[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to Disability Empowerment Now Special Report.
I'm here with Kridz Desborough and I'm your host Kid Melviji Ginsini. Today we are talking about education under tracked. Where do we go from here?
I would like to welcome back my co host at Zoe Crits Deadboro Kridz.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: How you doing?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: I don't think you'd start a job with the big news the last few weeks about the executive order that we all knew was coming even though we wished and played income and special education being assigned to to the Health and Human Services Administration under Olive K Jr.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Well, Keith, it's great to be with you. And as always, just before I launch into this incredibly important topic, I just want to add that anything I say is basically my opinion and my opinion only and do not express the views of anyone that I work for, anybody that I'm collaborating with. These are my views and my views only.
So with that out of the way. Yeah.
With the executive order signing, I think it was last week, basically directing education secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling a Department of Education and send it back to the states. It's incredibly concerning. What I will say is, and I'm not here to, you know, bash anybody, it's just literally, let's, let's be fair here. In his press conference prior to signing the executive order, he did say that Linda McMahon had asked to ensure that provisions were kept for kids with disabilities and all that kind of stuff. So that's great.
But now, as you said right there at the opening, it's now under the Department of Health and Human Services.
We don't know what this is going to look like as far as sending this back to the states.
What's it going to look like here in Arizona?
Who knows? And more importantly, what are going to be the checks and balances in place for enforcement of ensuring special education is delivered correctly?
[00:03:26] Speaker A: We're getting rid of the civil rights offense which is used to inform central education.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I know. So it's that. And then obviously under special education we've got IEPs.
How is all this going to be enforced? And I wonder whether or not this issue, and I want to find a better example, but I can't. And I'm not trying to compare them, just basically come up with an example. When women's rights to Jews and her reproductive rights, everything was sent back to the states. It then took initiatives to get stuff on the ballot for each state to vote to then decide whether or not a woman's right to choose was going to be codified into a state's constitution. I wonder whether or not, to a greater or lesser extent, we're going to see something similar. Maybe, maybe not. When it comes to the protection of education and the protection of, you know, special education IEPs and being able to enforce it. Because if you send it back to the states and when the civil rights clauses are being removed and, you know, being able to enforce and stuff, what does that mean?
At the minute, it's total confusion.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Which is all we've seen since January 25th.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah. No one knows what's going to happen here, and it's almost like they don't. And again, we're not trying to be partisan here at all.
We just focus on the issues that affect our community and those around us. But it's like the executive orders and their impacts or potential impacts are not thought through. Like, I remember sending you a very long article about what did mentoring the Education department mean for kids with disabilities. And then you have the judges department rescinding a lot of the COVID era mandates regarding ax service animals and the like.
I mean, and their excuse was it, well, incentivized small business to really pick up the slack and make their business more accessible. And, oh, we'll give them tax breaks to encourage them like we've always done. And we've seen very mixed results.
And it's like, oh, we're cutting back regulation and letting the free market decide all that jazz. I mean, all of these talking points, they come out of the same tired playbook that we've heard about for years and years and years.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: I totally agree. And I think. I think what is really alarming with all of this, and you touched on it there just a moment ago, is very much the fact that what we're doing, it's like, yeah, great, we're going to dismantle the Department of Education. Congratulations. Well done. We'll have a signing ceremony. Look at me. I've not. Great. But it's a case of, oh, I've now delivered on my campaign promise, but this is what we're going to do. But now it's a case of how are we going to do it? You sign the executive order, they're laying off staff. Great. What's the next step?
At the minute, there doesn't seem to be any plan, not just for this, but for everything else that he's been doing. And we'll focus just on the Department of Education right now. But what's the plan? You're dismantling it. That's great. You're sending it back to the states. That's great. How's it going to work? My question is, is there still going to be funding coming from the federal government, and if so, which departments are going to be administering the distribution and disbursement of those funds? How's that bit going to work?
It's just confusing.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah. No, it seems like they think that if we just send it back to the states, the states will automatically know what to do to pick up the slack to a minister funds. I mean, God forbid you tried to do this with Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
It's just going to be one clutch after the other. And they can't fully dismantle agency without Congress, without congressional approval. And so.
But again, Judge, putting special education under Health and Human Services, regardless of who is the head of Health and Human Services, that opens up a huge minefield of perception of seeing disability in kids with disabilities, especially as chance, some sort of help concern.
I mean, special education has never, never in the history of this country, as far as my research will tell me, has been under the outfits of Health and Human Services.
And those.
