A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped and I
don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct" speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a debit to
the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off.

There's nothing in the least bit hypocritical about what they did. Their
handicapped child is entitled to a public school education, according to
your own vociferous arguments, and the parents are perfectly entitled to
exercise that right. Her sister, however, is fortunate enough to get a
better, private education at her parents expense, who, by the way are *still
paying for her public school educational right!* Thus, while the bright
sister's private education reduces the burden on the public school system,
thus freeing up resources for other students, her parents are now, in
effect, paying DOUBLE for the handicapped sister's education. What on earth
is your complaint? It's not only no skin off your nose, it's actually
beneficial to the school system as a whole.

Your complaint sounds remarkably like sour grapes to me.

And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it!

How did they "malign" the system? By wishing to give their gifted daughter
an education commensurate with her abilities? By exercising their
handicapped daughter's fundamental right to a public school education while
paying double what you pay for your child? Please enlighten us as to how
they "maligned" the system.

It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block.

Why? Because YOU can't afford one for your own kids? You would bind gifted
children, or even ordinary children lucky enough to have wealthy parents to
academic slavery merely in order to assuage your own guilt and anger over
not being able to provide a premium education for your own children?

How unbelievably arrogant. How astonishingly selfish and petty.

[I might be persuaded that "choice" in education
*might* be a good thing through some sort of voucher system so long as
-- ditto the medicare program -- nobody could spend more than the
voucher amount. I'd have to think this one through.]

I think you ought to examine your motives first.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/1/05 11:23 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped and I
don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct" speech

It's not about being politically correct. My awakening on this issue comes
simply from listening to people with disabilities and understanding how the
rest of the world views them and how this impacts on the way they view
themselves. I don't know one person with a disability who wants to be
labelled as handicapped. Of course, they would prefer not to have any label
at all. But there are times when it is pragmatically necessary, in which
case, whatever the label, understanding that it is "a person with a
disability" not a "disabled person" makes a huge difference.

what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a debit to
the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off.

There's nothing in the least bit hypocritical about what they did. Their
handicapped child is entitled to a public school education, according to
your own vociferous arguments, and the parents are perfectly entitled to
exercise that right. Her sister, however, is fortunate enough to get a
better, private education at her parents expense, who, by the way are *still
paying for her public school educational right!* Thus, while the bright
sister's private education reduces the burden on the public school system,
thus freeing up resources for other students, her parents are now, in
effect, paying DOUBLE for the handicapped sister's education. What on earth
is your complaint? It's not only no skin off your nose, it's actually
beneficial to the school system as a whole.

Your complaint sounds remarkably like sour grapes to me.

Or you are being incredibly naïve and/or disingenuous.

The outcome of this will be the erosion of funds for the public school
system because support for paying the taxes to sustain public schools will
plummet.

The further outcome will be schools that are comprised entirely of the poor
and people with disabilities.

And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it!

How did they "malign" the system? By wishing to give their gifted daughter
an education commensurate with her abilities? By exercising their
handicapped daughter's fundamental right to a public school education while
paying double what you pay for your child? Please enlighten us as to how
they "maligned" the system.

It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block.

Why? Because YOU can't afford one for your own kids? You would bind gifted
children, or even ordinary children lucky enough to have wealthy parents to
academic slavery merely in order to assuage your own guilt and anger over
not being able to provide a premium education for your own children?

You are leaping to the faulty conclusion that a publicly funded school is
incapable of serving giften children appropriately.

How unbelievably arrogant. How astonishingly selfish and petty.

[I might be persuaded that "choice" in education
*might* be a good thing through some sort of voucher system so long as
-- ditto the medicare program -- nobody could spend more than the
voucher amount. I'd have to think this one through.]

I think you ought to examine your motives first.

Indeed.

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/1/05 11:23 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped and I
don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct" speech

It's not about being politically correct. My awakening on this issue comes
simply from listening to people with disabilities and understanding how the
rest of the world views them and how this impacts on the way they view
themselves. I don't know one person with a disability who wants to be
labelled as handicapped. Of course, they would prefer not to have any label
at all. But there are times when it is pragmatically necessary, in which
case, whatever the label, understanding that it is "a person with a
disability" not a "disabled person" makes a huge difference.

