Date sent: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:15:31 -0500 (EST)
From: sakossor@voicenet.com
Subject: Re: HELP! NOW! P.A.S.S

To the Loop:

I received a thank-you note from somebody who has been using my web site as a resource in fighting local school district battles and I wrote this reply. After composing it, I figured that the loop may appreciate it as well. It's not good news, but it's the truth and it's as up-to-date as you can get (Tuesday, February 18th, 1997)....

Thanks so much for your appreciation for my work; you are right, the atmosphere has indeed grown stale -- like a tomb -- anywhere near the public schools. I attended a meeting of some of the "bigshots" in the movement in PA to establish "school-based mental health clinics" in Harrisburg a day or two ago. I just decided I'd test my theory that the swine wouldn't have the slightest idea who I was. You know what? They'd never heard of me or any of my efforts to get their influence as far away from children as possible! It turns out that these people *only* pay attention to (and read) information put out by those who support their point of view. They are probably the most intellectually insulated group of pseudointellectuals ever to be spawned by a bureaucracy in the history of time!

In any case, there I was, listening to these people give me no end of suggestions as to how I could "get in" with the training and psycho- education crowd if I would just start using "their language." What it comes down to is this: The swine have decided that it is utterly useless to defend what they're doing. If somebody attacks them, they just ignore it. Eventually, the people who don't speak swine-language will get frustrated, run out of money, be intimidated enough or will just plain die and the swine will continue their anointed mission to create a "child-centered" service delivery system fully integrated with the public school system.

These bastards don't have a PRAYER of understanding that the schools are coercive environments and that compulsory education makes the operation of school-based mental health clinics fundamentally unethical. The thought that they, with all of their sterling intentions, could possibly be involved in an unethical and potentially harmful situation is UTTERLY beyond their comprehension. THAT'S why they don't waste their time in debates anymore -- THEY DON'T HAVE TO RESPOND TO ANYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH THEM! There were psychologists in that room, fawning over each other, talking about how important it was to get these mental health treatment services to children in the schools. When I pointed out that there was a fundamental ethical flaw in their logic -- that the therapist can not work for THE SCHOOL and deliver ethical services to THE CHILD. Your therapist has to work FOR YOU, not YOUR BOSS and not YOUR SCHOOL, I said. They looked at me like I was nuts. They said, no, that's only true in the industrial area -- that's why they moved the psychologists out of the Personnel offices and created Employee Assistance Programs, but you don't have to do that in a SCHOOL, for crying out loud, these are KIDS, and we're just helping them. What's your point, Mr. Kossor? Do you want to ban psychologists from schools or something -- you better watch out, you're starting to sound like one of those religious nuts!

That's why I think that the probability of EVER "reforming" public schools successfully is simply too tiny to warrant spending any time on. The only hope we have is to create alternative education systems that have parity (equal footing under the law) with the public education system (including the Neighborhood Schools Project I came up with some time ago). Unless we can create a bunch of successful alternatives to public education, there will be insufficient numbers of educated kids in the country with which to carry on the traditions and principles that make us -- that MADE us -- a free nation and the envy of the world once upon a time.

I wish I could be more optimistic but I've seen the enemy close-up and they are a truly, truly frightening sight to behold. They are advising me to "start using the CASSP language" (code for "child-centered" language which emphasizes their role as the promoters of all goodness and mercy on behalf of children) and advising me to avoid even getting into a conversation with anybody who doesn't speak that language. GAD! How can we possibly fight against something that insidious. They won't try to pass any more laws or regulations -- they're going to TRANSFORM the schools into the social service centers that they want (and staff them with brethren who speak their language) entirely by using the education process to recruit, place and promote ONLY those who speak their language, agree with their ideals, and support the swine who are already in power positions.

Steve

http://www.voicenet.com/~sakossor