The Inclusivity Investment
The Inclusivity Investment
Schools and Community Must Work Together To Serve All
In last week’s Apt.11D newsletter — my eclectic newsletter that’s a spin-off from my long time blog — I wrote about the school shooting in Texas. I wrote that prevention of such horrors has to involve more than gun control. We also must make schools nicer places, where all students feel like they are appreciated and have an equal chance at success. I explained that as a special ed parent, I knew first hand how it felt to be marginalized and alienated from the dominant school culture.
Like any good pundit, I tried to use current events to push my pet policy issues. But, to be honest, my biggest concern isn’t shootings — gun control experts should talk about shootings. My main interest is helping the millions of those young people, who aren’t going to Harvard or Yale, and end up forgotten when high school is done.
Towards the end of the piece, I offered some suggestions for reforms:
What should we do? Schools should be given incentives to provide support, education, and acceptance to ALL of the students in the school building. We need social workers in the schools, as well as in the communities, that can connect families with resources for their children. Every student should be known by at least one adult in the school building. We need to expand school programs that connect students with job opportunities and with training at the local community colleges. We need beds in hospitals or specialized schools for troubled young people, where they aren’t thrown into an hardcore adult population of pedophiles and drug addicts.
These aren’t easy suggestions. Easy suggestions are cost-free and Instagrammable. A march outside the school! An Autism Week poster! An award to an honors student who does a nice thing for a special ed kid (so she can write her college essay about it)! Please stop doing all those things. They are a complete waste of time.
Any effort to make real change has to target students as they transition out of high school. Those students need jobs and programs waiting for them after high school. That’s not solely a school responsibility, rather a job for the entire community. But schools should have knowledgable guidance counselors to support all students and their parents as they take their next steps.
This week, I texted a friend to get the name of the specialized college that her son attended. Another friend had sent me an email asking for help. The first friend gave me the name of the college, plus four other good college programs. I asked her if her guidance counselor had helped them. She texted, “lol… they were like"‘tits on a bull’.” I had to google the meaning of that expression. Translation: completely useless.
But better guidance counselors are just the tip of the iceberg. There should also be partnerships between schools, community colleges, therapeutic centers, state agencies, and local business leaders to help get students on some sort of moving pathway to their future. And for the most marginalized, we need the supports that I mentioned at the top of this piece - social workers in schools and communities, better mental health facilities for youth, and tight connections with adults in a school. And all those entities need more capacity.
At the moment, none of that exists. If a marginalized student moves forward is due entirely to the efforts of tiger mom. We’re networking with each other, and sharing information with each other. But it requires enormous piles of time and education and money to make all this happen. And if there’s no mom with Ivy League skill sets to make all this happen? Then nothing happens.
I think we’re simply at a point of educating the public about the problems. I think it’s up to people like me — those in the trenches — to tell our stories in public ways. We can’t be embarrassed of our struggles, or be hushed by people who don’t understand. We must demand changes, not because of school shootings and other tragedies, but because we want to live in a more fair society. And because those kids are worth the investment.
PICTURE: Ian at a hydroponic farm that employs people with differences.
LINKS
Lucy Calkins, a leading literacy expert, has rewritten her curriculum to include a fuller embrace of phonics and the science of reading. Critics may not be appeased.
It’s very, very hard to find housing for autistic people with behavior problems. Great New York Times article on this topic.