It's semantic politically-correct pettifoggery. Disabled people are
disabled. It's just a fact of life. They are handicapped. They have a
"disadvantage that makes achievement unusually difficult." It's only a
pejorative term if one uses it in a pejorative context. Otherwise it's
simply a statement of fact couched in a way that is, if anything, supportive
of their disadvantage and it recognizes the fundamental strength of
character that's implicit in their successes.

Unless one is using it in a pejorative context, saying "That man is black"
or "That woman is Asian" or "That child is Indian" or "That person is
handicapped" is simply a statement of observed reality and ought not be
cause for all this histrionic gum-flapping.

Engaging in politically corrrect sophistry doesn't help anybody, it just
masks the *real* problem, which is that many people consider the handicapped
(or disabled, or "person with a disability") as somehow inferior to others.

That's not the case. They are not inferior, they are not superior, they are
equal in every way but one: they have a disadvantage that makes achievement
unusually difficult. Lots of people have such disadvantages. Blacks.
Indians. The poor. So what? Big deal. Denying that they are disadvantaged
doesn't help them overcome the disadvantage and help them towards
achievement, it merely silences the debate because people are too afraid of
being politically incorrect to take ownership of the problems the
disabled/handicapped face in life that each person can help to resolve.

Getting all het-up about calling someone "handicapped" is just a way of
avoiding the issue entirely. It makes it easy to say "hey, he's not
handicapped and he doesn't need my help" and go on about your life with nary
a thought to how you could ease the burden.

It also allows people to ignore the issues entirely by claiming that they
don't want to be seen as being insensitive or discriminatory by noticing
someone's disability, so they just *ignore the person entirely.*

If you don't think this is the case, spend a week in a wheelchair sometime.
You become positively invisible.

Sorry, but I believe in telling it like it is and facing things directly,
not finding semantic refuges and dodges that allow me to avoid the issues.


what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a debit to
the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off.

There's nothing in the least bit hypocritical about what they did. Their
handicapped child is entitled to a public school education, according to
your own vociferous arguments, and the parents are perfectly entitled to
exercise that right. Her sister, however, is fortunate enough to get a
better, private education at her parents expense, who, by the way are *still
paying for her public school educational right!* Thus, while the bright
sister's private education reduces the burden on the public school system,
thus freeing up resources for other students, her parents are now, in
effect, paying DOUBLE for the handicapped sister's education. What on earth
is your complaint? It's not only no skin off your nose, it's actually
beneficial to the school system as a whole.

Your complaint sounds remarkably like sour grapes to me.

Or you are being incredibly naïve and/or disingenuous.

The outcome of this will be the erosion of funds for the public school
system because support for paying the taxes to sustain public schools will
plummet.

Only if you let it happen. And if it does, what does that tell you about the
value of a public school education?

Moreover, it won't happen because if it was going to happen, it would have
*already happened.* But it's not happening, is it? People still pay taxes
for public schools, and many of them put their kids in private schools
anyway. No big disaster looming. Never has been.


The further outcome will be schools that are comprised entirely of the poor
and people with disabilities.

So what? So long as they are receiving a top-notch education funded by the
public, which can afford to provide far more resources to each public school
child than they could before, when children who had the means to get a
private education were forced into the public system, thus clogging it up,
who cares? Think of it as a way of providing much better, specialized
education for those students.


And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it!

How did they "malign" the system? By wishing to give their gifted daughter
an education commensurate with her abilities? By exercising their
handicapped daughter's fundamental right to a public school education while
paying double what you pay for your child? Please enlighten us as to how
they "maligned" the system.

It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block.

Why? Because YOU can't afford one for your own kids? You would bind gifted
children, or even ordinary children lucky enough to have wealthy parents to
academic slavery merely in order to assuage your own guilt and anger over
not being able to provide a premium education for your own children?

