Noted race bigot Bob Lonsberry takes on special ed!

cross-post from GD; I thought you guys should see this, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3428575

The Lonsberry saga began in the fall of '03, when he got fired from his reich-wing hate radio gig in Rochester.

What, exactly, do you have to do to get fired from hate radio? This is a pretty good start:

http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa092903a.htm

Newsday is reporting Bob Lonsberry, a conservative talk-show host at WHAM, Rochester, has now been fired after more than a week of intense criticism over recent remarks.

It all began when Lonsberry made on-air comments that alluded to the black Mayor of Rochester, Mayor William Johnson Jr., as a monkey and orangutan.

Kind of a tough act to follow, don't you think? Since the pro-Klan gig wasn't getting him anywhere, he's decided to go after -- no, really! -- children with disabilities.

http://www.lonsberry.com/writings.cfm?story=1618&go=4

Long ago, when America gradually decided to have public education, the argument was that public schools would prepare youngsters to be better citizens. Public education was intended to produce people who could work and provide for themselves, be good neighbors, obey the law, take part in a democracy, vote, be smart enough to serve in the military and on juries, have values and pay taxes....

If the rationale for school taxes is the preparation of a society of employed, contributing, taxpaying citizens, to what degree should we spend those taxes on children who are not apt to contribute to that goal?...

Instead of mainstreaming lifting the weakest of students, it lowers all the students. It dumbs down the classroom. Students not likely to succeed get disproportionate resources and attention and those likely to succeed get the short end of the stick....

Handicapped services should be taken out of the classroom. Separate, specialized settings paid for by something other than the school budget. Some of these settings can be in the school, but they should not typically be in classrooms with regular students. For conventional and special education youngsters to each achieve the most they can, their particular abilities must be paired to separate and specialized programs.

Note that this is really a thinly veiled attack on public education generally. Also note that King Bigot defines millions of Americans with disabilities, including quite a few DUers (present company most definitely included!), as "students not likely to succeed". What on Earth makes him think (I know, that's an oxymoron) that I'm not an "employed, contributing, taxpaying citizen"? I have a cum laude degree from Yale, for Pete's sake, which is more than his beloved Bush** can say!

And finally, note his plaintive call for "separate, specialized settings". Clearly he's pining for the days not just before IDEA (education for kids with disabilities), but before Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka as well. Bigotry is bigotry, and apparently we're the last acceptable targets of it. Witness all the "vegetable" and "eggplant" remarks re: Terri.

</rant> Whew! (big sigh)

I'm with you here. This idiot relates the dumbing-down of the American classroom (which IS happening) to the inclusion of the disabled in the classroom (which has nothing to do with the idiocy of modern public education). Inclusion is great for ANY child who can keep up to the challenges of the rest of the class, as long as the tools are there to aid them in keeping up (Braille, computers, sign language, or whatever).

I wonder if this guy knows that there aren't all that many of the disabled that are included anyway in the classroom. The "dumbing down" isn't the fault of the disabled, it's the fault of the idiots in charge of the system that don't realize that kids are MINIMUM one to two grade levels behind in their potential, aren't challenged in the classroom, aren't properly taught the basics from the beginning...

This stuff really pisses me off!

I'm a special ed teacher...there is no "dumbing down" Children that are "included", or mainstreamed add to the classroom. They enable the regular students to gain better understanding of their disabilities.

Academically, the curiculum is modified foe the special ed student, sure, but the regular students education is not compromised in any way.

What a dumbass!

thank you

who is autistic and began school in a self contained classroom, eventually was mainstreamed with outsource and teaching aids and is now attending NC State University? Was it wasted on him?

my daughter is retarded and my sons learned a lot around her. Also even tho she is SEVERELY retarded there have been things she did better than they did. (taught the boys that superiority isn't everything) . Giving others a hand at learning is probably the best teaching tool ever. Getting along with all types teaches discipline and humility.

Special education is already woefully underfunded, special ed students are already separated too much and too many teachers have already labeled these students not likely to succeed.

I have learning disabilities and despite the fact that I was more intelligent than 90% of my class, I was labeled by teachers as a student not likely to succeed. If it weren't for a few special education teachers I wouldn't have.

Every teacher needs special ed training, and we need smaller and more inclusive class rooms.

I was diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder (PDD-NOS) when I was a child. I was promptly placed in a private "facility" that was essentially a educational ghetto for virtually any student the local school systems didn't know how to handle. The culture there was pretty ugly. My heart and my identity, even as a human being, were ripped to shreds by some very bad people. You would think I would have turned into some sort of bum. In my adult life I have attended college classes, and I've been pretty sucessful (3.6 GPA), even in spite of myself sometimes. I still want to be a writer, and I want to help people with disabilities and thier families.

Here's something I wrote:
http://www.tell-us-your-story.com/_disc101b/0000000f.htm

It isn't exactly Tolstoy, but it got me an "A" in English Comp, and I'm kinda proud of it.:D

I may not be what that man calls a "success", but I'm not standing still for him!

The teachers there were very dedicated and compassionate for the most part, but it was still, as you put so accurately an "educational ghetto". If I had received that kind of understanding in elementary school, and if my high school teachers had followed the law and made the right accommodations for me,I would have been a lot better off. It's really sad how so many teachers are as ignorant as this man.

Congratulations on your well deserved "A".