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April 2007
By Henry T. Edmondson III
If proponents of Senate Bill 10 succeed, parents of special education students will have a small but significant advantage in finding the right school for their offspring, as they could use educational vouchers to transfer their child to a private school.
Such flexibility is needed in a state where less than a third of special education students graduate with a regular diploma. Although most private institutions lack the resources the government can provide, in certain cases, a better match for a special needs child might be found in the private sector. The McKay Scholarship in Florida has enabled parents to transfer their children out of situations in which they are mocked or assaulted because of their disability.
Critics argue that SB 10 would invite fraud because parents might continue to use a voucher even after their child has been remediated; that is, after the child's particular disability had been successfully treated. In other words, parents would pretend their children were still handicapped --- all for the apparent benefit of the child.
While some learning problems are treated in two to three years, others take more time or are lifetime challenges. The latter category is represented by the many parents of Down syndrome children who favor SB 10.
An estimated 190,000 Georgia special needs students would be eligible for vouchers. If other states are any guide, only about 5 percent of those eligible will use the vouchers. Let's say a third of those children could be remediated before their eligibility ran out. This means 1.5 percent of those families eligible could theoretically bilk the system.
But what percentage of those would actually do so? As high as a tenth? Probably not, but let's take that number for the sake of argument. Thus, SB 10 might incur a fraud rate of a little more than one tenth of one percent, an infinitesimal number compared with civic dishonesty in income tax and welfare, where the fraud rate is estimated at 100 times more than what we are fretting over here.
No reasonable person would argue that such statistics justify the rejection of otherwise good legislation and the consequent denial of opportunity for many families. One must wonder, though, if the fraud scenario fairly describes the parents of special needs children. Many may take it as an insult given the thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of self-sacrificial hours they invest in their child's well-being.
Critics further note that under special education voucher programs, parents who opt to use a voucher must waive their access to federal resources provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. But this is precisely the decision for a caring parent to make, and the fact that some make it in other states is evidence that IDEA does not always ensure quality special education. Besides, parents can always relinquish their voucher the next year if they should find that their child's earlier schooling was superior.
The majority of those who oppose SB 10 are the predictable alphabet soup groups, including the state affiliate of the National Education Association, the GAE, and the "alternative" to the GAE, the Professional Association of Georgia Educators.
Parents of special needs children often fight a frustration that leads to tears. Those tears come, not always because of the very difficult task that life has handed them, but because they lack the leverage to get the job done. SB 10 gives parents a bargaining chip should they need it. It is very difficult to enforce your child's rights if you have no options. Even if only 5 percent of special needs children use the scholarship, the parents of the other 95 percent will in a better position to ensure their children a quality education.
* Henry T. Edmondson III is a political science professor at Georgia College and author of "John Dewey and the Decline of American Education."
The above colum appeared in the April 3, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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