Tim, Hi friends. It's Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education, and you are listening to think inclusive, our podcast that features conversations with people doing the work of inclusion in the real world. Last Wednesday, January 22 MCIE hosted what's next for idea a webinar that explored the future of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act amidst changing political climates and administrative priorities. I moderated the webinar, along with our distinguished panelists, Dr Jen Newton from Ohio University. Eric Garcia from the independent Dr Carolyn teaglund, our chief executive officer, and we discussed potential changes, challenges and strategies for educators, administrators and policy makers. What you're about to hear is the webinar in its entirety. I did not make any cuts, so enjoy the audio and video version if you're watching on YouTube of the webinar. What's next for idea, before we get to the webinar, I just wanted to give a shout out to our sponsor for season 12, IXL. IXL is a fantastic all in one platform design for K 12 education. It helped boost student achievement, empowers teachers and tracks progress seamlessly. Imagine having a tool that simplifies what usually requires dozens of different resources. Well, that's IXL. As students practice IXL adapts to their individual needs, ensuring that they're both supported and challenged, plus each learner receives a personalized learning plan to effectively address any knowledge gaps. If you're interested in learning more, visit I excel.com/inclusive that's I excel.com/inclusive, okay, after a short break our webinar, what's next for idea. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. Remember Y'all, inclusion always works. You.
Tim. Hey everyone, it says the webinar started. Welcome to What's next for idea. My name is Tim Villegas. I'm the Director of Communications at the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education, or as we like to say, MCIE, we're thrilled to have you join us tonight as we explore the future of the individuals with disabilities, education, Act or IDEA, and discuss the potential changes and challenges that lie ahead before we dive into our discussion, I'd like to take a moment to introduce who we are and what we do. Our organization partners with school districts across the state of Maryland and beyond to transform their educational systems to be more inclusive for all learners. We have partners in Illinois, Virginia and Arkansas, among others. Typically, our partnerships last anywhere from three to five years, but we're always looking for a ways to assist school districts with their short term technical assistance needs surrounding inclusive practices. MCIE is a 501 c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting schools and school systems on their journey to create inclusive school communities where all children and youth feel a sense of belonging and have equitable educational opportunities that result in high levels of academic success. We've been doing this work for over 30 years, and we everything from learner planning teams, teacher, coaching and administrator consulting. So if that is something that you are interested in, please let us know. Tonight, we are honored to have three distinguished guests with us. Dr Jen Newton. Dr Newton is an associate say Hi, Jen. Say hi. Dr Newton is a associate professor in special education. Her research interests include strengths based approaches to families, early childhood inclusion, inclusive teacher preparation and socially just and equitable educational practices. She has served as an early interventionist and an inclusive pre kindergarten teacher. Dr. Dr Newton earned her doctorate in special education with a focus on teacher education from the University of Kansas, and has held academic positions at James Madison University, St Louis University and currently Ohio University. Eric Garcia live from what the third floor, right? Eric, third floor, third floor of the Capitol, baby, there you go. Is the Washington bureau chief and senior Washington correspondent at the independent. He joined the independent in July of 2021, and covers the White House, Congress, campaigns and money in politics. He co authors the inside Washington newsletter, and is also an MSNBC columnist who appears regularly on TV and video. Eric is the author of the book we are not broken changing the autism conversation, and is the recipient of the Autistic Self Advocacy networks Harriet McBride Johnson prize for non fiction writing. Dr Carolyn teaglen joined MCIE in 2022 as the Director of Professional Learning and was appointed MCIE CEO in 2023 as an experienced educator and associate superintendent for education services in Cecil County Public Schools, she led her districts transformation to an inclusive model, where all children are educated in their neighborhood schools and general education settings. Carolyn has provided congressional testimony on inclusive education and received several awards, including breakthroughs in Inclusive Education Award by TASH and the strategic instruction model administrative leadership award by the University of Kansas. She is deeply committed to advancing Diversity Equity and Inclusion. And Hey everyone, I'm Tim, your host. I'm a former special education teacher with 16 years in public schools who advocated for authentic inclusion for students with extensive support needs and general education. I joined MCIE in 2020 I produced two podcasts, think inclusive, our weekly podcast series that features conversations with people doing the work of inclusion in the real world and inclusion stories, a five part audio documentary that examines the stories of families and school systems on their journey to full and authentic inclusion. And you can find those wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, throughout the webinar, we encourage you to engage with us, asking questions and sharing your thoughts in the I don't think I have the chat open, so I'm going to open up the chat. So be very nice, because I'm not able to moderate all those things on the fly here, we encourage you to engage with us, to start us off before I ask everyone their opening question, just to make sure I know that you're here and that you're listening if in the chat, why don't you just give us an emoji like, how are you feeling right now? How is everyone feeling? This is the mood check. Okay, so go ahead and put an emoji in the chat and see where everyone is at Okay? All right. All right. I see some crying. Faces snowing, yes. All right. Thank you very much. All right. So without further ado, here we go. Let's get started. Please join me in welcoming our panelists. We're going to start with you. Jen, are you ready? Jen, what are some key challenges for teachers, specifically special educators. As now we have a new administration, we're three days in, and what are some challenges that we have, and maybe we can go to strategies after that. But what are some challenges?
