Erica Thomas, parent advocate from central Ohio, says the story by Columbus Dispatch reporter Rita Price about Ohio’s “autism scholarship” program was badly flawed. Among other things, Thomas says, the story failed to note the relationship between the Cleveland think tank Policy Matters and the teacher unions.

“There are so many faults with the Columbus Dispatch article that I don’t even know where to begin,” she writes. Thomas’ seven-year-old son benefited from the program for three years when he was in preschool.

Here’s the letter she sent the newspaper’s editor.

… The Dispatch article references a study released by Policy Matters, but does not acknowledge that Policy Matters is heavily influenced by unions representing educators in the public school districts which lose students when parents opt for the autism scholarship, and the districts and unions do not want to lose the funding tied to that student. Therefore the credibility of their study is questionable as there is a clear agenda by this organization to save teachers’ jobs at the expense of these children with autism.

The Dispatch article reports that $11 million in state funds was diverted from public schools. What is not said is that the public schools retain a portion of funding when a student leaves, even though the district is not educating the child. There have been countless studies that prove that public school budgets actually benefit from the voucher programs — most recently was a study released in February, 2008 by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools which shows that the big 8 urban school districts in Ohio had more than $300 million in savings from charter schools and vouchers — and that the districts would be in a financial crisis if the charter school and vouchers were eliminated!

The Autism Scholarship is capped at $20k per year, yet because children with autism are in the highest weighted special education category, the public school districts receive about $32k in state and local funds for each child with autism. If the parent can only access $20k of this funding, where does the balance of the funds go? The public school is able to retain the additional funds — even though the district is no longer responsible for the education of that child. Why should the public school districts continue to receive funds for students that it is not educating?

The article also fails to mention the Special Education Scholarships that were created by the Ohio General Assembly and then vetoed by Governor Strickland in the current State operating budget bill. These scholarships would have expanded eligibility to all children with disabilities. If Governor Strickland had not vetoed these scholarships, it would have enabled both of the Crawford children to access funding, not just the child with autism.

Overwhelmingly, parents using the Autism Scholarship for their child are extremely pleased with the scholarship program. Let’s not lose sight of what is the most important part of the scholarship — to give parents choices when the public school system is unable or unwilling to serve their child.

Parents need options when their child is not performing well in a large class size because he or she needs more one-on-one attention; they need options for their child who is being bullied; they need options for their child with behavior issues; and they need options for their child who could benefit from a different method of teaching. No child should not be forced to remain in an environment that is not working to help that child succeed to his or her highest potential.

Finally the comment by Kathe Machle is especially troubling to me, that she feels that only the right therapy will make her son a “real boy.” I hope she was kidding. That suggests that otherwise he is less than a real person … and frankly the tone of this article as a whole suggests that children with autism are not deserving of services if they are too expensive … especially if it has any impact on the public schools. It seems like this article is not at all concerned about what is best for the children … it is all about what is best for the public schools and what is “fair.”

My child on the autism spectrum is a gift to our family. I am blessed that we were able to use the Autism Scholarship for 3 years to allow him to access vital services that taught him how to talk, how to play, how to function independently. Even though my family no longer uses the Autism Scholarship, I know what a tremendous difference it made for my son and I sure hope that other families with a child with autism will have access to the same experience that I had and they can have the opportunity to make a positive impact on their child too.

Respectfully,

Erica Thomas

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 11:54 am and is filed under autism, education, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post