STORY ABOUT THE PTA AND A SENATE BILL REGARDING AUTISTIC STUDENTS
This article is copied from the website "Keep Eanes Informed." http://www.keepeanesinformed.com/ (This site was created by Dianna Pharr and contains many documents and stories that are of interest to all parents no matter the school district.) Eanes ISD is in Austin, Texas.)
Article Last Updated: 05/4/2009
Baseball,
hotdogs,
apple pie
and…PTA?
Well,
maybe
that’s not
the exact
jingle
today’s
crop of
PTA
parents
grew up
with, but
as far as
nostalgia
goes,
what’s
more
all-American
than our
century-old
PTA? It
conjures
up images
of
well-scrubbed
children,
bake sales
and
volunteering
moms – the
stuff of
Norman
Rockwell’s
finest and
the
veritable
backbone
of the
American
family.
Established
back in
1897,
there’s no
denying
the PTA
has left
an
indelible
footprint
on the
American
landscape
since its
inception.
Only
eleven
years
younger
than its
parent
organization,
this year
marks the
100th
anniversary
of the
Texas
chapter of
the PTA,
which has
been
suffering
from
steadily
declining
numbers
despite a
statewide
increase
in ISD
enrollment.
In
response,
the Texas
PTA has
begun to
strategically
distance
itself
from this
heartwarming
image of
hardworking
but
politically
disinclined
coffee-swilling,
cookie-baking
housewives,
by touting
its
ability to
influence
state
policy
through a
600,000
plus
strong
remaining
membership.
But why
the
dwindling
numbers?
In an
ironic
twist, the
Texas PTA
may want
to rethink
its latest
PR
strategy
of
positioning
itself as
a
political
machine
and
reconnect
to those
homegrown
roots it
blames for
the
attrition.
A brouhaha
last month
at the
State
Capitol
reveals
some
fractures
in this
organization’s
picturesque
image and
a
thinly-veiled
but
well-hidden
agenda
that would
indicate
it is the
teachers’
unions
that call
the PTA
shots
while
partisan
platforms
prevail.
One thing
is
certain;
these
recent
events
brazenly
contradict
the public
perception
of a
non-threatening,
one-for-all,
all-for-one
kind of
Americana.
More on
that later
- let’s
get down
to basics
first.
What is the PTA?
Although
for most
the name
still
evokes
visions of
bake sales
and
old-fashioned
neighborliness,
the PTA
has been
working
overtime
to bill
itself as
equal
parts
political
prowess
and
home-grown
values. As
described
on the
Texas
PTA
website,
PTA is a
non-partisan
“grassroots
organization
made up of
parents,
teachers
and others
around the
state that
has a
special
interest
in
children,
families
and
schools.
By joining
PTA, a
member
automatically
becomes
part of
the
largest
child-advocacy
organization
in the
state --
over
630,000
strong
across
Texas.”
The
largest
child-advocacy
organization
in Texas.
Now
that’s
some
muscle.
And it’s
hard to
argue with
the
worthiness
of such a
cause.
Both the
state and
national
PTA
motto
is “Every
Child.
One
Voice.”
with the
shared
vision of
“Making
every
child’s
potential
a
reality.”
Who
wouldn’t
support
that?
But what
happens
when that
one voice
for every
child
doesn’t
seem to
speak for
children
or parents
at all?
What
does the
“P” stand
for in
PTA?
Almost
anyone
could tell
you that
the “P”
stands for
“parent.”
But does
it
really?
Or does
the “P”
actually
stand for
a plethora
of
purposes
such as,
perhaps,
pushing
partisan
platforms
promoting
policies
protecting
public
schools,
per se?
Whew - bet
you can’t
say that
ten times
fast! Who
knew so
many
p-words
and such
powerful
politicking
were
behind the
“P” in
PTA? And
since when
did
politics
and the
PTA get
all
jumbled
up?
That just
may be the
best
kept
little
secret of
the PTA,
as
explained
by former
public
school
teacher,
Charlene
K. Haar,
who
studied
this issue
and
divulged
her
findings
in a 2003
book she
authored
entitled,
“The
Politics
of the
PTA.” And
what she
found is
likely to
make the
average
PTA parent
choke on
their
morning
cuppajoe.
In a 2003
interview
regarding
her book,
Ms. Haar
explained:
“We need to go back to 1920, when the PTA headquarters was actually in the NEA (National Education Association) building in Washington, DC….The 1960s was …when the NEA decided to transform itself into a teacher union like its rival, the American Federation of Teachers…
Although the PTA had moved out of the NEA headquarters in 1953, there was still a very close relationship between them. Many teachers were leaders in the PTA, just as they are today. The NEA let it be known that if PTAs continued to support the school board during teacher strikes, the NEA would pull its teachers out and start a competing organization. The PTA was afraid of losing members, and so, in 1968, the PTA Board of Directors--not the membership--set a policy declaring that, in teacher strikes, the PTA would not oppose the teachers and the teachers’ union…
…local PTAs can no longer provide any support to parents who wish to challenge union positions. In fact, a few years ago at the NEA convention, NEA President Keith Geiger reminded the PTA that its locals were bound by PTA policy not to challenge the teacher union positions in collective bargaining.”
Is it any wonder, then, that a notorious teachers’ union partisan position and textbook polarizing political strategy can be found among the Texas PTA 2009 Legislative priorities, slipped in at the very bottom of the list?