Hi, Tim, thanks for having me and also for doing this. I think this is such a great opportunity for us to have a conversation together, and there's so much to talk about. I think the key challenges right now and will continue to be around clarity. I think a lot of people are just unsure about who is doing what, and what is going to come next and what's possible. There are things that people are asking about, possibilities that we didn't know were possible previously, right? And so it's unlikely that changes are going to happen all at once, but more like a series of small changes that will roll out in different ways. And so how will people find out about these things, and what is the information pipeline that's going to get to teachers and to families and to caregivers and to the grown ups of kids, right who are making this making decisions about how all of these things are going to play out for individual, families and communities, and so I think we need to think about that as our biggest challenge is where is our information going to come from, and where our trusted sources and where is clarity going to come from? I think it's important to recognize that just. Canceling the Department of Education, which seems to be the big, scary sort of thing that everyone's concerned about that's going to take an act of Congress. That's not going to happen overnight, but moving the functions of the Department of Ed to the Department of Justice, for instance, for civil rights, which the inclusion and education of kids with support needs is a civil rights issue, idea the individuals with disabilities and Education Act is inherently and fundamentally a civil rights law. So it will likely become Department of Justice, maybe review right, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Interior, the Department of Treasury. These are all places where different parts of the functions of the Department of Ed might end up. And so how do we all keep track of all of that? How do we know who's going to do what? How are we going to keep track of all of that? That's an overwhelming feeling, especially because do I know what the Department of Interior does for the past administration? Some of what the Department of Interior does. Yeah, Eric knows what they do. I
mean, department interior deals with our national parks. It deals with our it also, but I think most more importantly, I mean, especially if we're talking about in terms of what the Trump administration wants to do, it's more it's also very heavily focused on oil extraction and preserving and also on public lands, and what can be done on public lands, so but
also the education of Indigenous children. Yes, absolutely right. And so that can impact the future of education. We have lots of teachers who work with indigenous children and work with Native American children. And so that can impact the education in lots of states. And so we need to know about these things. So teachers, all of us, we want clarity. So look at your state educational leaders and really listen to what they're saying. What do they prioritize? What are one likely educational priority for the new administration is changing up the way education is funded, moving to block grants administered to states. You might be hearing a lot about block grants. It sounds weird. It's just simply chunks of money that the federal government will give to states, and then states can do with it what they please, because the language says no strings attached. So that means that they can distribute it however they want. That may not mean that it aligns with my priorities. It might not align with my priority to support kids who have learning needs or or support needs at school. It might not mean that they're prioritizing kids who need more reading support. It might not mean they're prioritizing kids who need more higher resource schools. They might not be prioritizing those kids listen to your school administrators or your state administrators know what their priorities are, so that you can determine where to begin your advocacy, but the advocacy begins at our state level and our local level next. Thanks,
Jen, really, really appreciate that. Eric, let's go to you. Since you do cover the White House, I know that you're very familiar with the priorities of the Trump administration concerning specifically public education reform. Number one, how likely is it that the Department of Education will be dismantled? And then number two, what are some of the priorities that are on top of mind for this administration regarding public education. Great question.
And I think it's really important to say, I mean, I think that, you know the house, you know we're dealing with very, very small margins in both the House and the Senate. I think Republicans have, they only have 218, seats out of 435, seats. So an act to get rid of the Department of Education, that wouldn't mean they would need to get every single Republican on board to vote to dismantle the Park Department of Education. On top of that, you've got 53 United States senators in the Republican majority. And, you know, to your point, to Jen's point, there would not be a lot of appetite for, I don't think that there's necessarily the appetite to go for that. So to Jen's point, about, about, you know, Trump nominated Linda McMahon for pro wrestling fans like myself, I think we're very familiar with who Linda McMahon is. She's the former chief executive of WWE wrestling, World Wrestling and entertainment. She was also Small Business Administrator during the first Trump administration. But I think it's also important to remember, Jen, you pointed out that this deals with Indigenous children. For example, Senator Lisa Murkowski is on the HELP Committee, which would be in charge of confirming, which would be in charge of confirming McMahon. And this would be probably something for those who are. A
for someone for confirming the man, she'd have to come up a come up ahead of them, and it would be, and it would be a big and it would be a big issue. Sorry, I just got a message from work. I you
know, so, so, so I think that this is going to be so. So I think that this is good. This is this is going to be a real thing. And again, remember, Democrats could probably filibuster this, but, but also, like, take into account, you know, it's not just Democrats who love public schools, you know, who really loves public schools? Republicans from rural states, they don't want a drain on their funds.
So what about some What about some priorities as far as the coming administration with with regard to public public education, like it seems like the actual dismantling of the DOE is is unlikely, at least in the short term, given the current climate. But what about just priorities? And what are they looking for to change, if anything?
Yeah. I mean, to Jen's point, they really want to focus on they really incredibly want to focus on block grants in school vouchers. President Trump talked a lot about school choice. This is something that a lot of conservatives support. This is something that's happened on this is something that they that they discussed openly in Project 2025 they talked about moving the idea oversight and middle implementation into the US Department of Health and Human Services. I have project 2025 right up in front of me right now. And look, a lot of President Trump didn't want to tie himself to probably 2025, when he was running for president, but a lot of the staff and a lot of the people and a lot of the personnel a worked in the first Trump administration and are now coming into the second Trump administration.
