Invariably most people succumb to some form of hearing loss before giving leave to Earth, but generally their experiences with the concept of deafness is limited to a few visits to the local audiology office and a beige contraption that makes ugly love to the concha. Deafness, as enumerated by connotation, is a low-incidence occurrence, happening in, at best, .1 to 2.5% of the population. Some folks go their entire lives with Children of a Lesser God their only exposure to Deafness, while others find themselves in a maddening ball-pit of signing and activism.
Some get stuck with me. But, I digress…
Were it not for vocal and visible activists in and around the community, the needs of Deaf children and adults would be overlooked. Even so, fighting for the services and accommodations can be chafing. Small victories act as topical cream. But, baby, sometimes a low-incidence population just can’t get no satisfaction.
Not too long ago, Ed Rendell, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, cut property taxes to the tune of 1 billion dollars annually. Mr. Rendell, justifiably, seems pretty proud of this accomplishment. It’s listed on his website, obviously enough, under Accomplishments. This year, citing a 2.3 billion dollar deficit, Mr. Rendell proposed across the board cuts in state spending. Casual thinkers may believe that the Pennsylvania budget shortfall could be fixed in the long term by, say, removing the property tax cut and thereby injecting the state with up to a billion dollars a year in revenue. But, the Rendell budget proposal does not include any new personal, sales, or business taxes. I guess that’s the difference between a blindingly successful pol like Rendell, and a laid-off, stay-at-home dad like me.
The biggest casualty of the Rendell budget cuts is the Scranton State School for the Deaf (SSSD). The state will no longer provide any funding to the school. Instead, the school will be foisted off onto a regional education agency, the director of which indicated that they have no capacity to run a residential program. SSSD has approximately 100 residential students.
Because of Rendell’s shortsightedness, a 129 year-old institution that’s been under state control for 95 years has been flicked off like a finished cigarette.
Schools for the Deaf across the country quiver in economic disarray. In California, the Governator and his minions make threatening motions at the California State School for the Deaf at Riverside. Other schools watch their budgets slashed and vital services removed or laid off. These are end times, for sure.
The death of residential schools for the Deaf have been a long time coming, much to the delight of cochlear/oral programs such as Desert Voices, and special education teachers and advocates with flimsy and narrow definitions of the Least Restricted Environment (LRE). Perhaps state schools for the Deaf are leviathans of the past, anachronistic beasts that suck millions from state budgets. But, those of us who’ve walked along the old walls of their buildings, and traced the foliage-ladened bricks with meaningful fingers realize that the cultural and educational significance of such institutes negates any meaningful dollars squeezed from their hulled corpses.
Certainly, there’ll be an exodus of Deaf students to regional mainstream programs. Those students; their consequences are multi-fold. State schools for the Deaf are often the only source of bilingual-bicultural education. Regional mainstream programs tend to operate on a total communication philosophy (Think artificial signed systems as opposed to natural language), whereas at state schools, students are educated using their natural language – American Sign Language (ASL). Also, mainstreamed deaf students are cocooned in an environment not conductive to language development. Families of deaf children often do not become fluent in ASL – if they bother to learn it. For many deaf children, the only relevant language interaction they have is at school. State schools for the Deaf provide 24/7 language stimulation.
And, what of Deaf children not fortunate enough to be born in an area that has a viable regional mainstream program? Some years ago, I found myself tutoring a teenage deaf girl. She was born in rural Illinois. The local school district, not knowing what to do with a deaf student, decided to place her in a program for mentally challenged students. At 13, my student had language and behavioral difficulties. She was denied a capable future because of ignorance.
Current statistics for any deaf adult are grim. The average deaf adult reads and writes at the level of a 4th grader. 90% are underemployed. Most are on some form of government assistance.
Someone should show Rendell the cost of supporting Deaf adults on the dole, and their progeny, and compare that to the cost of improving State Schools for the Deaf.
Maybe that’ll change his mind. I doubt it, though. I guess my diminutive, deaf brain simply can’t comprehend his level of thinking.
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Comments
What can be done? Anything?
Here in California we went through a similar business about cutting property taxes, except that it was done by a popular vote in 1978. The 30 years since then have been a total disaster for the California public education system at all levels. Before 1978, California had one of the best public K-12 systems in the country. Now we have one of the worst. In the meantime, our prison population has exploded, and the budget for maintaining it has done the same. This is not a coincidence.
For your sake, for the sake of all deaf children in Pennsylvania, and for the sake of ALL Pennsylvanians, I hope the people of your state come to their senses, and soon. A generously-funded public education system - which includes appropriate options for all special needs children - is an absolute necessity for a just, prosperous society. Why people see it as more important to save a few hundred dollars a year on property taxes just boggles my mind. Good luck in your efforts to fight this.
Our very conservative nutter-heads in the State Legislation are still babbling about how the State is too kind to education.
I'm afraid this is a battle we're going to lose. No politician has the balls/ovaries to raise taxes.
1. Integration has the capacity to stunt a deaf child's social growth.
Children learn social cues from their peers. Integrated deaf children are often denied these opportunities because of the language barriers inherent to deafness. Interacting with deaf peers requires patience and a willingness to learn a manual language; two things children often lack. In a group of thirty, a couple will be willing to befriend the deaf kid, but typically the deaf child becomes a loner. I can speak from personal experience.
2. Special Education and Regular Education teachers often lack a background in the educational needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
Oddly enough, simply putting an interpreter in a classroom isn't enough to integrate a deaf student. ASL actually changes how the brain process and stores information. Deaf students typically have shorter attention spans and are more likely to "act-out." And, the exposure may Regular and Special Education teachers have to the needs of Deaf students are limited to maybe a paragraph in a book of a particular class. Ill equipped teachers do not make a positive learning environment.
Certifying and validating interpreters for schools vary and are not always subject to regulation
In middle school, my school district hired an interpreter who took only a couple of sign language classes. She actually brought a ASL book to class and whenever the teacher spoke a word she didn't know how to translate, she would thumb through the book to find the word. Needless to say, my grades plummeted. Finding quality interpreters becomes problematic in rural and exurb areas.
I fully believe the much of the problems inherent in deaf education are there because a bunch of hearing people decided that they alone knew what was best for the community. At the political and cultural level, the Deaf community collectively cherishes state schools for the Deaf and everything they stand for. Those disability advocates who think they know what's best for us? They can have my politest piss-off.
We can have a citation throw-down!
(I saw your question about canaries. I used to raise canaries. When I was talking to my cousin Sparky on the phone, I told him that I wanted to raise chickens, but I would start out with canaries and see how I was with birds. He said, "Good, I love canaries, too. But just remember, it takes a lot more of them to make a meal." We don't know how canaries taste because he was joking. But I named the first canary chick that hatched out "Sparky.")
Even Darwin hated social darwinism and condemned the application of his theory to human social institutions. Eugenics.
The thing is that we need ALL of our people if we are going to invest in our people to pull us out of this tailspin. Education is the answer, not the problem.
Mainstreamers have it all wrong in so many ways...