Posted on 06/28/2002 4:38:31 AM PDT by Huck
Before I became an instructional designer, I worked for 5 years for the Association for Retarded Citizens, a not for profit agency which provides various services to people with developmental disabilities (i.e., Down's Syndrome, Spina Bifida, Epilespy, Cerebral Palsy, etc.) These services included residential care, vocational training and placement, and recreational support.
The current philosophical approach to the delivery of these services is called person-centered services. Here is a description of person-centered services from the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs:
The person-centered approach focuses all aspects of service planning, funding and delivery on the person with the disability (the consumer). It emphasizes and balances a person’s needs and preferences rather than trying to fit the consumer into programs.This new approach gives consumers and their families the power to use the resources allocated to them in ways that make sense in their lives. They set goals and develop a plan that identifies the services and supports they want and need and who will provide these services. The plan builds on an individual’s strengths, interests and talents, and it targets assistance to achieve specific results in the person’s life.
Consumers and others evaluate the plan and the services and supports delivered in terms of actual results produced in the person’s life and how satisfied he or she is with the supports provided.
I think it is plain to see that this approach is philosophically the same as the voucher-system approach to education. Voucher systems are student-centered education systems. And the student will benefit from being able to choose between various service providers. Allow me to tell you a story of how competition and choice affected the life of a retarded man that lived in the group home I managed several years ago.
Billy was a 53 year old man with mental retardation. He could walk, talk, make his own lunches, bathe himself, do his own laundry. He could not read or write, calculate arithmatic, or self-medicate. He was overweight and insulin-dependent diabetic.
Billy wanted a new job. He had worked several jobs in the past--cleaning parking lots, stocking shelves--and had done so quite independently. The money earned through these jobs is enormously important to these individuals. Every resident gets some SSI money for clothing and basic needs, but if you work, you can save up hundreds of extra dollars which become special trips to the movies, or out to eat, or a new radio, etc.
When I began working at the group home, he had a Job Caoch from a private agency using his allocation of funds to provide him with vocational support services. They had this highly independent and gregarious 53 year old man riding in a special van 30 miles a day to a job near their office. Because of Billy's diabetes, he frequently urinates. The trip on the special van was so long, he was peeing in his pants. When his Job Coach found out about this, she--with her agency's support--recommended he wear an adult diaper.
That was where I stepped in. I demanded that they find him a job within 15 minutes of his home. Billy lived in an area of commercial activity, and had worked close to home in the past. Their response was that there were no jobs for him close to home; he would have to wear a diaper. I sat down with Billy and explained to him his options. Eventually he decided to try another job support agency. Now, there was still red tape. I had to "massage" the State Case Manager, and find a better service provider, and set up meetings, and convince everyone that it was right, and could be done, and help Billy from getting intimidated. I was his advocate, the role a parent should play in a child's education.
In the end, Billy got a new support agency, and within weeks--I kid you not--they found him not one but two jobs within 10 minutes of home. One of them he walks to. I saw Billy a few months ago and he still has both jobs. With the money he earned he was able to go on a cruise ship to Canada. He has his dignity. He got his money's worth.
I hope you see the point. Without competition, Billy would be stewing in his own urine in a diaper right now. Bad service can't get much more brutal than that. And while children in public schools are not all retarded, they are similarly vulnerable.
Most of the people I met through that job had lived most of their lives in large state-run institutions. The states poured all their dollars into these massive beuracratic systems where people were given horrible care. No training, awful medical care. Beatings. People left in their own waste for hours. Sexual abuse. Tied down to beds. Segregated from society.
How could this go on? How could loving parents allow this to happen? I have met many parents who sent their children to such institutions back in the 1940's and 50's. They sent them there because there were no other options available. To this day some of these institutions still haven't been shut down, as the waiting lists for group homes and community-based service centers grow.
Then in the 1970's, parents got organized. The result was the service model we have today, which is a superior model. Because of my background, I knew the first time I heard of vouchers that they were the right idea. I am so thrilled that the Supreme Court has cleared the way, because just as I have seen how critical choice has been for people like Billy in obtaining services, so I know how critical it is for kids seeking an education. The voucher system will one day be the only system. It is only a matter of time.
If any of you educators out there are reading this, I suggest you research the history of person-centered services. Research the delivery of services to people with developmental disabilities, and see how similar it is to the voucher system. Get the funding to the parents and give them as much choice as possible, and they will choose the best option. The children will still be reliant upon having a forceful dedicated advocate, as Billy was reliant upon me to serve him in that role, but they will have choice, and will benefit enormously from it. I know because I have seen it work.
Market forces. The pay is significantly lower than in the corporate world. Imagine you have a BA in Psychology from a good school. You can expect to get a job as a Program Manager, where you will be on call 24/7, responsible for a staff of 7 and the life and death issues of 6 or more residents and you will be paid somewhere around 25000 a year (that's northeast dollars, at that.) How long are you going to stay.
Another similar problem is resources. In a large company with resources, you have access to technology and equipment that enhance your own skills and market value. In a social services agency, you don't have the same kind of opportunities, because the funding isn't there. The rationale isn't there to justify it.
And so how long is someone going to stay? The Executive Director where I worked told me the best people stay about 4 years and move on. That's what I did. I am making more than double what I made there.
But we know that funding isn't really the problem with schools. It's monopoly and too much focus on the system, not enough power in the hands of individual parents. There are lessons to be learned, even from a lowly social services agency. And the fact that a bunch of "marxists" use what is essentially the voucher philosophy of providing service should make it a very credible argument in the media and wherever else conservative ideas are discounted by default. That's part of my point.
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