleading story, then when it didn’t appear I thought he’d actually done a little bit of research and noticed that, for instance, the Diggs of the story are marked as “possibly inaccurate”. (See the others who fell for it here: 24ahead.com/blog/archives/007980.html)
I guess I was expecting too much: MattY is even dumber than I’ve shown in the past. Oh well, it’s his credibility.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
What these reports are claiming is actually a pretty big misrepresentation of the facts, intentional or unintentional, by folks who (probably? hopefully?) just plain don’t understand education spending. These reporters and bloggers probably believe that cutting overall education spending must then obviously in turn hurt special needs funding. A simple google search on “alaska” “special needs” and “funding” brings up the actual facts.
While it is TRUE that Palin cut the budget for the Alaska’s Special Education Service Agency by 62 percent, they don’t bother to look into the fact that Palin also signed into law a pretty huge reform of the state’s education financing system — one that equalized aid to rural and urban districts, but also significantly increased funding for special needs students to $73,840 in fiscal 2011, from the current $26,900 per student in fiscal 2008. This is according to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.
So in actuality, rather than a 62 percent cut, she actually increasing special needs funding by 175 percent. Folks need to take a deep breath, relax, and do their own fact checking on darn near everything the media reports. And fwiw — blog sites especially necessitate the value of doing your own fact checking.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Citations to the above post by 4trogan:
Alaska Governor’s website: http://gov.state.ak.us/archive-64201.html
Alaska Dept of Education and Early Development website:
http://www.eed.state.ak.us/news/funding_program_overview.pdf
Anchorage Daily News article: http://www.adn.com/education/story/262469.html
Education Week article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/04/30/35recaps.h27.html
September 4th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Ok, I checked. There is no description of the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy anywhere on the Alaska website or anywhere on the web. From what little I did find, it appears to be some kind of boot camp for rowdy teenagers, and can not in any way be described as a program that benefits special needs children.
So when you remove this program, Palin did indeed effectively cut the special ed budget in Alaska, despite the fact that the state is getting a windfall from oil profits.
And, she is also proposing effectively cutting the sped budget for next year since these budgets remain stagnant.
Yet, some unknown program that you really can’t find any information on gets big budget increases and gets moved from a highly visible part of the budget to an obscure section????
You have to ask what gives with that.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Yes! This was the most disturbing part of the speech. As someone with a special needs sibling, I know getting ANY kind of government support is the incredibly difficult, time consuming, confusing, and in the end not very helpful. In California, one of the first things Gov. S cut was programs to help children with mental/physical problems.
I find it gross beyond words that I mean, even as VP her influence over the budget will be limited, but it seems like every GOP administration looks at programs like this as “government fat” that must be trimmed, damn the consequences. To hold up your child and not address this fact makes my stomach churn.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Sorry folks, here’s the reality of Sarah Palin’s education budget…
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/04/30/35recaps.h27.html
September 4th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
All partisanship aside, I am of two minds on this part of her speeh last night.
On the one hand, as a father of a DS child I say, “Welcome to the Party”. Does this mean that she will question her new boss and her party on their record in this area? My family has been lucky in that our insurance has covered much of the therapy etc. that has helped my daughter progress to where she is today (she is doing GREAT by the way). Many families of ALL special needs children are no so lucky. I am all for anything that will bring more visibility to this issue.
On the other I will admit to having a cynical side. I know that every word in that speech last night was carefully reviewed and crafted for one simple reason – to get votes. Politicians (on both side) tell half truths all the time or say things expecting us to not look closely at their records or the records of their party. I had a very uneasy feeling hearing her say that last when her party has done so little in this area.
So Sarah, congratulations on your speech last night. I believe you are a fresh voice and I am glad that you are on the ticket -even though I do not intend to vote for you. But it seems to me that the real test is not caring about special needs kids if you have one. It is caring about special needs kids if you don’t have one. On that your party been a horrible failure.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Why are you picking on her? She’s a real mother of 5. She advocates for her kids. She told us what she has done with all the monies….you just want to have obama in the whitehouse because you think he’s the answer…what had he told you about special needs kids….he knows absolutely nothing. He’s upper crust and has not experience in the trenches fighting for kids. WE NEED someone in the administration who literally get’s it…she does. The past is gone. The future is the fact that she has a downs syndrome kid and she WILL fight for all of us. Can you say that of your beloved Obama? I
September 4th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I can say John McCain won’t fight for people with disabilities to move from state facilities to community settings. He said so in a town hall to a person with a disability.