Got it. Got it. Carolyn, given that idea has not been reauthorized since 2004 and given your experience as a public school administrator, what if there were changes to idea, how would that impact school systems, educators, learners, just on the policy level, what do you think
so? First of all, it hasn't been reauthorized in 20 years, so we're not talking about some simple accomplishment to to fundamentally reauthorize and change idea, nor does idea. While Ida promotes the idea of inclusion and promotes the idea of children having access to general education and practice, that's not really what happens across the nation. So it's not like the equity and inclusion movement really is fundamentally altering the lived experience of disabled people and disabled children. So I don't know that there is like momentum around we've got to fix idea, because it's promoting this idea that these individuals with disabilities have all this equity and access, because that's really not happening. So you know, it's really very few places that we're seeing actual equity and access for children with disabilities, and frankly, if they get that access, it gets very quickly taken away if they don't show up in that space in a way that is acceptable to the educators in the space. So I really would be very surprised if there was some kind of movement to reauthorize it idea because of this idea that it creates an equitable turning point. I agree with Jen, you know, this is a civil rights issue, but it's not a civil rights issue that there's a ton of momentum behind unfortunately, I would love to see more momentum behind it so and to reauthorize it would take a lot of work, and a lot of it would take a lot of efforts, and it would need to be a motivation to do that for some reason. And aside from the funding aspects of idea, I don't know what that motivation would be. Maybe it would be around the idea that we want to give states and local school systems more control over how they use that funding. But then Is there really an appetite to decrease the supports for kids with disabilities? Because, frankly, it's more expensive to segregate children, so if we're decreasing the funding so. Green to schools. What is that going to look like in terms of the level of support they're going to have? I really think that there would be pushback from local states and local school systems around the idea that they would get less funding for children with disabilities because children because that that it's expensive to provide related services to provide those supports in schools. I just, I would, I'm hopeful that that's like a an area in terms of reauthorizing and fundamentally changing idea that that, I don't know that there would be much momentum behind that.
There Yeah, Eric, did you have something to say, Carol, and I think
to your point, also, like one of the things that I think a lot of the point about, point about funding, it should be noted that the federal government pledged when it signed ID, when President Bush. And even before then, the original education for Handicapped Children Act President Ford, they specifically stipulated they expressed concern. It stipulated that the federal government would cover 40% of all special education funding. It's only ever covered, I think, about 14 and 15. It went up a little bit, I think, like, two years ago, like, I think, like a two or 3% I forget the exact number, so forgive me, but that's a drop in the bucket. And on top of that, I mean, this is the big thing that got, I mean, to borrow from something that Republicans talk about all the time. It's, in some ways, in many ways, an unfunded mandate. And to block granted and to reduce funding, because, in many ways, block granting would lead to reduced funding that would saddle schools with any localities and municipalities with even more of the financial burden.
Yeah. So I have a, I had a, like, a wonky question, I think you sort of answered it, but let me see if I can expand that a little bit. And this is open to anyone. So what I'm hearing is that if anything would change with funding, it would be this idea of block grants, and the block grants would go to states, and then the states would decide what to do with them, but the amount of money that's in the block grants wouldn't be more. It would be actually even less, possibly so that states would have less money than they currently have now under the current funding system. Is that correct?
That would be correct, yeah. Because a lot of times the way that they increase the funding they there, sometimes it's in the way it's in. The real question is how that money is indexed, and how the increase in funding is indexed. Sometimes it's done to consumer price index that there are other, there are other ways to chain it, but when it's but when you adjust it to inflation, which is what everybody is talking about, right? Talking about right now, that number is incredibly important. I
would also say too Tim, sorry to interrupt, but also depends on the state's priorities related to vouchers and how they're how they're planning on dismantling public education in general. So we're operating under the assumption that public education would continue to be a viable option. So if you're in a rural area and you're in a space where vouchers and schools become where you take your ticket and you go find a school that can take you, then kids who have support needs don't have to be accepted into their school, it becomes very untenable where students don't have access, and if we've moved our civil rights litigation to the Department of Justice and we don't have the same level of recourse when idea isn't being upheld that we currently do because the rights and protections of the law are not being upheld. We're operating under the assumption that some of those things are going to maintain the in the same structure, in the same place that they are today. I don't think that we should do that. I think we should assume that if the structure of education changes, if public education is not as readily available and as in the concept of zero, reject and free and appropriate public education is changed, then we have to assume that the economic analysis that it is, I totally Carolyn and I are in the same boat with that. It is is much more expensive to segregate children. It's more expensive to educate them. And if we do not, as a nation, prioritize education, educating disabled children, which we do not we do not have consensus that that disabled children deserve education hot take then we have to say that that is at risk right now, and I firmly believe that there is the opportunity now for idea to be even further unfunded and. For children to have even more complex and difficult time finding programs where they're accepted and where they have a right to be educated, let alone getting their needs met, getting access to an appropriate education with the appropriate support. So I think we have to sort of think about within the current context, but also what is possible
to respond to something that Karen call put in the in the chat, somebody asked, would the number would the block grants be determined by the number of kids with IEPs now, rather than number of kids with IEPs in the 1990s because I think the states have more kids that they receive in some that many states have more kids that they receive less? Yeah, that's, that's, that's a really important question that is, and it's not entirely clear how that funding formula would be determined. That's a legitimate question. I think Jen, you mentioned something that's really important, and I'm going to keep on banging the drone that that, you know, you talk, we're talking about rural areas. We're talking about Native American areas. A lot of times, these are the only these are really schools are often the only service providers for people with disabilities. So with that in mind, when the money is drained from the is drained from the public school. Well, guess what? That means that a lot of the services that the the only one stop shop that a lot of these places have, they no longer have a that they no longer have a service provider as well. This is why, ironically, some of the biggest opponents of school choice school vouchers are Republicans in places like Texas and Tennessee and Kentucky, the states with very, very rural areas also, also football.