There are good reasons for that. I mean, Health and Human Services and education are two vastly different areas.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: No, absolutely. And I think, I think this kind of plays into some, some other stuff as well, in which the Secretary of Health and Human Services you mentioned earlier, RFK Jr. You know, he's got some very interesting ideas. You know, we've seen plenty of interviews with him over this past election cycle in which he's like, well, you know, autism and ADHD didn't exist when I was a kid. So it's got to be something to do with, with the food. It's got to be something to do with, with that. And it's the thought and it's the notion that, you know, disability is be different.
Disability is, how can I put it? Health and Human Services. And what we're getting from Health and Human Services and the Oval Office and other officials is don't be different. You can't be different. It goes back to what we talked about a couple of episodes ago with eugenics and everything else. You can't be different. You're not allowed to be different. And anybody that doesn't fit into whatever is crafted as normal at the moment is different. And therefore, we're going to cast you to one side. And that tends to be the narrative, I feel, with disability when it comes out of Health and Human Services. And if we're going to apply that lens to kids who all they want to do is learn, be included and be active and be profitable and be functioning and contributing members of society, which everybody has the right to be and to do.
I'll tell you what, there are alarm bells ringing all over the place, especially for members of our population, the disabled population, and the kids coming up, they're already behind the eight ball because there's a lot of negative stereotypes. People don't know. Schools don't necessarily do things the right way.
Everything, all these negative narratives, and now those narratives are coming down from the federal government and God help our kids coming through. God help our kids and God help the kids with disabilities because they are. What is ahead of them as a generation is even more bleak than what lays ahead of you and I. Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: And it's like we're going to have to return to this subject in another episode because like you said, there's not a lot of specifics right now. There's more confusion than anything else. I mean, if any agency. Let's continue with Health and Human Services, regardless of who's in charge. If the agency had a plan to effectively take on special education, that would be one thing, but to my, to my knowledge, they don't. It's like, it's like folding the EPA into the Department of Defense or the Department of Housing into the Department of Energy.
I mean.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Is bonkers. It's.
And it's, it's. To your point. It's, you know, it.
What? I don't get it again, and I don't want to sound on repeating myself, but it's a case of, oh, promises made. You know, promises kept to promises made. Fantastic. Well, I've signed a piece of paper. An executive order has been signed. Look at that. Keeping my promises.
But the devil's in the detail and there isn't any. It's a case of, I'm just going to dismantle this. I'm going to, you know, tear this down.
And now all the pieces are on the floor. Now you've got to figure out how you're going to rebuild it and make it work. But I've done my bit. I sign the executive order and it's chaos. It's utter chaos. And when you're playing, especially with the lives of our kids, our future generations and their education and those kids and those future leaders and kids again, who have disabilities, you can't come in like a hurricane, like a tornado, tear the place up and have no plan to rebuild. But at the minute, we're still waiting for plans to, you know, the hurry the tornado has made landfall and it's done, it's doing its damage. How are we going to rebuild? There's no plan and I think like a bunch of the other executive orders, this is not only a, it's going to be litigated in the courts, that's pretty much a given. But to dismantle and get rid of these departments and again with the Department of Education, that's going to have to take an act of my understanding is it's going to have to take an act of Congress.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: So it's just, it's just complete chaos and then it's a case of litigation in the courts and then see whether or not Congress is going to sign off on it. Now, I'm not a politician, but to me that doesn't seem like a particularly sensible plan for anything.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: No, no. I mean, the only one bright spot I'd see is that they're going to have so many executive orders, so many hats, action or ideas out there that they're not gonna even be able to keep up with what they do. I mean, we speak about promises made, promises kept, how much to judge, carton of eggs, cards, how much are your groceries. Wasn't that the default main promise that our president made that on day one he was going to bring prices down? I mean that is interesting.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: It's interesting you should say that. I, I saw a quote from a senator, junior senator for Arizona, Ruben Gallego, and I thought it was genius.
He stated on one of his social media platforms when Donald Trump was sworn in and he promised to bring prices down. I thought he meant the cost of living, not stock prices.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that is bloody brilliant.
It builds so much and too much to unpack in just one single episode, even if we made it three hours long, which spoiler alert, we never will.
But I mean, because what's the point? It's just us spinning our wheels right now trying to get some mate at what is happening. I mean, the only thing we know for sure, confusion, confusion, confusion.
And there doesn't seem to be a lot of follow through. And yeah, we're only barely two months in, but it feels longer. And I mean the leaders of tomorrow are students already.
Both those with and without disabilities already took massive hits to their educational quality during COVID where everyone had to go home, switch to online learning like it had always been a part of our lives when it hadn't. Except if you were in grad school already.
I mean, how much, well can we throw at students?
