The trouble is that, like a lot of Tory policies, it has a tiny grain of basis in a real problem. Every single time there are cuts to the health and social care budget, two areas get hit disproportionately: special educational needs, and mental health.
I think (and I'm not telling you this stuff because I assume you don't know; I know you're very aware of these issues and it's more out of my need to make my comment coherent that I include my whole argument) there are a lot of children whose parents want them to be in special schools because of the concentration of necessary facilities in one place, the understanding of their children's issues, and the will to see their child as an individual beyond their disability.
And the closures and reduction of budgets for special schools has essentially been ableism and penny-pinching under the guise of 'inclusion', just as chucking vulnerable people off disability benefits (particularly people with mental health issues) has been done on a large scale under the guise of 'letting them achieve their potential'. 'Letting them sink or swim in a labour market that fears mental illness and doesn't understand 'good days and bad days'' is more like it.
What frustrates me is that neither Labour nor the Tories are able to see that a one-size-fits-all solution is simply not appropriate. Each of them favours a different extreme re: special education needs, but the choice of mainstream or special schooling should be made by parents who know their child's needs and desires, and backed up by appropriate local authority funding, with that local authority given the freedom to be flexible.
Example - I've known (IRL) two autistic people. One was a friend at my mainstream grammar, and he was given a classroom assistant to help him deal with stuff. The other is the 18-year-old son of a friend, who is in developmental terms similar to a very young child. Now he's of school-leaving age, the local authority offered him an alternative to his special school: a day centre that, his mum discovered, was the worst kind of institutional hell. He doesn't deal with change well to begin with, and this would've been totally wrong for him. So she's seeking (and hopefully getting) funding from the authority to stay home with him, giving up her day job but keeping her night-time teaching up.
I'd like to see a better understanding by government that these two examples are representative of the spectrum of special educational (and beyond) needs - the thing I fear, based on the Tories' plans, is that once they've got disabled children nicely squirrelled away where society cannot see or understand them, and therefore doesn't have to give a toss, they'll start reducing funding for special education anyway. :/
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 09:19 am (UTC)I think (and I'm not telling you this stuff because I assume you don't know; I know you're very aware of these issues and it's more out of my need to make my comment coherent that I include my whole argument) there are a lot of children whose parents want them to be in special schools because of the concentration of necessary facilities in one place, the understanding of their children's issues, and the will to see their child as an individual beyond their disability.
And the closures and reduction of budgets for special schools has essentially been ableism and penny-pinching under the guise of 'inclusion', just as chucking vulnerable people off disability benefits (particularly people with mental health issues) has been done on a large scale under the guise of 'letting them achieve their potential'. 'Letting them sink or swim in a labour market that fears mental illness and doesn't understand 'good days and bad days'' is more like it.
What frustrates me is that neither Labour nor the Tories are able to see that a one-size-fits-all solution is simply not appropriate. Each of them favours a different extreme re: special education needs, but the choice of mainstream or special schooling should be made by parents who know their child's needs and desires, and backed up by appropriate local authority funding, with that local authority given the freedom to be flexible.
Example - I've known (IRL) two autistic people. One was a friend at my mainstream grammar, and he was given a classroom assistant to help him deal with stuff. The other is the 18-year-old son of a friend, who is in developmental terms similar to a very young child. Now he's of school-leaving age, the local authority offered him an alternative to his special school: a day centre that, his mum discovered, was the worst kind of institutional hell. He doesn't deal with change well to begin with, and this would've been totally wrong for him. So she's seeking (and hopefully getting) funding from the authority to stay home with him, giving up her day job but keeping her night-time teaching up.
I'd like to see a better understanding by government that these two examples are representative of the spectrum of special educational (and beyond) needs - the thing I fear, based on the Tories' plans, is that once they've got disabled children nicely squirrelled away where society cannot see or understand them, and therefore doesn't have to give a toss, they'll start reducing funding for special education anyway. :/