My friend and colleague Wendy Harbour at Syracuse University sent me the following this morning:
A Washington Post breakdown of the sequestration’s state-by-state effects on children with disabilities. For example, New York state is expected to lose $36 million and cut 440 special education staff, while losing an additional $42.7 million and 590 teaching staff for K-12.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/sequestration-state-impact/?hpid=z2
Some years ago I stood up at a school board meeting in tony little Iowa City, Iowa, for the district had decided to simply eliminate their special ed teachers. Why not? Disposable people, the ones with needs. If you don’t think that Social Darwinism is alive and well in these United States you ought to have your head examined. Silly to say so. If someone is so “protected” from the world of children with illnesses, disabilities–indeed, from the terrible provincial nature of merely belonging in the public sphere–then you must by definition be profoundly wealthy. And in turn you must believe that the rest of the nation should be grateful just to have some scraps of bread.
What an appalling nation we’ve become. What a smug, corrupt, venal, greedy, decadent bunch of shits are now in Washington. Tears blind me some days. Irony. I’m already blind. Accordingly I know what it was like to be a child with a disability in public schools. I have a great idea! Let’s make it worse so we can give the wealthiest people enough kickback tax relief to buy a new Mercedes or Rolex watches for their dogs.
Planet of the Blind 