You absolutely gather the grade and expect them to Evolve into capable leaders of the next generation that goes way beyond politics, way beyond state rights. I mean, it's just. And you don't have to think back too many years to really remember what it was like.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Well, that's right, because it was five years ago. Right now. We were in lockdown. It was only five years. And you know, five years sounds like.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: A long time for decade people. Not half a century, half of 10 years, half a decade.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: That's right. And also as well, if you talk to everybody who lives through it, I don't know about you, it doesn't sound like five years ago. You know, it only seems like a few weeks ago that all that happened. But to your point, with the pandemic, yeah, we, you know, we, everybody came home, everybody had to do online learning. But what we have seen as we've come out of the pandemic, that not only have our students and our kids suffered, our high school kids, kids K through 12, not only was their learning impacted, but look at kids who are on IEPs, who are special needs, who do need a little extra help. They're going to be even further behind the eight ball than they were to start with. They're further behind the eight ball because of their cohorts.
They're further behind the eight ball than their cohorts. And now what we're doing is not only basically saying, you know what, you had to transition to learning at home and you were struggling, we're now creating an environment again. The tornadoes touch ground, chaos everywhere.
Kids, especially kids with disabilities who struggle, they're going to struggle even more. And what we're doing with this is basically creating almost like a two tier education system. You got those that will be able to get by and those especially kids with disabilities. And we know from the data and the data exists, and it's not a case of fake news, is credible data that one of the most impacted minorities during COVID were people with disabilities, were kids with disabilities and the disability community. So what we're doing now is creating complete chaos and we're basically sweeping these kids away to one side because we don't know how education is going to run in this country as it is, let alone how kids with disabilities and kids who are on IEPs, how they're going to fit into this system.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: And to shed some light on just how huge that group of kids is, let me read a paragraph from the Vox article I mentioned before.
That's a huge group of kids. As of 2022-2023, 7.5 million students. 15% of all those enrolled in public school received special education of related services like speech therapy under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The most common reasons for specific learning disabilities like dyslexia.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: You know, I'm going to be a cynic for a moment, but those seven point whatever million kids that we were.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Talking about, 7.5, 7.7 and a half.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Million kids, guess what? Those seven half million kids, they will grow up to be voters.
They will have the ability to vote when they turn 18.
You know, and I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of those kids will end up having very long memories over their experiences in school or their lack of experiences in school, the lack of inclusivity and the fact that they were left behind.
Behind. They'll remember that when they become voters. They'll remember that. Now granted, the individual who's in the Oval Office right now will be long gone, but that's not the point. It will leave a taste in their mouth, and those 7.5 million kids will become voters and they will vote accordingly. And, you know, if people want to be cynical about it, I'm being cynical about it. Even if you don't give a shit about those kids, give a shit about the fact that they will actually turn out to be voters. And maybe, just maybe, you may want to start thinking about looking after those future voters as well, because they will vote accordingly. They will vote by their experiences and how they were treated, and they will remember.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we can only hope. I mean, I would love to hear more specifics on.
I mean, the Department of Education has been around for decades. It would be. It's one thing to just sign an executive order and let things devolve into chaos.
It would be another thing entirely to sign an executive order and put out some sort of plan to navigate through this time of transition.
But that's not what this current administration does.
I mean, again, states are not prepared.
They may want to control more of their education, but it.
The.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: The devil's in the detail.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, the details. And I don't think, I wish more and more people would understand that. Like, nothing is unfortunately gonna go smoothly with that because everyone's scrambling like chickens with their heads cut off, to use a very odd analogy. But it's like.
And the confusion is the axe. Again, very weird analogy.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: No, I, I totally agree. And I think, and I'm going to make this statement, I don't want to take us off course.
I don't want to, you know, go on a tangent, but I think it's important that you know, yes, the devil is in the detail. But a large proportion of the voting population in this country, they'll believe they'll listen to a sound mind and go, great idea. Well, that's great. But we're a place in politics right now, and this is both on the left and right. Everybody will tell you that this guy's worse than the other guy, that girl's worse than the other girl, and we're going to do it better. We race to the bottom. Whose version of America is worse than the other person's? And we're going to improve it. Well, that's great. How.
Nobody tells us how on either side. Tell us how. You want to tell me that. You want to tell me that you're better than that person. Great. Show me why.
And I think that's why we are where we are now.
Voters, you know, listen to sound bites. Great idea. Nobody's. A lot of the voting population aren't inquisitive enough to go, great. Show me the receipts. Show me the devil of the detail. Show me how it's going to happen before they go to the polls. They've gone to the polls. The country have voted. This is where we are. We're in chaos. We're in complete confusion. Department of Education is being, you know, dismantled along with other parts of government. Kids with disabilities are going to get completely screwed, as they always do.
