What is your stake in this issue regarding educational options for children with autism? All we’ve heard form you is anti-voucher sentiment, Leininger hysteria and Keffer and autism-mom bashing by association for not cutting him off for possible ties to the EVER EVIL VOUCHERS and for not being the crack researcher you believe she should be. I guarantee you she’s done far more research on autism and treatments and interventions than you’ve done on any political candidate and their ties. The other doesn’t really matter so much to parents trying rescue their kids from a lifetime of public assistance before they die. Unless those ties cause their elected representatives to sell them out.

I’ve got a newflash for you: WE DON”T CARE WHERE KEFFER’S CAMPAIGN FUNDS COME FROM. He’s helping kids with autism by bringing them educational options. Color us selfish, but we are trying to save our kids who don’t have anyone else to speak for them and sure as hell can’t do it themselves.

You clearly need to read the posts more carefully before responding to them. No one accused you of hating special needs children. I believe my words were, “bless your little old VOUCHER-HATING soul.” Those who employ the polarizing voucher-talk to dirty up this issue and prevent these kids from getting the help that they are entitled to under federal disability law are not blind, they are either 1) ignorant if they do not know better, or 2) heartless if they continue with this tactic once they do.

As for your cup that runneth over with God’s plentiful blessings, back to my original question. Have your kids dodged the autism bullet? Then yes, be thankful for those blessings. If you do not have kids and plan to one day, don’t be quite so judgmental about what our children need and are not getting from our ISD’s and how you (wiht what qualifications????) think those needs should be met. Karma’s a bitch. And if you never plan to have kids, you’re safe from ever knowing our pain, but you’re also missing out on God’s greatest blessing of all.

So if someone is not pro-voucher, they hate special needs children? Take off your blinders.

Thanks, but no thanks, for God’s blessing….I’ve got plenty!

As as matter of fact, when I ask my state representative to help my family with a dire situation, I do expect him to respond with “how high” – is that wrong? I didn’t ask for anything outrageous, just access to education for my son from the guy who claimed to be Mr. Schools.

When the ad is referred to as off-base and misleading, it is an attack on my family. That ad is my family and our situation. I did not agree to do that ad for Bill Keffer out of naivete. I did the ad so that more people would learn about our situation and not make the same mistake I made 2 years ago by voting straight ticket and assuming Allen Vaught’s support of schools has anything to do with supporting the families in this district.

I am disgusted with what I now know about Allen Vaught. I am disgusted that I wasted my vote and 2 years of my son’s life on Allen Vaught. You call that settling a score. I call it Democracy.

out of the woods-

You need to check facts. Thatmom did not say Keffer had never MET Leininger. She said he had not spoken with him about his campaign or accepted money from him. That was not “grossly proven wrong” by some random photo of the two appearing together in a group picture and confirmation from Vince that he has, in fact, not taken money directly from him.

Agreed that it doesn’t present a picture of a guy so staunchly opposed to vouchers in any form that he’d refuse funding support from any organization with any ties to the liberally-lableled anti-Christ, Leininger, just so that he could ensure that his Democratic opponent would be permitted to throw kids with autism in a virtual imprisonment in inappropriate educational arrangements and lock the door behind them. Now that’s some scary stuff, God bless your little old voucher-hating soul.

Did I nail it?

You need to check facts. Thatmom did not say Keffer had never MET Leininger. She said he had not spoken with him about his campaign or accepted money form him. That was not “grossly proven wrong” by some random photo of the the two appearing together in a group picture and confirmation from Vince that he has, in fact, not taken money directly from him.

Agreed that it doesn’t present a picture of a guy so staunchly opposed to vouchers in any form that he’d refuse funding support from any organization with any ties to the liberally-lableled anti-Christ, Leininger, just so that he could ensure that his Democratic opponent would be permitted to throw kids with autism in a virtual imprisonment in inappropriate educational arrangement sand lock the door behind them. Now that’s some scary stuff, God bless your little old voucher-hating soul.

Did I nail it?

Secondly, when people like “That mom” want to quote facts like Keffer has never met James Leininger or accepted money from him, and it is grossly proven wrong, she loses credibility and it suggests even more that Keffer has misled her. (And it hints that she has an underlying score to settle with Representative Vaught at all costs.) Is she upset that when she asked him to jump, he didn’t respond with “how high?”

So fact check a little bit more….on Keffer and Vaught and then come back to the debate.