I can say John McCain will not mandate private insurance coverage for people with special needs. His own website admits as much.
I can say John McCain wants to give kids vouchers, but won’t fight to make private schools accessible to folks with disabilities.
I can say that however much Sarah Palin may want to fight for special needs kids, there’s absolutely nothing in John McCain’s message or website about what that fight would mean. She may be all fired up to go to battle, but she’s got no strategy or vision from what I can tell.
I can say Barack Obama has laid out a detailed, specific plan to assist people with disabilities get educational opportunities, jobs and choice in how they live their lives.
I can also say Barack Obama supports eliminating pre-existing conditions as a basis for insurance exclusions.
I can say Barack Obama supports the right of my son to live in a community based setting rather than a state facility.
How can I say this about Barack Obama? Because its on his website at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/disabilities/.
Please, do yourself a favor. Read the plan, compare it with Palin’s one-liner about advocacy, and ask yourself who you really think has laid out a strategy and vision to advocate for children with special needs? Who’s done their homework, and who’s trying to get by with an empty statement? Who, in short, is really ready to tackle these issues?
September 4th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Whatever this campaign isn’t only about special needs kids.. My question is what has she done for them other than have one.. people can believe whatever they like, but I know in order for me to get help from the state for my DS child I’d have to quit work.. I was told I make to much money $25,000 a year and that has to take care of a family of 3..
September 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Right Matt, because ANY cut whatsoever is AUTOMATICALLY BAD. There is no room for moderation. There aren’t other competing needs. There aren’t finite resources. Enjoy your life in la-la land.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
And then I see in the comments, Matt, that others have demonstrated that you didn’t even spend 10 minutes analyzing the budgets before tossing out your criticism. I guess progressives are so desperate to discredit Palin that they don’t have time for the facts.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Prior to this budget information being released, Sarah Paladin enlightened me. I have 3 SPED kids and have to debate with SPED administrators frequently in order for my kids to receive an appropriate education. I have been doing this for years and have studied SPED law in and out to advocate for my children and to avoid legal expenses, because some parents will enter the BSEA (Bureau of Special Education Appeals)to fight for their child. This is no fight a parent of a special need’s kid should have to endure. The only people who win in these disputes are the lawyers involved, as the SPED administrators attempt to defend their budgets and the parents attempt to advocate for their child. If you want to enter a political underground, you need to learn about SPED.
I would like Sarah Paladin to expand upon this SPED comment further. In fact, I have written an e-mail to Bill O’Reilly of Fox25 asking him to report on the Alaska SPED budget. I have also learned that the speeches presented tonight are being re-written a bit to include SPED; I can’t wait to hear it.
If Sarah Paladin only becomes concerned with issues that affect her daily life; I am worried. Was she not worried about special needs’ families prior to the birth of her last child or did this concern develop after she learned of her new son’s disability.
I find this very interesting. Please forward mails to Bill O’Reilly of Fox25 asking him to report on this very important issue.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I am the Rory that forced the Washington Monthly retraction.
The details here
http://parentalcation.blogspot.com/2008/09/washington-monthly-fact-checked.html
CNN already made the mistake of using it.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
“I am the Rory that forced the Washington Monthly retraction”
Rory,
Alaska Challenge Youth Academy is an at-risk youth program, not a special needs program. See http://www.ak-prepared.com/dmva/Press_Releases/2008/08_February/2008Mar1_AMYA_graduation.pdf
September 4th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Youth ChalleNGe is a national National Guard program and not related to special education.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Please go to the Special Ed blog at edweek.com
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2008/09/gov_palins_budget_for_special_1.html
September 4th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
It will be interesting to see what her take on disability issues is. Like all issues, disability is a lot more complicated and controversial than it may appear on the surface. Slashing funds for “special schools” may be a very, very good thing, if the funding is used to support disabled children in mainstream schools. I’m not saying Palin had a clue about this, she may simply have slashed. But on the other hand, people have remarkable tendencies to be liberals on isolated topics about which they know a great deal. It’s entirely possible that Palin has very progressive views on disability rights and services. On the other hand, as a parent of a very young child with a disability, it’s just as likely she views disability as a simplistic matter of “care”. She hasn’t even encountered the school system yet. Parents with 15 year old kids with Down Syndrome, ask yourself, at this early stage, what does she really know that you don’t?
