Susan Senator

All you gotta do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.
--Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Here is a good letter you all can copy and adapt to whatever situation is going on where you live. The only way to make changes is to make the changes happen. I am not Yogi Berra; this is true. One good way to raise consciousness is to write for your local paper. Raise the issues that piss you off. If you see school officials dissing special education, object. Tell the public instead about all the good special education does. Tell them any positive growth your own child has had because of your town's efforts. Tell them people are not being "overdiagnosed," they are now being picked up before they would otherwise slip through the cracks.

To the Editor:

I hope that there was a different context to [insert elected official or school administrator's name] comments on special education (SPED) costs last meeting. It sounded as if the school department is beating up on special education, and the special needs families feel that as an extra hardship in their lives. What's more, it makes no sense at all legally to imply we are not going to be able to sustain these cost increases much longer. We are legally required to. We are morally required to.

I'd like to see exactly where the SPED money goes as well, all the good it does. But the way it is presented in the budget time and again it is one big category, "Special Education." Special Education is many many things: aides, adapted curricula, speech/language pathologists, reading specialists, learning center teachers, private placements, behavioral specialists, psychologists, excellent programs like [insert program name here], and the list goes on and on. I have been saying for years that what there should be is a presentation of the many different programs in special education and the good they have done. But [so-and-so's] comments made it sound as if the school department resents those programs and their costs. By the way, why not the same breast-beating over the 12-15% increases in healthcare insurance for educators and town workers?

I would suggest that you try to set it right for your constituents and colleagues.

Sincerely [Disappointedly, I'm-Going-To-Run-Against-You-Next-Election],
You, the outraged.