Oppose Vouchers
“Texas PTA supports our system of public education as the major vehicle for perpetuating the basic values of a democratic system of government. This system must be strengthened and continue to be governed by public officials accountable to the public and supported by adequate funding.
Texas PTA opposes voucher systems or tuition credits for nonpublic school tuition and other education-related expenses, and believes home schools and other nonpublic schools should meet the same educational standards as public schools.”
It’s not surprising that an organization built of public school supporters would support the public school system, but should that system and its profiteers trump the desires of parents and needs of children? According to the Texas PTA, it most certainly does. And this is where the organization found themselves up to their elbows in hot water last month in Austin, when they activated their massive network to recruit a parent of a child with autism to testify against a locally-developed and parent-driven bill, Senate Bill 2204, that was designed to enhance public school services in order to improve life outcomes for students with autism. The bill was developed for those students most at risk of ending up in costly residential placements in order to allow them to pursue an independent life, and spare parents one of their greatest fears – seeing their children end up imprisoned in one of the 12 Texas state schools. Yet in a pervasive political ploy, the PTA tagged it a “voucher” and deemed it must die.
The following is the exact text of an e-mail that was sent by the Plano Council of PTAs to both local members and forwarded to neighboring ISDs:
Plano Council of PTAs is in need of a PARENT of a CHILD WITH AUTISM to present a testimonial TOMORROW before the Texas Senate opposing a Voucher Bill.
Funding of this quick trip to Austin is available, CAN YOU HELP?
It is unknown just how many of these emergency action alerts went out from the various PTA chapters on the eve of the hearing on Senate Bill 2204. It is no accident, however, that the city of Plano was specifically targeted to recruit a PTA “plant” for this hearing. SB 2204 was filed by Plano’s own Senator Shapiro, a much-beloved champion of children’s rights and, in particular, a staunch advocate for students with autism. Perhaps the PTA thought it would be particularly powerful (and painful) for the Senator to be faced with her own constituent fighting her own bill.
And the PTA gods delivered! A Plano parent of not one but two young children with autism scrambled to heed the request with a single-minded mission – to kill the bill, possibly enticed by an all-expenses paid trip to Austin courtesy of the PTA pocketbook.
And the testimony was painful, just as the PTA must have hoped, but not in the way they had hoped. There was one major miscalculation by the Texas PTA and their dutiful recruit. Her children had Asperger’s syndrome, a very high-functioning form of autism, and per her own testimony, were not in need of an intensive behavioral program like those students in need of a crisis intervention plan for whom the bill was written. While all children who fall anywhere on the broad autism spectrum are entitled to appropriately individualized education plans according to federal law, this parent had something else on her mind – insurance coverage related to mental health disorders. Her testimony even seemed to suggest that our public schools have no obligation to address affected children’s educational needs at all – calling it a “health issue…that needs to be addressed in the medical setting and paid for by health insurance, not our education funds.”
It wasn’t more than a minute into her testimony representing the Texas PTA that it became clear this parent was not a stakeholder in the legislation she was opposing. She was an unfortunate pawn in a bigger agenda that encourages the silent cleansing of certain students. Unlike the other parents who were there on their own dime to speak from the heart to support legislation that they hoped would lead to a better future for these children, it was transparent that the only parent opposing SB 2204 must have been motivated by something else (a perk package?) that would be incentive enough to leave her two young children with autism at home to travel to Austin to fight a bill designed to bring resources from the private sector into the public school setting for the betterment of all.
Once the ploy was discovered and she confessed to her all-expenses-paid appearance courtesy of the Texas PTA, rather than retreat gracefully, she became increasingly combative and condescending, insisting that all children with autism, no matter where they may fall on the broad spectrum, are “the same” and that she was there to “educate (Senator Shapiro) on this (issue.)” She continued to insult Senator Shapiro, insisting she “obviously” needed to be educated on the topic until she was told her time was up and made a hasty exit. Not surprisingly, the Texas PTA officers who were at the hearing to testify on other legislation that day did a disappearing act as well, one would assume out of utter embarrassment and possibly to strategize on how to contain this PR disaster.
Imagine the surprise then, when parents contacted the Texas PTA about this outrage, only to be met with as unapologetic a posture as the Plano parent herself demonstrated on the witness stand. It seems the Texas PTA hoped parents would believe the PTA had been victimized in some way, and their witness harassed and unfairly cut short despite her factually inaccurate testimony, personal irrelevance and irreverence and having substantially exceeded the allotted time, and despite selling out all children with special needs’ rights to an individualized education in order to “support and strengthen the public education system.”
So where is the apology to the parents and children the PTA sold out? To the dues-paying PTA parents everywhere who were stunned and embarrassed by this testimony that they themselves unwittingly funded and who never knew they were paying a state organization to lobby in their name while taking questionable legislative positions they were never polled on?
Or is the reality of joining the PTA merely that parents pay for the privilege to work their tails off for their children’s public schools, only to find themselves prostituted when those dollars are hijacked to fund the lobbying activities of teachers’ unions that are counter to serving our most vulnerable students and families? So let’s ask again:
What does the “P” stand for in PTA?
Here’s an action alert for the Texas PTA officers:
Texas PARENTS are waiting for an apology.
If they don’t get one, they have their answer.