Yes, I am saying the federal courts are no help, and actually are very damaging to IDEA cases in the 5th circuit. I once thought that each level you reached and as the number of judges reviewing a case increased or were elected vs. appointed, you’d have a better chance at a fair ruling. That is, until Advocacy Inc. trained me that only one IDEA case has ever been won in the 5th circuit, EVER. It was a minor victory, and any subsequent litigation has eroded any previous victories in lower courts. Such as, a win for the child at due process is almost always overturned at the federal level, a federal win is almost always overturned in the court of appeals, and a court of appeals win would almost certainly be overturned by the Supreme Court. Why? Because the Republican controlled SC and the largely Bush appointed judges in the 5th circuit are as inhospitable to children with disabilities looking to put their tax contribution into our public schools to work for their own children are positioned by the school law firms as selfish predators who are looking for a windfall of public assistance, just as the Democrats malign those same families as seeking to ruin the entire public school system if they need a private placement for their child for whom the public schools have done everything in their power to marginalize while covering up the abuse, trauma and regression that has occurred on their watch. It’s the ultimate Catch 22.

I have pushed this concept of a class action for years and have gotten NO interest. I am on a 2,000 plus member support list for Autism Advocacy which is headed by an attorney, and another one group that is completely comprised of attorneys and professional advocates whose specialty is civil rights and special education. The first group’s lead attorney responded that nothing can be accomplished through litigation, and that we must all hold hands with our public schools and try to get along. Settle, compromise, lower your expectations for your child and the system, accept the crumbs and fill in the gaps on your own. The second group of attorneys did not even generate a single response. Our former attorney told us years ago that you couldn’t qualify a class of children with autism because the issues to each child are too unique. I completely disagree, but she is the biggest player in Texas in Sp. Ed law. End of discussion, case closed.

The other groups, such as the Southern Disability Law Center, work on grants that require any clients to be poverty level to receive their assistance. Poverty level clients are not looking to make waves with education under IDEA, as most don’t pay property taxes into the system in the first place. They’re getting free lunches and babysitting for their kids and are happy enough. And if they aren’t, they don’t hang out on listservs looking to litigate. The ARC is so entrenched in partisan views that unless you agree to keep your child in the public setting that is causing them severe emotional and/or physical harm, they won’t play for your team. Office of Civil Rights? A branch of OSEP, that is part of the machine, and can’t litigate under IDEA anyway due to the self-governing clause written into the law. Did you know about that? IDEA prohibits any government agency from enforcing it, and leaves it completely up the the State Education Agencies. Instead, it requires protection and advocacy under the federally appointed and funded agencies which strongly discourage litigation and ahve outright refused to represent familes who have been forced out of publc schools. Are you picking up on the pattern here?

I want to tell you a little story. A family was sued by their school under IDEA. Advocacy Inc refused to help because the family did not return the child to that school who sued them and kept him in the private placement where they put him for the summer because the school refused to provide any services to him, and he was thriving there after facing institutionalization after a few months in the public program. The family’s attorney told them their case was a slam dunk and had the strongest evidence she had ever seen. The hearing officer that had just retired as general counsel for the TEA.rendered a decision that had no basis in the law and ignored all the overwhelming evidence from the family and incredibly damning evidence from the school. The family appealed to federal court in Texas.

At the first ISD Board meeting less than a month after the federal case was assigned to a judge, the superintendent recommended a name in the community in which to dedicate their latest elementary school under construction to open the next fall. The Board unanimously approved that recommendation. It was the second school to be dedicated to this family in the ISD – the first one to a woman in the family some 40 years before or more. The man to be honored ? That woman’s husband, who just happened to be the federal judge’s long deceased granddad, who had no involvement in education whatsoever but had a touching career in water treatment for the city. Same last name as the judge. The judge was quoted in the press as saying how close he was to his grandad, and his father how grateful he was to the superintendent and the school district. They showed up at those board meetings and dedications for all the ensuing photo ops.

Want to place a wager on how that ruling went? That family has some serious legal debt and education expenses to cover.

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Keffer provides options. Vaught supports the status quo which is to protect the existing system. If Vaught will bring down the jackals (private law firms) that attack Special Need families and will provide options for Autism and Special Need families then maybe all Dallas families can let go of politics and seek solutions for Special Need families.

I just believe that Keffer is willing to look at options. Vaught likes the status quo which provides no options for Special Need families in my opinion.

Bill Keffer didn’t seek me out or intend to make this a part of his campaign. I am a former Vaught supporter and a Democrat. I had never spoken to an elected official for any reason until last session when we had run out of options for educating our son. I went to Vaught for help in accessing an appropriate education. I had a solution. You know the rest.

You also know that my son is back in school thanks to a program Bill Keffer helped create while he was on the House Education Committee.

The ad is a compare-contrast between the guy who couldn’t help get a kid in school and a guy who got a kid in school. In fact, he got hundreds of kids back in school.

“Braveheart, Keffer is your problem, not your solution.”

Do you have a family member, son, daughter dealing with autism?

If you do, you are greatly mistaken, because ASD families need options to deal with real life, not word games or political reporting/bias.