September 4th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Also, the linked budgets were only for special schools.
If you go to the category “Department of Education and Early Development Student and School Achievement”
Which has special ed funding for the whole state, you will see significant increases in spending.
document here.
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/09_omb/budget/EED/comp2796.pdf
September 4th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Which has special ed funding for the whole state, you will see significant increases in spending.
yes. $3,200 increase in special ed funding.
significant.
again, Youth ChalleNGe is a National Guard camp.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
You liberals are so gullible. Its no wonder people are moving in mass to McCain. the smear of Palin cutting special needs is just that a smear. The cuts occurred from the prior Governor- NOT Palin. She INCREASED SPECIAL NEEDS SPENDING. check this
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=13211
The Dems are scared sh**less!
September 4th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Sarah Palin has been overseeing a budget for a relatively small population. Just seeing a decrease in funds from one year to a next does not necessarily mean that there is a decrease in services. Having served as a treasurer, I know a new year’s budget may allocate less because there was a lot of money left over from the previous year. Without knowing all the facts, the budgets in and of themselves tell us nothing. I was impressed that among her supposedly evil spending initiatives for Wasilla was a mental health facility, something you would expect to be more the concern of a Democratic politician.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Sarah Palin may be the devil or Hitler, but she DID NOT cut special needs funding.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2008/09/gov_palins_budget_for_special_1.html
http://parentalcation.blogspot.com/2008/09/governor-palin-supports-special-needs.html
September 5th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Enough with the “Bridge to No Where”, “I Sold it on Ebay”, “Hockey Mom”, and “Difference is Lipstick” rhetoric. It’s making me sick! Eight is ENOUGH!
September 5th, 2008 at 2:54 am
ALEX….Palin did cut funding for projects that benefit special needs children and adults in Juneau.
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/070107/sta_budget001.shtml
September 5th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Seriously, Matthew, it’s bad form that you haven’t retracted this false allegation, just as did the blogger to whom you linked. In fact, Palin increased special ed funding. The allegation that she cut it by 62% must have arisen when someone who didn’t think to check whether a particular budgetary item got moved to a different section of the budget (as it did).
September 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Sara Palin will not let the children be used by political groups,she said no because the children were being used to promote other speical interest ear marks hidden in the bill.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Most all of you seem to think that the Daily Kos is an accurate news site. Quit soaking up rhetoric and research the facts, otherwise you sound quite foolish.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
<<>>
Annabella,
From your post, it sounds like you are in Massachusetts. I’m curious where you are located, as I am an advocate in the field. I am very interested in hearing your perspective in detail. Please go to my website and send me an email.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
http://home.earthlink.net/~bcea-info
September 5th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Dear Julio:
The Washington Monthly published a retraction. It turns it you and they were wrong about the funding.
You can find it here.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:10 am
As for the special needs budget cuts…
There’s more to the story than an honest mistake by CBS.
In FY 07, before Palin worked on the budget, the state of Alaska had four distinct programs funded under it’s special education management budget: something called SESA, a psychiatric program, a school for the deaf, and the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy. In FY 08, the first Palin year, the first three programs – SESA, the psychiatric program, and the school for the deaf – were still in the special education management budget and their funding was approximately the same as it was in FY 07. But the Alaska Challenge Youth Program isn’t listed and it’s omission accounts for what appears to be a huge drop in funding for special education services.
I wondered why the program was dropped and googled the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy. Guess what? In FY 08 the academy was moved out of special education management and became it’s own program. And it’s funding was increased by about $2.8 million (to $8,234,000 in FY 08from $5,449,300 in FY07). Here’s a link to the program’s FY 08 budget http://gov.state.ak.us/omb/08_OMB/bu…D/comp2837.pdf
At least you can know the truth about her record.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
No she didn’t. You obviously know nothing about state budget/elections cycle. The budget was high in FY06 and dropped in FY07. You assume since Palin was elected in Dec. 2006, she had something to do with the FY07 budget. Wrong.
Proof? http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/07_OMB/SB231Letter.pdf
That’s the letter of transmittal for the FY07 budget. See the Governor’s name at the top? It’s not Palin.
September 6th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Thanks for the link… and their update.
