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Consider consequences of
Toll Highway Authority

Editor: Congratulations for Robert Heuer's very perceptive and courageous article about the Illinois Toll Highway Authority in your February 1994 issue (page 27).

This semi-governmental agency has, more than any other, laid the foundation for the abandonment and destruction of Chicago and inner-ring suburbs. Without the expressways, which the Toll Authority builds in a wider and wider circumference around Chicago, urban sprawl would be materially impossible.

With every housing unit that gets boarded up or demolished in a Chicago neighborhood, with every store or factory in the city that closes its doors, demand is potentially being created for new construction alongside a new Toll Authority highway. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in urban planning to see the relation between the one and the other.

It's not surprising that the agency that takes the lead in this irrational and relentless suburban expansion should operate, as Heuer shows, with almost no public oversight, let alone control.

This is but one of many instances in which fundamental decisions about the way we live are made by a small group of technicians, businessmen and politicians.

The citizens of Illinois should be allowed to carefully consider the profound social and environmental consequences of the process the Toll Authority quietly carries out. If this ever happens, the process will undoubtedly be halted and the suburban growth engine will be replaced by new, sensible and equitable models of economic development.

         John T. Cabral
         University of Illinois at Chicago
         Center for Urban Economic
            Development

Advantages of charter schools

Editor: I believe there are two essential problems in urban education: (1) the gulf between policymakers and the delivery system created by a large bureaucracy; and (2) the politically inspired expectation that the schools alone can solve society's ills. Charter schools address these problems in several ways. (See Illinois Issues, March 1994). Charter schools bring decision making to the place where ideas are converted to reality, the actual school. Decision makers can see immediately the impact of their choices on a specific group of children, their teachers and their families. These are not faceless units, but real, identifiable human beings in search of growing up and understanding the world. Decision makers who must live with the children, their parents and each other will have greater interest in the specific experience of the youngsters they educate.

Secondly, charter schools require the active involvement of parents. Clearly, all parents are not equally interested in their children's education. Nonetheless, for those who are, charter schools can provide great opportunity for their children. The success of children in parent-involved schooling can, with luck, create role models for other parents.

Lastly, charter schools cost the taxpayers no more than other in-district schools. It is clear that Illinois' large urban school districts inadequately develop the minds of hundreds of thousands of our young. We must find alternatives that do not waste this precious asset. If charter schools can deliver more education for the same cost, why would we deprive Illinois families and their children this opportunity to succeed?

         James E. Goulka
         Kenilworth

Welfare solutions?

Editor: Thank you for sending me a copy of the February issue of Illinois Issues. I found this material both interesting and informative, and I appreciate receiving it.

Americans who work hard and play by the rules should be honored and rewarded. This administration intends to reform our current welfare system so that it empowers welfare recipients to care for their children and improve their lives. We are prepared to demand responsibility and restore the welfare system to what it once was — a safety net for those who need a helping hand.

The president has assigned the Domestic Policy Council the task of searching out solid solutions to today's welfare problems and concerns. The council has found that state-run experiments, such as those in Ohio and California, can reduce welfare costs and put people back to work. The president and I have made welfare reform one of our top five priorities. This administration is prepared to work with state governments to guarantee that this goal is accomplished.

Please be assured that we understand the great need for welfare reform and will continue to look for answers, not just quick fixes. We welcome your ideas and suggestions.

         Al Gore
         Vice President of the U.S.

May 1994/Illinois Issues/9

Caring for the children

Editor: I am writing in response to Ed McManus' guest column in the February Issues. Our members, all of whom are child welfare agencies and rehabilitation facilities, have served troubled and disabled children and their families for many years. Having cared for and treated some of the most troubled children in Illinois, our members have a valuable perspective that has helped shape this debate on inclusion.

It is symptomatic of the current level of controversy that Mr. McManus sees the line of demarcation as between either inclusion or "banning all kids with disabilities." Such either/or language fuels the emotional impasse that characterizes this debate. We suggest that there is much more common ground and that what differentiates the two sides is related more to methods chosen to reach the ultimate goal of helping each child reach his potential, rather than the goal itself.

For example, those who favor a continuum of settings for the appropriate education of children with disabilities by and large do not see inclusion as an end in itself. It is one of the means to ensuring the child the highest functioning, most positive life possible in spite of his/her disabilities. When inclusion, or a specific setting, is not the end, parents, professionals and children are free to explore a range of possibilities. What we believe is most disdainful to both sides is the cutting off of choice, the inability to select what those most intimately involved with the child believe is in his/her best interest. Mr. McManus believes this, as he explained how his daughter thrived in one setting as opposed to another. We also believe this.

Many parents and children with disabilities want specialized services in a private setting. Many parents have explained the same "ability to thrive" in their children with disabilities when they were moved from public schools with inadequate, inappropriate services to private settings that provided specialized services for children with disabilities. Parents of children who are deaf or who have behavioral and emotional disabilities in particular describe in detail their children's new-found self-esteem and release from the pain of victimization they experienced at the hands of their non-disabled peers when they were placed in more specialized, private settings. They found friends for the first time and learned under the care of skilled professionals.

The Federal education law, IDEA, is well-crafted. The tension created by its two seemingly competing provisions, education in the least restrictive and most appropriate environment, is played out for the individual child in the multi-disciplinary conference. It is most important to note that no one setting was named for each and every child. Congress knew that one size does not fit all.

The energy that has been consumed by debate that has gone nowhere is better placed by joining together to reconcile several critical issues:

1) How do we "retool" the educational system to better accommodate those children whom parents and professionals and children themselves believe would be best served in the regular classroom? "Retooling" is an apt word since it hints at the level of planning and building of infrastructure in the current system that will be necessary for individual schools to do this well. We have already seen a system failure result from the use of wishful thinking rather than careful planning and investment in the case of the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. We cannot afford to make that mistake again. Therefore, we have recommended that the Illinois State Board of Education conduct such a study regarding the resource allocation to plan for the accommodation of more children with disabilities in regular classrooms who would benefit from such placements.

2) How can we work together to improve outcomes for children with disabilities both in the educational system and in their lives? We do not agree, as Mr. McManus attributes to the National Association of State Boards of Education, that "special education is a failure." Far from it. We do acknowledge that much more can be done. For example, we are particularly concerned at present about the public policy dilemma posed by children with behavioral disorders, who, unlike most other disability categories, have both increased numbers and increases in placement in the last ten years. Outcomes for these children, overall, are not promising. This is most likely a service and not a setting issue. Changes in practice and in the service system may be necessary.

3) Finally, since we believe these issues are systemic, they require all of the resources we can bring to bear to resolve them. These include the collective expertise of parents, professionals and the disabled, and the policy organizations such as the Illinois State Advisory Council on the Education of the Handicapped.

We remain hopeful that an interest in children and their future will bring an end to sparring and a call for more collective action. We rejoice that Mr. McManus' daughter is thriving in their school of choice. We are committed to pursuing such outcomes for all children with disabilities.

         Bridget R. Helmholz
         Associate Director
         Child Care Association
         of Illinois

         Mary Shahbazian
         President
         Illinois Affiliation of Private
         Schools for Exceptional Children

         David R. Stover
         Executive Director
         Illinois Association of
         Rehabilitation Facilities Inc.

Readers: Your comments on articles and columns are welcome. Please keep letters brief (250 words); we reserve the right to excerpt them so that as many as space allows can be published. Send your letters to:

Ed Wojcicki, Publisher Illinois Issues
Sangamon State University Springfield, Illinois 62794-9243 e-mail address on Internet:
wojcicki@eagle.sangamon.edu

10/May 1994/Illinois Issues