Perception is that the a ton of resources are shifted to the very few students with the higher support needs. Whether that's true or not, most people don't understand the economics of special education. So if the perception within a community is if we move, if we don't educate, if we don't support, if we don't serve these this handful of children, we can then provide these additional supports to more children, then the communities are going to likely err on the side of that. We we already aren't meeting the needs of students in our communities because of the mentality that we shouldn't put undue resources toward kids with higher support needs in our communities. People don't say that, but that's the operating kind of idea is that we shouldn't be putting all of our resources toward a few kids. Yes, we should. We should give kids what they need to be successful. But if we're competing for resources, and we're in a much, much tighter economic situation by choice, because we're now, we don't have pots. We don't have a title one pot, we don't have an idea pot, we don't have these pots that are allotted to certain things. And there's accountability metrics where we have to show how many kids we supported on literacy and math measures. We have to show how many kids we supported with dyslexia, with, you know, different learning needs. It's all one pot. Who do you think is going to get sacrificed the ones with
the highest Yeah, Jan, that's that. That's a huge thing, because one of the things that districts do have to show, and I have lots of experience with building those budgets, is that we are matching the allocations that we're getting for those specialized populations, whether it's title one, whether it's it's, it's, it's special education, you know, whether it's CTE, we have to demonstrate that as a system, we are contributing local funds to balance what We're receiving from the federal and state levels, and so any of those funds that gets diverted away districts are not then held accountable for showing their their match in terms of their local funds and what they're doing to support those marginalized populations. So that is a major thing that's a compelling factor right now in building school system budgets that could potentially go away, that would be a scary thing. It you know that accountability piece, and then the question becomes, are school system is going to be held accountable for the performance of those marginalized groups in the way that they are now. Because right now, the accountability measure, measures that are are are funneled from the federal government to the states, is that you are showing progress for your disaggregated groups. You know that you're. Not just showing progress for the end, like, it's not just everybody, like, it's not just one together. It's like, you have to show progress for children with disabilities, or, you know, certain demographics, for children that live in poverty. You're held accountable to that right now. So if the funding is being diverted, is the accountability structure also going to change, and that's also scary.
Thanks. Thanks. Carolyn. I just want to remind everyone that if you have any questions for our panelists, to put them in the Q and A section of the webinar, so that way we can make sure to get those to them. We have, we're going to have some time at the end for some specific Q and A time with the panelists, and then also we see some, a lot of really great conversation in the chat. So thank you for that, and just make sure that you are respectful to everyone. So really appreciate that
there is something I will chat. I've been on some panels with chat, with the zoom, chats not
so civil. Thank you, Eric, yeah, yeah, they're very civil. So thank you. Appreciate that one thing, and I'm pulling this out of the chat, although it wasn't necessarily a question right before inauguration, I think it was OSERS, or is it OSEP put out guidance on inclusive practices. And there it is. It is a white paper. I believe the link is in the chat. I saw somebody put put it on there, Eric, let me ask you this question, because I know that you've covered you've covered the government over the last few years with changes to an administration like this. How likely is a guidance that gets put out right before an administration change? How likely is that guidance going to be followed? Depends
on the statute, but oftentimes it gets rolled back immediately. You know, President Trump, we've seen, we've seen immediately is that he's done rollbacks at the Biden administration's executive orders, almost on day one. We've seen him do the same with foreign policy. We've seen it with refugee resettlement right now. As of right now, there is no, I mean, the there's Secretary, I mean, the man has not been confirmed, but I imagine that as soon as she is confirmed, as well as deputy secretaries, administrators, beachheads. You know, they have a beach head team. I'm sure, I'm sure that is going to be, that it's going to be top on their agenda. We saw a similar thing with Title Nine and sexual assault when Betsy DeVos was was Secretary of Education. So it would not surprise me if they rolled it back. I don't know what specifically on this specific one, what the statutory sections are for, like these types of executive orders, but it gets in so again, it just really
comes down to right, right, what authority secretary, and from what I understand too, and Jen and Carolyn, you might want to add on to what I'm about to say. I don't remember, in my career as an educator, an administration the previous administration, I don't remember a more favorable climate for inclusive practices ever than the last iteration of the Biden administration. I mean, you had Valerie Williams as the OSEP director and then the assistant secretary was Glen org Gallo. Both leaders, huge advocates for Inclusive Education, huge advocates for children with disabilities. So heading into what kind of the personalities right will be like in this iteration of the Trump administration, I have no idea. I'm with Eric. I knew Linda McMahon from you know, WWE, you know, I have no idea what the priorities are going to be like, and I just, and as far as the deputy was it, the Deputy Secretary of Education, I believe, is from Tennessee. Don't know much about her, Eric, I don't know if you know anything about her, much, honestly, okay, yeah, yeah, winning nominations that I haven't been able to right? Yeah. So there's a lot of unknown, but I will say, like, if you follow, if you follow education politics, and you follow what was happening in Tennessee, from our friends and colleagues that have nonprofits in Tennessee, part of what they were afraid of. Of and kind of pushing back against is this idea of detaching themselves from any sort of, you know, federal regulation finish when Yes, yes. So detaching themselves from any sort of regulation, from the federal government regarding idea funding, so I don't know if you have, if you know anything about that, or if you have any thoughts about
