September 16, 2008

Joe Biden and Special Education

I’ve never met Joe Biden. So maybe it is unfair to say I don’t like him. For me, he is the ultimate litmus test in this presidential election. Am I willing to vote for a ticket when the VP is a man who has treated special education monstrously and has been unfair to Delaware parents with disabled children? The answer is Yes. I am voting the top of the ticket and Obama’s positions on special education (Look at the most recent posting in Election 08 - Special Education Positions of McCain & Obama.) are right on the money, figuratively and literally. When I listened to the Democratic candidates debating each other last Spring I was always fascinated by Biden. He has such passion for foreign policy. He knows it inside and out and is brilliant on all aspects of those issues. The fact that he doesn’t know and didn’t care about special education when it mattered continued to infuriate me. It does to this day. But it turns out I have to make a choice soon. And the Republican ticket has no thought out position on special education or education generally. For a lot of people, faith, values, the economy and Iraq are the issues. For me, it has always been education in America. Without teaching our children how to think, how to reason, and how to control themselves, they never become functioning and independent adults. Without providing them with the richness of human knowledge and exploration, we have no future as a country. All of our children deserve this endowment as citizens. For me there is no choice but Obama.

I first went to Joe Biden’s office in Wilmington, Delaware in 1994. Six Delaware parents with disabled children arranged the meeting. They wanted him to help fix the corrupt Delaware system of special education. It was in the same building as the U.S. District Court and one floor above the Clerk’s of the Court’s office. By that time, there had already been a complaint filed against me with the Delaware Bar Association by the Brandywine Board attorney, Barbara Crowell, and one hearing was completed with a win. Delaware was in a tizzy about this nonlawyer who just won a case (This never happened!), so there was no question in anybody’s mind that Biden’s office knew who we were and why we were there. His secretary said he didn’t know about the meeting. It wasn’t scheduled in the date book. The parents became visibly upset. Anita Morris, a mother and grandmother responsible for bringing me to Delaware, leaned forward across the desk and said, “Now look mister, we’re staying. If Mr. Biden doesn’t think this is important then give us somebody else. But we’re not leaving and I don’t believe you about the appointment. You knew we were coming.” We were ushered into a little room behind the secretary’s desk. After 30 minutes, three aides came in.

The parents explained to the aides that the schools worked only if you had money and a child with no problems. They each gave examples about their experiences and how they were treated in IEP meetings. The quietest mother said that she was there so that her second son would not live his life in prison. The first one never learned to read, couldn’t keep a job, and ultimately committed theft. She saw the same pattern in the youngest son. She asked, “Why do they only teach them to read after they’re arrested?” The aides initially began taking lengthy notes. But after an hour, they stopped. They assured us that these were isolated incidents and that Delaware’s was a nationally respected school system. Then the parents got angry. Finally, the aides said they would look into the allegations. The biggest one was about the corruption of the due process system and the lack of impartiality of the hearing panel. The aides again assured everyone that they would look into it. Before leaving, they asked me why I was there since I didn’t live in Delaware. Before I could answer, the parents told them there was nobody in the state who would vigorously represent them because of reprisals against attorneys if they did. I appeared to be their only other option. “We’ll look into it”, they said.

The second time I went to Biden’s office was after the death of Kevin Coale. A teenager with severe dyslexia, he never learned to read. I’d won a hearing for him that the school appealed. The parents could not find or afford an attorney and represented themselves pro se. They lost the appeal in one of the more corrupt and heartbreaking stories of Delaware politics. Kevin’s mother, Suzanne, was with me. We were originally told the meeting would be with Biden. It wasn’t. We wanted to address the issue of nonlawyer practice in Delaware and how it led to the death of her son. We were told this was a state issue. There was nothing Biden’s office could do.

Over the next several years, a few parents from my Delaware parent-training program tried to carry the nonlawyer ball toward the goal post, writing letters to their members of Congress. Fire was in their belly because their children were suffering. One of them, Barbara Hayes, wrote to Joe Biden about the nonlawyer clause in the Senate version of the reauthorization of IDEA. He wrote back on 12/5/03 (Joe Biden letter). The House bill, H.R. 1350, permitted nonlawyer practice and allowed nonlawyers to be paid. He acknowledged that the Senate deleted that language, saying “…those most involved in the drafting of this legislation believe it is likely that the House language will remain in the final bill after a House-Senate conference.” We all know the final result and where we are today. Every effort has been made to destroy nonlawyer practice through the rewriting of history on this issue. This includes the COPAA training program and current legislation before Congress to let states decide whether or not nonlawyers can be used in hearings. Parents have nobody to help enforce their IDEA rights. Delaware is the state directly responsible for the current situation and Biden must shoulder some of the blame.

So how in the world could I vote for the Obama-Biden ticket? Because of Obama’s passion for education, his passion for children, and because he took the time to develop a comprehensive set of disability policies. And I don’t like to be patronized. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I vote genitalia. Just because I’m actively involved with my church doesn’t mean that I invoke God to support my private agenda. I have to look at the big picture and McCain and Palin are not in it. Special education has been at the center of my personal and professional life since at least 1968. But my small hometown in Michigan and the Presbyterian college I attended at Alma taught me that everything must have a context. The context of this election, as in special education, is in the data. It is not a matter of faith. It is a matter of reason. It is not a matter of platitudes and feel-good phrases. It is distinguishing reality from fantasy and facing and solving unpleasant and complex problems. You don’t come to me for help because I’m a conservative or a liberal. You come because I work to find out the facts and battle to the death to make them work for you. Demand the same in the outcome of this presidential election.