UPDATE: This is wrong. As you can see if you look at the list of component budgets here (2007) and here (2009), funding for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy was broken out into its own budget category, which accounts for the drop in funding for the original item. I regret the error. Thanks to rory in comments.END UPDATE.
September 7th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Dear Mr. Dzeguze, I am a parent of an adult son with autism who is living successfully in the community and am incredibly impressed with your responses. Describing exactly why no one with a disabled family member should vote for the republicans. I am planning on notifying any organizations representing those with disabilities discussing the issues you have mentioned and asking that they go public with endorsements. I particularly want to contact an organization called TASH who have long fought for full inclusion in society for those with disabilities and have extensive media contacts. Perhaps the Obm. campaign could be involved with this. If all of us contacted any public organizations that deal with disabilities that we have contacts with and insisted they go public with endorsements we might make a difference
September 8th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
The question I have is what is the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy? According to the 2007 budget, “This instructional program is operated in Anchorage with student enrollees from across the state. Students work on challenging academic programs in a “boot camp” environment. Completing high school and building career goals and skills are the goals.” It doesn’t appear, when reading the budget, that the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy is a program for children with disabilities. I have been trying to find out more information about what this program is. From what I can glean from what is available on the internet (not much) the program takes students aged 16-18 years old who are dropping out or expelled from normal schooling and gives them a second chance in a military school environment. So until we know whether or not the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy helps children with special needs, we won’t have a clear picture.
However, for the sake of comparing apples to apples, I wanted to compare the 2007 budget allocation minus the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy with the 2008 and 2009 budgets (which do not include the Alaska Challenger Youth Academy in their budgets.) However, I couldn’t determine how to go about doing this as I wasn’t sure how the budget allocations for each individual program factored into the total component budget allocation (I thought it would be simple, but alas, it was not at least not for me, but perhaps my math was off). I have included links to the budgets so if someone would like to check my numbers and/or proceed with my original plan, you can (let me know what you find). As it stands, I will compare funding for each line item.
2007
Special Education Service Agency (SESA) – This agency is governed by the Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education. It provides outreach services to school districts that serve low incidence severely disabled students. AS 14.30.600-660 $2,072.3
Providence Heights School – This program is operated by the Anchorage School District. Students enrolled in this program are patients of the Alaska Psychiatric Hospital (APH). The educational program is an important part of these students’ treatment. 4 AAC 33.060 $145.0
Alaska School for the Deaf – The instructional program is currently operated by the Anchorage School District. The district receives foundation funds for the students enrolled; $319.0.
The Department of Education & Early Development provides funding for the residential program through a Reimbursable Services Agreement with the Department of Health and Social Services; $637.4. Students from outside Anchorage are housed in group and foster homes while they are
attending school. 4 AAC 33.070
2008
Special Education Service Agency (SESA) – This agency is governed by the Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education. It provides outreach services to school districts that serve low incidence severely disabled students. AS 14.30.600-660 $2,054.6
Providence Heights School – This program is operated by the Anchorage School District. Students enrolled in this program are patients of the Alaska Psychiatric Hospital (APH). The educational program is an important part of these students’ treatment. 4 AAC 33.060 $145.0
Alaska School for the Deaf – The instructional program is currently operated by the Anchorage School District. The district receives foundation funds for the students enrolled; $319.0. The Department of Education & Early Development provides funding for the residential program through a Reimbursable Services Agreement with the Department of Health and Social Services; $637.4. Students from outside Anchorage are housed in group and foster homes while they are
attending school. 4 AAC 33.070
2009
Special Education Service Agency (SESA) – This agency is governed by the Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education. It provides outreach services to school districts that serve low incidence severely disabled students. AS 14.30.600-660 $2,054.6 – PLACE HOLDER
Providence Heights School – This program is operated by the Anchorage School District. Students enrolled in this program are patients of the Alaska Psychiatric Hospital (APH). The educational program is an important part of these students’ treatment. 4 AAC 33.060 $145.0
Alaska School for the Deaf – The instructional program is currently operated by the Anchorage School District. The district receives foundation funds for the students enrolled; $319.0. The Department of Education & Early Development provides funding for the residential program through a Reimbursable Services Agreement with the Department of Health and Social Services; $637.4. Students from outside Anchorage are housed in group and foster homes while they are
attending school. 4 AAC 33.070
So, as you can see, funding for the Special Education Service Education went down slightly under Sarah Palin, but funding for all other special needs programs remained the same, with no increases for inflation.