that, yeah. I mean, the is that to me, or is it to somebody else, to you, to anybody? Yeah. I mean, again, one of the things that we just don't know is, is we, is it? It's gonna say we're not gonna know until, I mean, to borrow from Nate, plus we have to pass the bill to know what's in it. We, you know, we don't know, because I just don't think that they've given a lot of thought and consideration to disability education. You know, if you know, if you remember, during Betsy DeVos first confirmation hearing in 2017 she didn't even really know what idea was there really just, isn't we just again. We just don't know what their perspective is. And like, as you said, places like Tennessee, places like Texas, places like Kentucky, they have been these are not blue states. These are rock rib Republican areas. And you know, to Jen's point, the big fear is that the the small country school, that not only is the disability service, not only provides education, but allows the disability service provider, it provides entertainment for the entire town with Friday Night Lights and school plays and all these things, if that money goes to a more wealthy suburban school, because really it's suburban Republicans who support school vouchers that is really going to not spell good things for students with disabilities or services. Again, again, you know, as you said, as I said, you know, there's been pushes to put the put idea oversight under HHS, that, in of itself, I don't know how that would work, that you know, essentially, if you don't have it under one large, you know, Central, centralized place. It probably, it probably can't be done. I mean, I know that obviously HHS needs to be called H E, W, before the department of the South or the Department of Education. So So again, it, but it, but you know now so much has changed since the signing of idea. When, when IDEA was signed, when it was back when the department was created. It was called the education for Medicare Children Act. Now it's idea and it has it's much more sleeping and comprehensive. Yeah,
yeah. Jan or Carolyn, did you have any comments? What
I think about with Linda McMahon first is that her previous role in the first administration was the Small Business Admin. SBA, yes, yeah. And so I tend to be mindful about the movement of education from a public good to business. And so that feels like a call to me in that that's, you know, the the framing, right, that the approach to this is to think about, how can we make money from our schools? How can we commodify or capitalize off of education? Who can? How can we profit off of it and and so I don't, I agree with Eric. I don't think that they've thought at all about kids with disabilities or the logistics of idea. I don't think that's a priority. I think that once the the things are shaken up, there's then we, it's Yahtzee, right? And kind of see how it all plays out, and then we're left. And that's kind of what I meant when I said we. Need clarity. People are worried about what we don't know. I'm seeing it in the questions. I'm seeing it in the chat. What about this? What about that? I think, if you live in a state where, and even if you don't have if you don't live in a state that aligns well with your politics, find out who is your state board of education, who? How does it work? Is it appointed? Is it elected? How does it operate? What are the politics of your the purview of the state legislature? Or is it a separate board? Is it rad? Is it run independently, or is it a no function of the state legislator? And then find out how you can advocate. I also would advocate, I know we're not at that part, but I just wanted to also say, like the to Eric's point, he said this a little bit earlier, but Linda McMahon hasn't been confirmed yet, and so it's a great opportunity to look up who is on the Education Committee, the HELP Committee, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Thank you, Eric, and find out who those folks are, and then shoot them an email. I have a routine in the morning, when I wake up, I make coffee, and then I call five senators or representatives, and I make five phone calls every morning while I drink coffee, and every I think if you get in that habit and you call five people every morning, I then you can kind of just start building that routine. That routine in, and it's just part of my resistance, right? And I was doing this through the Biden campaign and through the Biden administration as well. But that's part of our work as as public, civic professionals, as educators, is just to be so civic minded and be a participating and so figure out if it doesn't have to be a federal representative, it can be a state representative, but find out what's going on in your state and how these decisions are going to be made, so that you can start thinking about and tracking where money is going to go. Because the more knowledge you have, the more power you have. And so I would just say that that's one thing that you can do that helps you to feel like you have some sense of what's going to happen next at home.
I should also add, I just dropped the memberships of the of the HELP Committee. Oh, thank you. You know, for Marylanders, your new senator, Angela, also Brooks, is on the HELP Committee on and for those who don't know, she has ADHD. She's talked openly about any ADHD. Her daughter also, I believe, has ADHD, and has talked about getting services. This is something that so you you likely will have. You know, it remains to be seen how she is as a senator. Because definitely something another person who's who's really big on this is Senator Maggie Hassan, for anybody who from New England, her son has cerebral palsy. She got into politics because her son has a disability. Another person who is very, very knowledgeable about this is is Senator Tim Kaine, who, of course, is a former governor. And governors have a large law. We don't, we don't elect that many governors or senators anymore. I actually think that's a shame. We should elect more governors and senators because they actually, they actually have to, have to manage budgets. They can't just pontificate.