You are leaping to the faulty conclusion that a publicly funded school is
incapable of serving giften children appropriately.

It's hardly a faulty conclusion. Every study ever done shows that private
school educations are far superior, particularly when it comes to
individualized instruction for the gifted, than public schools.

It's a simple fact that public schools, by their nature, have to provide a
uniform curriculum to every student because there is always insufficient
money, resources and teachers to provide individualized instruction for
gifted students. Even in the best public systems, which provide special
"charter schools" and special schools for the gifted, the quality of
education is far inferior to a private school education targeted at an
individual student.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/3/05 2:23 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/1/05 11:23 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped and I
don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct" speech

It's not about being politically correct. My awakening on this issue comes
simply from listening to people with disabilities and understanding how the
rest of the world views them and how this impacts on the way they view
themselves. I don't know one person with a disability who wants to be
labelled as handicapped. Of course, they would prefer not to have any label
at all. But there are times when it is pragmatically necessary, in which
case, whatever the label, understanding that it is "a person with a
disability" not a "disabled person" makes a huge difference.

It's semantic politically-correct pettifoggery. Disabled people are
disabled.

No, they are people.

It's just a fact of life. They are handicapped. They have a
"disadvantage that makes achievement unusually difficult." It's only a
pejorative term if one uses it in a pejorative context. Otherwise it's
simply a statement of fact couched in a way that is, if anything, supportive
of their disadvantage and it recognizes the fundamental strength of
character that's implicit in their successes.

If they find it important that you don't speak about them as though the
disability IS their identity, rather than a part of who they are, why
deliberately go out of your way? A person with a disability is just that - a
person with a disability. They are not a "disabled person" like some car
than won't run.

Unless one is using it in a pejorative context, saying "That man is black"
or "That woman is Asian" or "That child is Indian" or "That person is
handicapped" is simply a statement of observed reality and ought not be
cause for all this histrionic gum-flapping.

The term "handicapped" is offensive to most people with disabilities, when
you say "person with a handicap" or "handicapped person." Why do out of your
way to use a term that you know offends, when there is no reason you have to
use it?

Engaging in politically corrrect sophistry doesn't help anybody, it just
masks the *real* problem, which is that many people consider the handicapped
(or disabled, or "person with a disability") as somehow inferior to others.

It's not about being politically correct. Language used around people with
disabilities and the way people with disabilities are treated/viewed are not
two phenomena that develop in isolation.

That's not the case. They are not inferior, they are not superior, they are
equal in every way but one: they have a disadvantage that makes achievement
unusually difficult. Lots of people have such disadvantages. Blacks.
Indians. The poor. So what? Big deal. Denying that they are disadvantaged
doesn't help them overcome the disadvantage and help them towards
achievement

I agree with all of the above.

it merely silences the debate because people are too afraid of
being politically incorrect to take ownership of the problems the
disabled/handicapped face in life that each person can help to resolve.

I disagree here. Affording someone the simple respect of acknowledging that
they are first and foremost a person, and using terminologies that do not
offend them, does not silence anyone.

Getting all het-up about calling someone "handicapped" is just a way of
avoiding the issue entirely.

Only in the same way that getting het-up about calling someone a "******" is
just a way of avoiding the issue entirely.

Your position on this makes no sense.

It makes it easy to say "hey, he's not
handicapped and he doesn't need my help" and go on about your life with nary
a thought to how you could ease the burden.

All I've said is that if there is a need to refer to the fact that someone
has a disability, the most respectful way to do so is to say that the are "a
person with a disability" not a "disabled person" and not "handicapped"
since that is a term that is as offensive to a person with a disability as
"******" is to a person who is black.

It also allows people to ignore the issues entirely by claiming that they
don't want to be seen as being insensitive or discriminatory by noticing
someone's disability, so they just *ignore the person entirely.*

Using respectful language has nothing to do with what you are talking about.

What you are talking about here is, however, quite interesting, and if it
were not being spoken in the context of justification for deliberately using
disrespectful language, would be a basis for an important discussion.

If you don't think this is the case, spend a week in a wheelchair sometime.
You become positively invisible.