September 9th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
So you have finally coming to the conclusion that Gov Palin did not cut the funding for Special Needs programs, after you smeared her without having all the facts. I also find it newsworthy that almost all the entries on this Blog leave out the fact that Gov Palin increased spending on what Alaska calls “intensive needs” students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011. Sometimes it takes a person to have a special needs child in their family before the realize the importance of this funding. I would appreacite you correcting your initial false claims and not add to the devisiveness of this critical issue for millions of American families.
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 am
Maureen R. Graves
34 Schubert Court
Irvine, CA 92617
Phone: 949-856-0128
Fax: 949-856-0168
e-mail: maureen@maureengraves.com
Open Letter in support of Obama/Biden and in opposition to McCain/Palin
To: Whom It May Concern
From: Maureen Graves (mother of twins with autism, special education lawyer, and volunteer leader of legislative advocacy group)
Date: 24 October 2008
Over and over, with national convention and debate audiences, Sarah Palin and John McCain have made a bold though utterly nonspecific bid for the votes of parents of children with special needs. In a race that could still conceivably turn on a few thousand votes in key states, their promise is scary, because it targets voters who desperately need for government to work fast and well to secure their children’s futures, and who are not used to promises, much less reality, in that regard. As an autism parent for 19 years and a special education lawyer representing parents and students across a wide range of disabilities for nearly 15, I am writing to urge parents and professionals to support Barack Obama and Joe Biden, conscientious public servants who are committed to working on behalf of these, and other, vulnerable members of our society.
Part One of the case for McCain-Palin rests on the fact of the governor having had a child with Down syndrome. That “walking the walk” counts as so extremely virtuous says much about the level of hypocrisy we have come to expect from self-described “conservative” politicians. But how much credit should someone who thinks abortion, and any form of birth control that might sometimes interrupt a very recently fertilized egg’s development, is an immoral killing, really get for deciding that Down syndrome does not warrant such a deed? For a politician who throughout her adult life has tried to cut off the rights of any girl or woman—whatever her beliefs or circumstances or level of despair—to have a safe, legal abortion at any stage of pregnancy, unless there is a imminent threat not just to her health but to her survival (even to the point of asserting that girls and women should be forced by government to carry to term the children of rapists), is it really extraordinarily admirable to have foregone an abortion because your baby is likely to have special needs that will take extra time and energy? Giving birth to Trig seems the only ethical choice for a woman with Ms. Palin’s views, and quite likely, given her status as an extremely prominent public figure in Alaska, the only practical course as well.
The problem, succinctly, is “so what?” While some politicians who have children with disabilities advocate, others just posture. In defending special education rights in California, I have often seen that elected officials and judges who seem like natural allies because of their family situations are not necessarily so, and that leaders committed not just to interest group loyalties but to broader progressive positions are often the most helpful for people, such as special needs children and adults, who rely on competently run, accountable, adequately funded government agencies and on a regulated private sector.
Part Two of McCain’s appeal is that he has personally expressed concern about autism. He has called for research funding regarding its causes, appearing to believe that there is currently an epidemic which requires explanation. There are several big catches, though. First, autism is not the only disability requiring federal attention. Indeed, there are many less severe disabilities, such as dyslexia, which we know quite well how to remediate, but as to which we have failed to allocate necessary resources. Restrictively focusing on a “disability of the moment” is neither efficient nor humane. Second, even as to autism, McCain is not committing to additional research, which appears to be precluded by his “hatchet” approach to freezing spending. When Barack Obama pointed this out in the last debate, McCain criticized the typical Democratic focus on spending money to solve problems. Alas, research on autism costs even more than other scientific endeavors McCain has recently ridiculed, such as conservation of bears in the American West and science education in Chicago planetariums. Third, while causes of autism, asthma and other mounting problems need to be explored, John McCain has shown very little inclination to respond constructively to whatever environmental causes may turn up, That will take stringent regulation of polluting –which McCain has often, and Palin has nearly always, opposed.