We need more governors and Senators. That's my, that's my that's Eric's hot take. I guess.
So. So, but I would just say sorry, but, but
the point that I'm making is that these are people who are knowledgeable and will have institutional knowledge. And I think that one of the things that you that you also have to take into account is that every, um, every state, is affected by this. So, for example, um, you know, some people might not think that Tommy Tuberville might be a good ally. Well, guess what? There's a lot of rural there's a lot of rural schools in Alabama, and those are people in a lot of those rural areas voted for Tommy Tuberville and voted for President Trump. So,
Carolyn, did you have something that you want to add?
I think at a more basic level, because I think a lot of the people on this are educators and parents, and my experience has been that that even our teachers and our school based administrators are not in touch with their local and state politics. They have no idea. They don't know how schools are funded. They don't know what the what the policies are. They don't know what, how legislation affects them. I have had more situations where I'm getting text messages the morning of the local and general elections asking me who people should vote for, who are educate, education friendly. We can't wait until the morning of elections like this is a time that folks have got to get keyed into what is happening in their local communities and also in their state, and then also larger than that, but, but if we're not even tuned into what's happening to us locally and how we're going to be impacted by the trickle down of these changes, that's a big problem. And that is like a fundamentally, if you were to take one thing away from this webinar in terms of educating yourself, everyone has got to become more familiar with what's going on locally for them, at their local state levels, because people just are not and these are people who are affected. You know, parents and educators are affected by these things, yet we really go into our classrooms and close the door and just do good things for kids, and we have no real understanding of how all of these things really impact the quality of life for the children that we support. Lisa,
you mentioned a champion, your state legislator who is a champion for disability curriculum, Disability Inclusive Curriculum, that I believe that's Jessica Benham, who was openly the first openly autistic legislator in Pennsylvania. She represents Pittsburgh, and one thing that I'll say I wrote about her in my book, I profiled her in my book, she did a good job of getting a. Um, of not only getting Democrats to vote for her, but people who voted for Donald Trump vote for her, and because they see her, as you know, fighting against a rigged system. That's really what what President Trump, why he won, is because people don't feel that the system works for them. And I think that that is there's something very powerful about that, and I think that that's going to have to be the framework that disability rights people have to are going to operate under, is that we are living in a time where people are, for lack of a better term, pissed off. I went to a lot of Trump rallies last year, and one of the most common shirts that I saw was a shirt that said, we the people, you know, in the constitutional font, we the people are pissed off. And I think that there are no people who are more pissed off than people who have to deal with the disability education system. And I think that there was a way to harness that populist, anti establishment energy to talk about how to make the stone work for other work work for people. Yeah,
yeah. Eric, I I love that, that energy, because when, when I was interviewing families, for our inclusion stories, documentary, I felt that very same kind of sentiment. It's like I remember, in fact, one of the families, one of the fathers, is like the system is rigged against us over and over and over again. This is the sentiment. And so how do we reframe what we're doing as advocates for authentic inclusion? How do we how do we reframe this messaging so that we can communicate that what we want and what what all of us want on this call is, is authentic inclusive education, where students are supported, you know, in real time, in their classrooms and families get the support that they need. Because right now, it's it happens, but it doesn't happen as frequently as we all want
it. Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the things to the point, to Tim's point, and forgive me for monopolizing this conversation. I think that, but, but I think that, like, you know, unfortunately, I mean, right now, I think disability rights advocates are in a defensive crouch, and therefore they're defending institutions, but, and I think that sometimes what that does, how it comes off to a lot of people, because one of the fascinating things was I was at, was I was at, was I was at, when I went to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's funny, this sounds like a Trump story, but I'm honest, this actually that happened. Somebody said, Oh, you're Eric Garcia. I did a zoom in, like you spoke to my students. This is in, you know, this is at the RNC. And I think that, I think that there is, because I have met Special Education parents at Trump rallies and and to your point about the anger, that palpable anger, you know, you wonder, okay, you know, some people might wonder, how could people who have disabled students vote For, vote for Donald Trump? Well, because, because a lot of times the system isn't working for them. And when, you know, I think a lot of times advocates talk about defending institutions instead about making them work better. I mean, I think about this. I think about this regularly. I don't want these institutions to just be defended. I want them to work. I want them to actually. I want the funding to actually get to the people. I want the funding to get to the students, and I want the funding to get and I want to see actual results and actual tangible outcomes. And I think that that is one of the ways where, and I think that is one of the things that we are living in this time, where people don't feel that the systems work for them, and that's why people voted for Donald Trump, even non white people Look man, I was, you know, doing the inauguration. I saw this. I saw, like, a lot of brown skin and Asian American men and women at the inauguration who voted for who were wearing Trump gear, and like they don't feel that this, that it's working for them. So I think that, along with advocating for defending these things, I think you also have to say, I think that coming to a Republican majority and coming to a Trump administration and saying and acknowledging that this doesn't work, I think having that common ground might actually create some inroads,
I do want to get to so wonderful, fantastic conversation that we're having. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it, and thank you for everyone participating in the chat and being so civil. We do have a few questions that I'm going to go through. We're not going to be able to get to all of them, but. Why don't we start with let's talk about school choice. This is from Karen. Many families have left public school and are homeschooling because they're so fed up of their children not being educated, they are going to be very attracted to quote, unquote, school choice. How do we highlight that? It isn't going to help. And this is from Karen call Yeah,
I can actually say there was actually a great piece in Politico magazine about school choice in Arizona. And one of the biggest advocates for school choice in Arizona is the mother of two. I believe two disabled children go and you should go and look at you should go and look up that piece. I'll probably drop it in the chat and Arizona's school. But the thing of it is, is that Arizona's school voucher program is now running a deficit. They don't have the money for it. And I think that is the I think that that, I think that the way to frame it is, again, to the point about systems, not, you know, not defending systems, making them work, starting from the premise that that the system is failing, but then also saying that, like, look, this actually doesn't, this doesn't produce the outcomes, because it spends more money, and then a lot of times people can afford the Badgers. Just starting from that premise of saying that, acknowledging that I get why this seems like an attractive option when the other systems just don't work is important.
