80th Legislature: The Most Dangerous Voucher Bill Of All

When people with disabilities and politics meet, it is a touchy subject.

When millionaire voucher advocates are so desparate to get a “leg up” for their pet projects as to exploit the needs of handicapped children, you know they are in dire straits. (See yesterday’s post, where we discussed this).

Nevertheless, this is a subject that must be addressed and I’ll tread as lightly as I can.
The long and short of this is that State Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano), has announced that she will push legislation to let the parents autistic children pick what schools their children attend with—you guessed it!—the help of taxpayer funded school vouchers.

This is perhaps the most dangerous of all the voucher plans that has been proposed to date. Why? It is, for lack of a better word, “warm and fuzzy.” Who doesn’t want to help children who suffer from this terrible condition? What lawmaker wants to see a mailer sent out in their district that says, “Your Senator voted against kids with Autism.” It’s a hard bell to unring.

The problem is that, for the purposes of public policy, one voucher program must be considered to be just as poor public policy as any other, and just as destructive to the public school system.

While a small number of children and districts might be impacted by autism vouchers, the fact is that this bill is a vehicle by which vouchers will infiltrate the public school system in Texas. As we’ve seen time and time again with government programs, once you have opened the door, it is impossible to get the horses back in.

This would open the floodgates for all special-needs children, followed by kids with ADD, followed by at-risk children, followed by kids with bad grades, followed by the wholesale destruction of public education in Texas.

Here is what State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), the Democratic leader in that chamber had to say:

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said she opposes school vouchers but agonizes with parents of autistic children.Van de Putte, a member of the Senate Education Committee, said parents don’t want to open the floodgates for a full-blown voucher system but that they are lobbying for a limited-purpose voucher program in special cases in which the school district agrees that it can’t provide needed services.

Van de Putte, emphasizing that she opposes “diverting money and passion away from our public school system,” said she is open-minded.

Van de Putte handles the matter with great compassion and the type of deference the situation merits.

Here, however, starts where I must tred very, very lightly: I find it especially interesting that Sen. Shapiro has selected to draft legislation geared toward children that suffer from a condition that is widely considered as having both one of the strongest lobby groups, lobbyists, and many of the most vocal group of grassroots activists of any disease or condition in the country. Cancer, heart disease and diabetes may have more cash, but Autism has a “crashing-the-gates” style grassroots that is a force to be reckoned with.

A case in point is the well-deserved beating blogs, fueled by the autism grassroots has given Texas Congressman Joe Barton (R-Ennis) over some of is actions related to an autism bill.

It is speculation, but if I was a legislator looking to open the door for vouchers and wanted to pick a class of students as a vehicle to open that door, autism is the perfect class of students because of the power of their grassroots and lobby. When these good and well-meaning folks descend on the Texas Legislature, you can bet every member will know it, and that any resistance will be widely distributed by the autism grassroots.

It is going to be very, very hard to oppose this bill and very, very hard to keep it from passing in spite of the fact that it is clearly the vehicle to start the dominoes falling when it comes to a full-blown voucher program in Texas.

So, what is the answer that best benefits the children who suffer from autism and the rest of the public school children of Texas?

It’s money, plain and simple—not vouchers.

There is simply no reason that more money can’t be put into education geared toward taking care of this group of youngsters.

There is also no reason that a program to allow within-district transfers for students with autism so that those students can go to campuses within their district best equipped to teach these children. There is no reason the state’s largest school districts—given that districts with the most students will most likely have the most autistic pupils—could not be given appropriate funding to funding to create centers to foster better education not only for autistic children but also for children suffering from other such conditions.

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