Finally, and most importantly for families living now with disabilities of all types, at all age and severity levels, McCain has repeatedly been on the wrong side on education and health policy. He voted against full federal funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. He has said many students are sent to special education simply because they pose “behavior problems”—an accusation often faced by parents of students with learning disabilities, mental health problems, and high functioning autism. He has praised Supreme Court appointments which have rolled back special education rights. He has opposed legislation to implement the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead that people with disabilities should be served in communities, not institutions.
McCain’s health care plan would undo the advances of parent organizations state by state in pressing private insurers to cover critical early intervention services. He proposes radical deregulation, which he hopes will lead to “creative” products such as those in the financial sector which have brought our economy to its knees: letting companies that do not like a state’s coverage rules market policies from afar and cherry-pick customers without preexisting conditions who are willing to bet that they will continue to need only bare bones coverage. Spreading risks is the essence of insurance, and letting insurers choose among individual tax-credit-bearing applicants for policies is a recipe for disaster, as even the very conservative Chamber of Commerce has pointed out.
McCain’s overall education policy is a cynical ploy consistent with his overall disinterest in domestic policy and his preference for fierce, divisive attacks over policy compromises. He calls for vouchers which he knows he could never get through Congress, instead of looking at how to protect and improve the public educational system on which the vast majority of children—especially those with disabilities whose needs take more money and time to address—must rely. Ironically, one of the district court constitutionally based decisions that gave rise to the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 involved just the kind of “voucher system” that McCain now advocates: the District of Columbia gave vouchers to students with disabilities, which they could use in private programs, but the market failed to do its thing, causing many students to be waitlisted, indefinitely, for educational services. Vouchers may feel good, and for catastrophically failing school systems, I would not rule out pursuing them, but they are a distraction, not a broadly applicable solution.
Palin’s record is no better. She is getting credit for an Alaska autism commission’s “bold” recommendations, which are in fact a huge step backwards. In the mid-1990-‘s, Democratic Governor Tony Knowles appointed a visionary leader in applied behavior analysis—Todd Risley, who had applied his analytical framework to autism and to early childhood inequality in America, among other subjects—to head early intervention services. Risley labored to create a system of universal access for young children with autism to intensive applied behavior analysis services. He fully recognized this was difficult, especially in a geographically dispersed state like Alaska, but he realized children needed real intensity, and he worked hard to make it happen. He counted on rural Alaskans to be able and willing to access the Internet, unlike our Republican presidential candidate. Under Knowles’ Republican successor, that momentum ended, and it has not come back. The “commission” under Palin came out with a recommendation that the state make available 25 hour per week programs—if (what a surprise!) the federal government paid for it. This is in an oil-rich state that gives natural resources revenue BACK to its citizens: imagine the implications for a country that faces actual budget constraints.
What is historic about the possibility of a McCain-Palin administration is not that Trig Palin would be living near the center of power, but that we would see a radicalized GOP that regards mildly progressive taxation that would increase burdens on wealthy tax payers by a few percentage points as “socialism,” calls the earned income tax credit started by Nixon and expanded by Reagan “welfare,” and calls for taking the very essence of insurance—spreading risks—out of the health care system.
On the Democratic side, fortunately, we have a ticket that has made solid, specific commitments regarding children’s and adult disability issues. Obama and Biden have voted to fully fund IDEA and understand that appointing judges willing to enforce government accountability matters at least as much as dollars. Neither has a child with a disability, but both have been touched by tragedy, both have demonstrated real commitment to people much less privileged than themselves, and both have pressed for increasing accountability for educators of all children. The Democratic Party, and the judges appointed by its presidents, have been far stronger on disability issues for the past 20 years. However much we may regret this, “bipartisanship” on disability issues has gone the way of “moderate Republicans” (and dodo birds, and maybe soon polar bears).
Obviously electing Democrats is not enough. With or without “friends” in the White House, parents whose children need complex, individualized services will struggle. We will see hard budgetary fights. Our advocacy is not going to become easy, individually or collectively. But having an Administration committed to disability rights, headed by lawyers who understand civil rights issues, and by very bright, well-educated Democrats whose goal is to improve, not “shrink” government, is a whole lot better than the alternative.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:15 am
Someone said it best, that republicans pro-life do not care about children as soon as is out of the womb.
They’re pro-life but god forbid their money goes to any of those programs of that word they hate so much, welfare.
People are really deceived by Sarah Palin, and is sad as the majority of people supporting McCain is doing it against their best interests, and they can not see it, just sad.
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