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Julie Swigart
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Julie commented on the article |I have been "homeless." I lived in a hotel for 3 years. It cost much more than an apartment of the same size would have cost but paying this high price meant that I could not save for a security deposit or get a car or a better wardrobe in order to get a better job. It was a vicious trap. I did not know about welfare or how to get help and frankly was too depressed, ashamed and tired from working to pay my rent to investigate it.
Finally, I got a break, a tragic one but a break nonetheless. My mother died and I inherited a small sum - enough for a mobile home. My space rent is less than I was paying for that hotel room 8 years ago! My mother's death put me in a home and I have been able to keep it and improve my life greatly ever since. If the government could do for others what my mom did for me - just one big outlay rather than many years of not quite enough - I am sure that it would save much in the long run.
I am not special. I am just an average single mom. But, I will soon have my Bachelors, I have worked steadily, I have been able to get and keep a running car, I have kept my utilities on and my kids fed and in school, I have even been able to volunteer to help others through the years. All because I got out of the trap of homelessness. I know that others could do the same given the same boost.
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Julie commented on the article |Perhaps some of the money spent diversifying learning materials for the general population can be spent on those students with serious learning disabilities.
My son (a sophomore in high school) has a tested IQ of 126 (tested twice by the school district) yet his reading ability is at the 4th grade level while his comprehension level is at the 12th grade - his vocabulary knowledge is college level while his spelling hovers around 5th grade.
I pointed out his disability to the school district while he was in kindergarten. He has received special education since then but should have been in a gifted-disabled program but none exist in a 50 mile radius of our home and we live in San Diego not some small rural community. My son has suffered through years of struggling with material beyond his skill level and far beneath his intellectual level. Thank goodness for Nova, Nature and the BBC on the internet - at least at home he gets the stimulation he craves.
Our society puts so much value on traditional education that I fear that an intelligent person such as my son who cannot read well will never be given the chance to use his intellect. Unless he continues to struggle through college (imagine doing so when it takes you 10 times longer than everyone else to read a text book) the job market will see him as stupid.
Maybe most kids do learn the same way. Maybe we don't need to diversify in the classroom. But, we do need a way for intelligent people who cannot learn in the same way as others do to prove themselves. We need a way other than a college education to show employers that an individual has a functional brain.
p.s. don't bother to point out adaptive technologies etc. - if you cannot read well adaptive technology can read aloud to you but this too is very slow and most reading technologies are still full of bugs and short-comings
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Julie commented on the article |I believe that there will be a lot of support for Obama's plan for reasons that have nothing to do with education.
I am a single mom. I work and attend college and live in poverty in a poverty stricken neighborhood. I cannot take even one week off work during the summer.
I would rather my son be in school (whether he learns anything or not) than be home alone or playing outside in our neighborhood. Even signing him up for summer programs means that he is using public transportation by himself (no programs in our area are more than 8 hours a day so he must either get there or home while I am working) and being supervised by people much less qualified than teachers.
When Kristina says that Obama may have a skewed vision of what a school day is like I would counter that perhaps Kristina has a skewed vision of what summer vacation is like for poor kids. Most that I know are home alone and forbidden to leave the house because their neighborhoods are too dangerous. I have wonderful memories of summer vacation from my childhood but I grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood where all (I really do mean ALL) the moms were "stay at home moms" and there were no gangs or meth addicts to worry about. I wish I were able to provide the same for my son but alas, I cannot.
On a brighter note and in response to Arne Duncan saying that not too many kids work in the summer: this summer my 14 year old son was able to work full-time during the summer for Urban Corps because Obama lowered the minimum age requirement. My son loved the experience and the money and he is proud of the nature center that he helped build. I hope that next summer he will be able to same. Summer work is an education that can benefit everyone - kids and communities alike.
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