It's hard enough just to be a kid sometimes.

It's even harder to be a kid with disabilities.

It's hard to be that kid in a school system where needs aren't met due to budget constraints.

It's hard to be a parent when it appears that suing is the only recourse to getting what your child has a right to.  Not a privilege: a right.  Policy determination through lawsuit.  Meet needs only when such a course of action is less expensive than legal costs and punitive damages.  How brilliant. 

Is it a widespread concept among school personnel that a public education is a product, and if portions of that product are not consumed by the client then the school bears no responsibility for the lack?  I have the feeling that the people who run schools have the mindset of consumerism, as if they believe the system should be run as if it is a McDonalds where math, reading, and writing are like a burger, fries, and a coke.  They seem to say "We serve 'em up and if the customer doesn't eat what we put out, well, that's a shame, but we did our job."

Sometimes I wonder where the real disabilities lie.

I have a daughter in third grade who doesn't know the difference between a foot and an inch, a minute and a second, and who thinks 8+15=16.

But the nifty new state-of-the-art playgrounds at all the schools in town sure have fun slides.

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