I have some significant insight into what people with disabilities
experience.

Sorry, but I believe in telling it like it is and facing things directly,
not finding semantic refuges and dodges that allow me to avoid the issues.

Sorry, that's not what I am advocating.

I'm telling you that there are ways of being more respectful to a person
with a disability. That has nothing to do with avoiding issues. You don't
have to call someone who is black a ****** in order to directly face the
issues concerning them.

what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a debit to
the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off.

There's nothing in the least bit hypocritical about what they did. Their
handicapped child is entitled to a public school education, according to
your own vociferous arguments, and the parents are perfectly entitled to
exercise that right. Her sister, however, is fortunate enough to get a
better, private education at her parents expense, who, by the way are *still
paying for her public school educational right!* Thus, while the bright
sister's private education reduces the burden on the public school system,
thus freeing up resources for other students, her parents are now, in
effect, paying DOUBLE for the handicapped sister's education. What on earth
is your complaint? It's not only no skin off your nose, it's actually
beneficial to the school system as a whole.

Your complaint sounds remarkably like sour grapes to me.

Or you are being incredibly naïve and/or disingenuous.

The outcome of this will be the erosion of funds for the public school
system because support for paying the taxes to sustain public schools will
plummet.

Only if you let it happen. And if it does, what does that tell you about the
value of a public school education?

It tells you that people are selfish.

Moreover, it won't happen because if it was going to happen, it would have
*already happened.* But it's not happening, is it? People still pay taxes
for public schools, and many of them put their kids in private schools
anyway. No big disaster looming. Never has been.

Will be. If you make public school education the sole domain of the poor and
people with disabilities.

The further outcome will be schools that are comprised entirely of the poor
and people with disabilities.

So what? So long as they are receiving a top-notch education funded by the
public

They won't be.

which can afford to provide far more resources to each public school
child than they could before, when children who had the means to get a
private education were forced into the public system, thus clogging it up,
who cares? Think of it as a way of providing much better, specialized
education for those students.

It won't happen. There will be less and less money. It will become like your
plan for health care for the poor...unless a charity provides it, there
won't be any.

And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it!

How did they "malign" the system? By wishing to give their gifted daughter
an education commensurate with her abilities? By exercising their
handicapped daughter's fundamental right to a public school education while
paying double what you pay for your child? Please enlighten us as to how
they "maligned" the system.

It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block.

Why? Because YOU can't afford one for your own kids? You would bind gifted
children, or even ordinary children lucky enough to have wealthy parents to
academic slavery merely in order to assuage your own guilt and anger over
not being able to provide a premium education for your own children?

You are leaping to the faulty conclusion that a publicly funded school is
incapable of serving giften children appropriately.

It's hardly a faulty conclusion. Every study ever done shows that private
school educations are far superior, particularly when it comes to
individualized instruction for the gifted, than public schools.

Whoops, you are getting a bit mixed up.

Those studies don't claim that a publicly funded school is incapable of
serving gifted children appropriately, they claim that they simply aren't
doing so. Obviously, they could, with the right approach and the right
resources.

It's a simple fact that public schools, by their nature, have to provide a
uniform curriculum to every student because there is always insufficient
money, resources and teachers to provide individualized instruction for
gifted students.

So provide what is needed.

Even in the best public systems, which provide special
"charter schools" and special schools for the gifted, the quality of
education is far inferior to a private school education targeted at an
individual student.

And the more public schools become the sole domain of the poor and people
with disabilities, the worse and worse the schools will get, since they will
get less and less resources and less and less funding.

KMAN in making the case that an exodus of "wealthy" families from the
public school system will eventually leave it impoverished:


There will be less and less money. It will become like your
plan for health care for the poor...unless a charity provides it, there
won't be any.

Absolutely correct.


frzw906

A Usenet persona calling itself frtzw906 wrote:

KMAN in making the case that an exodus of "wealthy" families from the
public school system will eventually leave it impoverished:


There will be less and less money. It will become like your
plan for health care for the poor...unless a charity provides it, there
won't be any.