Yeah. Thanks, Eric. Any, any other thoughts about school choice, home school, Jen or Carolyn?
I think, Carolyn unmuting, go ahead. Carolyn,
well, I have all kinds of feelings about this. But you know, if you think that diverting funding somehow away from public school education, which is supposed to be the great equalizer, which in fact, really isn't anyway, is going to somehow assist in the quality of what kids are receiving. It's just so fundamentally called thinking. It's because a lot of what people perceive when a lot of what people perceive, if they take their voucher and they go somewhere, what they're perceiving happening in that school where they're going is probably not any higher quality than where they are in the first place. So it's really, it's really, it's a lack of, fundamentally, a lack of understanding of what's happening in their local school and what's happening in the wherever they think they're going to go, right and what the other thing that I find very interesting in my experience, and I would love to hear other folks on the panels, is that in my experience, as a post school educator, a 30 plus year career public school educator, is fundamentally most parents. For the most part, there's always the percentage, very small. Most parents don't have a problem with their neighborhood school that they're sending their child to. By and large, people like where they've chosen to live and where they're choosing to send their children to school, you have a very small percentage of people who are feeling that they're not getting the services or support they need, but those are often not the people who would access the voucher program in the first place. So it's really the people who leave are the people that maybe never went to the public school in the first place. Do that make sense? Like the people accessing voucher programs are often people who are already sending their kids to private schools or to charter schools or two. Does that make sense? Like it's not necessarily the people who are in their neighborhood schools that are going to be accessing those programs,
and the data is showing that what we know now about choice, but an alternative to that too, is that I live in a very, very rural, Appalachian part of Southeast Ohio, and a classical Academy popped up this past year, and in their recruitment efforts to divest families from the local public schools, they targeted kids who were receiving special education services and supports, because they knew that that was a population of families who were most unhappy with their educational experiences. And so it wasn't that they felt as though those families were that they had something magical, they were offering, that they were better prepared in some way, but if they felt that they were easier to sway, and they were able to convince many of those families to leave their home schools, put their kids on busses, try, you know, unqualified, non licensed teachers. I'm a teacher educator, so I feel very strongly about teacher preparation and the ways in which we think about the ways in which teachers are prepared, and so when you have fewer options, when you're in an area. Not every area. I think people forget sometimes that a lot of people in America don't have access to private schools. They don't have access to school choice in the sense that there's one school and your kids go there. And so when another option pops up, that option might be the most the only other option for kids who feel for families who feel that the special education service delivery model has not met their students needs. And so I think that there's a vulnerable, a vulnerability there that has been festering for many, many, many years because we've known that there are these breaks and cracks in our system, this bifurcated system that has kept this general education ideology with a special education ideology instead of building a truly inclusive system. And so we know that kids are not getting their needs met, and that is going to, I think, get worse when we have this voucher system that becomes more and I think somebody in the comments said, you know that there's not the national there's not a federal appetite for vouchers. And that's not really the point. The point is that, if states are left to their own devices, there's lots and lots and lots of state appetite for choice and vouchers at the state level. I live in Ohio, and there's we have long been a standing leader in undermining public education, there's a huge thirst for undermining public education in Ohio. So whether there's the votes to do a national movement toward vouchers is really not that important to us, but the state movement toward vouchers and undermining public education at the state level matters a whole heap. You're muted, Eric,
you're absolutely correct and Stacy to your point, like Stacy in the in the chat, I see you said you see many families leaving schools wanting choice because of how the autistic field children school again. You know when I go to conservative gatherings at like C pack, or, again, like I said, Trump rallies, another person who's a very conservative Republican, a very pro Trump Republican senator, Eric Schmidt, he has a son with with disabilities. A lot of that, you know, again, it's into in Carolyn, just to, just to synthesize both of your points. Jen, is that? Like a lot of people say that, yeah, the education system sucks. But then if you ask them, what about, what about your school? They say, Oh, I love, I love the school that I send my kids to. You know, public education that they're like, the teacher is great. The, you know, yeah, they might not have as much money, but like, the people are doing a good job with what little they have, and it's and, you know, to the point is that, like, it's like school is that your local school in the school system is very much like the health insurance system in America, which is to say that if you ask Americans what they think about health insurance, they'll say, Well, what do you think about it? They say, Oh, the health care system is horrible in the United States. But they say, but okay, well, what do you think about your health insurance. Oh, it's great, you know. But also, on top of that, take into account who has to who are the most frequent patients, for the frequent patrons, and therefore customers, for example, like you talk about businesses and customers. So if you are somebody who has to go to the doctor regularly and constantly, you're in more contact with your health insurance company than with your health insurance than somebody else who's not, if you're chronically ill or like that, you just patronize it and use it more, and as a result, you might have less of a satisfactory opinion of it. And in the same way, if you just are sending your kid to school every day and not having to deal with IEPs and things like that, you might have a rosier opinion. But because you are, if you are a parent of a student with a disability, you know the intricacies in the flaws of the school, you're gonna, I think, more be more prone to see the negativity in them, and you're going to be more prone to see the critical, to be more critical of it. And I think that is where a lot of school choice advocates have succeeded, is that they say, look, the system doesn't work for you. And you know, again, and this is why I think that, you know Public Education Advocates can't be Yes, uh, people losing because you can't say, just like in the same way we saw, a lot of Democrats say, we got to defend democracy. But a lot of people, including a lot of non white people, said, well, democracy is not working for me right now, so I'm gonna go vote for Donald Trump, you can't Bs, and say the system works right now.
