Autism bill represents House GOP subterfuge (Indiana)

[Guest guest]

Vouchers won’t help kids

Autism bill represents House GOP subterfuge

An effort to use poor children to advance their school voucher campaign

failed last year, so House Republican leaders this year are turning to

children with autism.

“We have to walk before we begin to run in the school choice arena,” House

Speaker Bosma told the Indianapolis Star in November. “I think this is

the next step, to look at those who could be served better and more

efficiently.”

The speaker’s words reveal the ultimate goal: steering tax dollars from

public education to private and parochial schools. It’s telling that the

Autism Society of Indiana, the Indiana Autism Coalition and other disability

advocates have said they will not support the proposed scholarship program.

“There’s a concern that they are putting forth this bill without having

consulted anyone in the autism community,” said Pieples, president of

the Autism Society of Indiana. “We want to make sure we’re not being used as

a pawn for school choice.”

She said House leaders showed “little integrity” in proposing the voucher

plan without first consulting those most affected.

Pieples, whose 19-year-old son has an autism spectrum disorder, said she has

met with Bosma and other lawmakers since the voucher plan was announced and

will meet with him today, but still is concerned that they didn’t begin by

asking the autism community for its input. If they had, they would have been

told that there are few options outside of public schools for students with

autism. Vouchers will do little to help if there’s no place to use them.

In addition, the program is aimed at a handful of children, when the numbers

of children with autism spectrum disorders is large and growing larger.

There are an estimated 6,000 in Indiana.

Pieples’ other concern is that preschool programs, which have been found to

be effective in helping children with autism, are woefully underfunded.

“We don’t want to see money taken away from those programs,” she said. “The

general education system has to be shored up first. It is really a travesty

that we can find money to fund a new (Colts) stadium, but we’re so

underfunded when it comes to children.”

Fortunately, there are lawmakers pointing out the facts surrounding the

proposed bill.

“The reality is that there aren’t any private schools in the area that want

to take on autistic children,” Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-ville, told the

ville Courier & Press. “The majority of children who are autistic are

educated by the public school system.”

Becker is right – Pieples said she knows of three private schools that serve

children with autism. Each is in the Indianapolis area and only one has

openings available.

And Sen. Meeks – always a voice for fiscal restraint – dismisses the

voucher plan with four simple words: “We can’t afford that.”

No kidding – the Indiana Urban Schools Association estimates the cost at $40

million.

If lawmakers truly want to help families of autistic children, they will

reject the voucher bill and focus efforts on programs that identify autism

spectrum disorders and target the state’s dollars at early intervention,

which holds the greatest promise for children with autism and their

families.

The autism community has promised to present a proposal next year. That’s

the one legislators should consider, not Bosma’s repackaged voucher scheme

<http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/13546652.htm>

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/13546652.htm

Jimmy Kilpatrick

Senior Fellow, is de Tocqueville Institution

Editor, EducationNews.org <http://www.educationnews.org/>

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