Absolutely correct.

Only if they are allowed to by the government.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Scott maintains:
================
It's hardly a faulty conclusion. Every study ever done shows that
private
school educations are far superior, particularly when it comes to
individualized instruction for the gifted, than public schools.
==========

Hey, you've quoted the Fraser Institute before. Why not look at their
report on education in BC (I'm not a huge fan but look anyway). While
you'll find many private schools at the top of the list (please review
their entrance requirements -- top being a Catholic girls school with
very stringent entrance requirements), you'll also find quite a few
public schools in the top 20.

You say "Even in the best public systems, which provide special
"charter schools" and special schools for the gifted, the quality of
education is far inferior to a private school education targeted at an
individual student. "

This report will show that you're wrong.

Then we should talk about those public schools; what's "special" about
them?

frtzw906

Scott figures:
===========
It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped
and I don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct"
speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a
debit to the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be
leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.
=========

OK. in my anecdote, there was the need for brevity. To fully explain
the hypocrisy: here's the rest of the story.

The parents in question have a province-wide reputation as advocates
for the disabled. A cause celebre for them is school mainstreaming of
disabled pupils.

OK, so given their passion for this cause, they then remove their
bright daughter to an elite private school that does not admit pupils
with disabilities. As I recall, their "rationale" for doing so was that
there were too many ESL students in the public school their daughters
were attending. Surely, if "mainstreaming" is good for the goose, it
ought also to be good for the gander.

That's why it was hypocritical.

frtzw908

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott figures:
===========
It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped
and I don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct"
speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a
debit to the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be
leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.
=========

OK. in my anecdote, there was the need for brevity. To fully explain
the hypocrisy: here's the rest of the story.

The parents in question have a province-wide reputation as advocates
for the disabled. A cause celebre for them is school mainstreaming of
disabled pupils.

OK, so given their passion for this cause, they then remove their
bright daughter to an elite private school that does not admit pupils
with disabilities.

Um, is this true? I find that extremely hard to believe, particularly in
Canada, because even here in the USA, it's illegal to discriminate on the
basis of physical disability. I sort of imagined it as being a hanging
offense in Canada.

As I recall, their "rationale" for doing so was that
there were too many ESL students in the public school their daughters
were attending.

"ESL" meaning "handicapped" I presume?

Surely, if "mainstreaming" is good for the goose, it
ought also to be good for the gander.

That's why it was hypocritical.

Hm. Well, given what you say, I'd say they were being perfectly consistent
with their beliefs and advocacy. They are "mainstreaming" their disabled
daughter, just as they argue ought to be done. Clearly they *could* provide
the very best individual, specialized care and education for their disabled
child, but choose instead to keep her in public school in order to "walk the
walk" and demonstrate that disabled children can be "mainstreamed." I laud
them for standing by their principles.

On the other hand, their gifted daughter evidently needs a more
intellectually stimulating environment to reach her full potential, so they
decided not to stint on her education by keeping her in private school.

I see no hypocrisy at all. I see rational judgment and a concern both for
their children and other disabled children, because they evidently genuinely
feel that the public school environment provides a SUPERIOR educational AND
SOCIAL environment for their disabled daughter. I happen to agree with them.

Putting disabled children in "special ed" programs, even very good ones,
isolates them from society and from their peers, and it leaves them in the
lurch when it comes to the necessary socialization skills they can only
learn when interacting with other non-disabled children. "Mainstreaming" is
specifically intended to get disabled children out of isolation and get them
involved in the community and society, where they can both learn to cope
with their disabilities in the real world as well as learn to make friends
and dispel prejudices and preconceptions that are often part and parcel of
"normal" childhood experience when "normal" children are isolated from the
disabled. Anything that leads towards the understanding that the disabled
are not "freaks" of some kind is good, and I applaud these parents for
sticking with it.