We are very, very close to our final, final seconds of this fantastic webinar. If each of you could give this a one minute summary, just final thoughts, and then where people can find you if they want more information about you or your work. Jen, let's start with you.
I would just say that please, please, please don't tune out. Please. I know everyone is saying like, you know you don't have to engage in every Yes, you do. Please don't tune out. You have to be a part. Of what's next for American education. It is now is the time, and so get on board with us. I am going to be found and making all the content I can at teaching is intellectual.com I'm shutting down the socials this week. I don't need to deal with the meta life. I am on my own website, and I am happy to connect. And so teaching is intellectual because it is intellectual work, and I'm happy to engage with you there, but I want to encourage you to participate in this next phase, because we are going to rebuild and redesign American education, one way or the other. And so we should be a part of redesigning it. Let's not give it up, like, preemptively. Let's not just turn it over. Let's be the ones that build it. And so don't go, don't just, like, put your hood over your head and and sleep on it. Let's, let's get busy, getting active and being a part of what happens next. Okay, thanks for having me. Tim,
absolutely, absolutely, Eric.
I think the one what I would say is that the to Jen's point about not getting tuned out, I think that a lot of people there is an avalanche right now. I mean, look, I was just, I was just talking about this in my newsroom today. Is that, like it feels hard to say in the more like, I often wonder, like, how am I like, what's the point of pitching to my editor in the morning, because there's gonna be five news cycles by the by deadline. You know, we're gonna go through five news cycles. But I think the thing that we, you know, I'm lucky that I have a team of five people, and I think the thing that I can say, and that I that I'm that I'm that I'm really, sincerely saying is, like, Jen, to your point, yeah? Like, you know, you do it to pay attention to everything, but like, find the one thing that you're gonna focus on, everything on you can care about some of the other stuff. But like, what's the one? You know? Because it is gonna be overwhelming and it's gonna be like, drinking from fire hose. So some stuff, yeah, tune out. Like, care, but like, you know, that's the periphery. What's focus on right in front of you? And focus on that, and focus and learn. See every set up a Google or set up a, you know, set up a Slack bot or something like that, for every new federal guidance or new ED or new executive order or new piece of legislation going through committee, or something like that, find what that one thing is that matters to you,
and you can find Eric at Eric M garcia.net All right, thank you, Eric, appreciate you. Carolyn,
kind of echoing what Eric and Jen both said, advocacy. We have to advocate for what we know is right for children, and whatever your role is, find the way that you can be an advocate and don't. And I have so many of my educator friends that are like Jen said, going to put their hood up over their head and just like hide under a pile of sand for the next four years, and that is not the right reaction. We are not before this election, we were not collectively working towards the advocacy we needed to be working towards for our marginalized children and for our children with disabilities. We weren't doing it as well as we should have been doing it in the first place. Now is not the time to back off because we feel like we're we're, you know, we don't have a path forward. We have to figure out collectively what what that path forward is, and figure out what the impact is that you can make given your role, given given your responsibilities, given your life, you know what it is, but you can't back down from the advocacy work. We weren't doing a good job of it in the first place, as good a job of it as we needed to be doing, and now it's even more important.
Thank you, Carolyn. And you can find both Carolyn and i@mcie.org Thank you so much to our panelists. Dr, Jen Newton, Eric Garcia. Dr, Carolyn Tien, for their time tonight. Please check out everyone at their various links. You can go ahead and, you know, scroll through the chat while you still can. This webinar will be produced into an episode of Think inclusive, which will be published in one week, Thursday, january 30. If you signed up for this webinar, we will send you an email with a link to the recording. We also have a short five question survey that will pop up when the webinar is complete. If you could please stay on and complete that, we would really appreciate that there's a spot for what kind of webinars you want in the future. So and then you can always email us at mcie@mcie.org, thanks for your time and attention, and remember y'all, inclusion always works. Really appreciate you. Thanks everyone. This was fun. We should do it again. That was a lot, but we did it. We did it. We did it exactly. MCIE, you.