Autism Scholarships - Rural areas, etc.

[Guest guest]

Surely there are rural areas in Ohio? (I know there are Amish there, so

there’s gotta be farms!). Does anyone know how the autism scholarship

program has affected those areas?

Here’s another thought for you – I’m reading all of these emails containing

folks fearful that autism scholarship $$ will divert funds from their

schools, so I started playing around with the math:

If 500 families took advantage of the program, and if each family were

allotted $10,000 (which is probably too high of a figure, but stay with me),

the amount would be $5,000,000.

In the Dallas ISD last year, we had an employee credit card fraud scandal –

where many district employees were found to have used their district credit

cards to purchase home furnishings, electronics, clothing, etc. (no,

apparently there was no “office of oversight” for credit card charges) – to

the tune of $40 MILLION DOLLARS.

We are not naïve enough to think that Dallas is the only district in which

this type of horrendous mis-spending is occurring. I agree wholeheartedly

that state-wide education reform is imperative, but in the meantime, I think

scholarship opponents are getting themselves worked up about an amount of

money that is a “drop in the bucket” of state-wide education spending.

Relax! I don’t think the $$ is going to make a significant difference to

the families who choose not to participate, or cannot participate. Think

about it.

A. Weber