As to the other daughter, being gifted, she is unlikely to have as many
problems with socialization, and will experience socialization at her new
school as well, and will receive a better education. Keeping her in public
school would be unfair to her, particularly so if its done *because* she has
a disabled sister.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/3/05 2:43 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott figures:
===========
It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped
and I don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct"
speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a
debit to the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be
leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.
=========

OK. in my anecdote, there was the need for brevity. To fully explain
the hypocrisy: here's the rest of the story.

The parents in question have a province-wide reputation as advocates
for the disabled. A cause celebre for them is school mainstreaming of
disabled pupils.

OK, so given their passion for this cause, they then remove their
bright daughter to an elite private school that does not admit pupils
with disabilities.

Um, is this true? I find that extremely hard to believe, particularly in
Canada, because even here in the USA, it's illegal to discriminate on the
basis of physical disability. I sort of imagined it as being a hanging
offense in Canada.

Actually, Scott, you'll be happy to know (I assume) that in many ways the US
is well ahead of Canada in terms of the rights of people with disabilities.

I'm not sure, but BCITORGB might be talking about intellectual disabilities,
rather than physical disabilities.

As I recall, their "rationale" for doing so was that
there were too many ESL students in the public school their daughters
were attending.

"ESL" meaning "handicapped" I presume?

English as a Second Language.

Surely, if "mainstreaming" is good for the goose, it
ought also to be good for the gander.

That's why it was hypocritical.

Hm. Well, given what you say, I'd say they were being perfectly consistent
with their beliefs and advocacy. They are "mainstreaming" their disabled
daughter, just as they argue ought to be done. Clearly they *could* provide
the very best individual, specialized care and education for their disabled
child, but choose instead to keep her in public school in order to "walk the
walk" and demonstrate that disabled children can be "mainstreamed." I laud
them for standing by their principles.

On the other hand, their gifted daughter evidently needs a more
intellectually stimulating environment to reach her full potential, so they
decided not to stint on her education by keeping her in private school.

I see no hypocrisy at all. I see rational judgment and a concern both for
their children and other disabled children, because they evidently genuinely
feel that the public school environment provides a SUPERIOR educational AND
SOCIAL environment for their disabled daughter. I happen to agree with them.

But...that's the very nature of the hypocrisy.

They want a generalized environment for one daughter, and a specialized
environment for the other.

Without commenting on which type of environment would be most beneficial for
either of these individuals, I do find the behaviour of the parents
hypocritical.

Putting disabled children in "special ed" programs, even very good ones,
isolates them from society and from their peers, and it leaves them in the
lurch when it comes to the necessary socialization skills they can only
learn when interacting with other non-disabled children.

There are different forms of isolation, and there are lots of interesting
articles and first hand accounts you might want to explore regarding the
experiences of people with disabilities in "mainstreaming."

It is also important to realize that the school environment is a temporary
environment, and there is life after school. "Mainstreaming" usually means
that a person with a disability (one with an intellectual disability) is
simply filling up space in a classroom with a curriculum that is not meant
for nor meeting their needs.

"Mainstreaming" is
specifically intended to get disabled children out of isolation and get them
involved in the community and society, where they can both learn to cope
with their disabilities in the real world as well as learn to make friends
and dispel prejudices and preconceptions that are often part and parcel of
"normal" childhood experience when "normal" children are isolated from the
disabled. Anything that leads towards the understanding that the disabled
are not "freaks" of some kind is good, and I applaud these parents for
sticking with it.

There's little evidence that "mainstreaming" accomplishes any of what you
think it does. But without getting into that, I'm confused by your position
about what the parents did.

If mainstreaming is all about people with all different abilities spending
time together, then how is pulling their bright daughter out of the
mainstream consistent with that belief?

As to the other daughter, being gifted, she is unlikely to have as many
problems with socialization

Are you nuts? That's one of the groups that has the most problems with
socialization! Worse than software engineers! (Although sometimes one in the
same).

and will experience socialization at her new
school as well, and will receive a better education. Keeping her in public
school would be unfair to her, particularly so if its done *because* she has
a disabled sister.

Explain again.

The child who is gifted is better off in a specialized environment with
other people who are gifted, but the child who has a disability is not
better off in a specialized environment with other people who are disabled.

Why?