But promises made, promises kept. But that's not the way we should be approaching this on either side of the aisle. You want to do something, tell me you're going to do it and show me how you're going to do it and give me a plan before I vote. Don't then basically revert back to the war of independence. Why do we have a war of independence? We wanted to get rid of a monarchy.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Now we're just signing our way through a presidential term in executive orders, reverting back to what we had a war of independence over. And the most marginalized groups in this country, kids with disabilities and other populations, are going to be the ones that bear the brunt of it.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: And yeah, we always don't do that. Yeah, we always do. Everyone in the community knows that we have a long history of seeing our rights trampled. And again, it's just like, if the states were prepared for that, that would be one thing.
Oh, that would be a lot of, I think, knowing that the states were prepared to take this on. And this is a massive seismic change in our entire country.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: No, absolutely.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: The states are ready to Take things on. If they were, I think we would all feel better. But again, no state had come out and said, yes, this is what we want and we're responsible enough to take over.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Kids in all of our schools in odd state.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: And I think it goes back to your point, you know, the states aren't ready for this. We're not. The states are not ready for it. And you're going to dismiss. To me, it's like building a house, right? You're building a house and you've, you got the frame up and then all of a sudden you get a phone call and somebody says, yeah, I'm gonna come and stay and I'm gonna be with you in four hours and I want dinner, I want a place to stay. You're not ready for it. You can't accommodate that person because you're in the middle of building a house. You've only got the frame up. And right now there's no state to your point that is able to go, yeah, we'll take over from here. And no states have come out because they're probably still trying to get to the bottom of what it is or how it's going to work to be able to somehow piece together how it can work in each individual state. But I don't even think, and I could be wrong, and if I'm wrong, I'm happy to come on here and apologize and say that I'm wrong. But I don't even think Health and Human Services or even Linda McMahon has the guidelines or the blueprint to send the states and go, and this is how it's going to work. I don't even think they've got that yet. So the states probably can't come out and go, yeah, we're ready, because they don't even know what the details are. And the people doing it probably don't even have the guidelines and details themselves in place to be able to hand out to the states.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: So it's a complete mess once again. There's a lot more confusion. And what else?
Then there are details about how this it's going to play out. And if you think that states can take on education for all of the families in dead states without a concept of plan, what happens when the administration, God forbid, tried to kick back Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, supplemental incomes back to the states.
You don't give anyone any lead up to this to develop infrastructure to be able to handle these rights. And again, and let's end on a lovely high hypothetical scenario, okay? Let's say the states have all the rights now and they control everything and every state does things differently.
What's the purpose of the federal government then?
And what is the purpose of the office of the president then?
If you give every right back to every state, which there's a reason why this hasn't been attempted by any other president.
I mean, again, the chaos and confusion, I don't know which is more worse than the other.
And I mean that's not a very cheery scenario to end a episode on. But I mean, it's shots.
What do you think?
[00:40:51] Speaker B: I think you're absolutely right. And a point that you touched on their, you know, infrastructure. What if the states have the infrastructure? That's one thing. Say for example, the states had all the infrastructure designed in order to do this. Okay, fine, put that to one side.
What about at federal level? Where's the infrastructure at federal level to be able to say, right, we're chopping the Department of Education and we're now rolling into Health and Human Services.
You basically, you almost. It's like a merger, right? You merge corporations. It doesn't happen overnight. And there's grime pains and there's teething issues and then you've got to work out the hierarchy, you've got to work out the structure, you've got to work out how, you know, the do you have to redesign the workflow and the processes and everything else that doesn't happen overnight. But we're doing this. We're gambling with our kids futures. Yeah, we're gambling with our kids futures by taking these steps and by making these moves. And to your point, if you decentralize absolutely everything now that may happen, it might not. Certainly the indication is at the moment that we're kind of heading towards decentralization of government. So if you decentralize the government, great. To your point, then why we got a president, no problem. We'll get rid of the president. And I'll tell you what, we'll get rid of everybody in the United States Congress because why do we have to pay taxes them in a job in which everything's been decentralized, it seems like.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: No one really thinks about these things in government.
It shouldn't take, it shouldn't come out from a non political citizen.
What am I saying? Non political, any citizen. It's like it's so simple to go there.
It didn't take any grand concoction to dream up that scenario.
It's like there's reason why the UN government has functioned for better or for words as a centralized structure since the beginning in one form or another of since our founding. And it is there's so much more we could talk about or get to, but we have to leave it there.
Thank you so much for listening and for your creds for coming on and talking to me about these issues. The Sidudes will keep coming up in future episodes because confusion and chaos, that's all we have right now.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: Agree it's there's a lot coming. There's a lot coming down the pipe still, and we'll, we'll reconvene at another time. But it was, it was great to be with you and really keep our fingers crossed that Linda McMahon's statement, Secretary McMahon's statement that she wants to protect kids with disabilities.
Let's hope that actually rings true because God help our youth and God help our kids with disabilities at the moment. But it's good to be with you and we'll get after it another time.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Take care of yourself, my friend.
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