Political/News Rant

So this comes on the heels of an email war between Dad and Mikki over some columnist's complaint about bias in the MSM (mainstream media)...Mikki, just quit reading now b/c I'm about to dog your parent network, the All Barack Channel.

Usually I don't want network news, save for Fox News Channel. And honestly--I rarely watch that anymore b/c I find the current state of our country's leadership too depressing. I tend to get my news fix online these days! Today while I was getting dinner on the table, ABC Evening News w/Charlie Gibson was on. I like Charlie Gibson. I liked Peter Jennings, too. But what caught my attention this evening was a story about today's Supreme Court ruling that SPED students do not have to first attend public school before their area school district pays for their private school tuition. This merely enforces a federal law that requires public school districts to provide services for SPED students from ages 3-21. If the district can't provide the necessary services adequately, they pay someone who can. For example, my school district has a fabulous preschool program. SPED students attend at no cost. Students not on an IEP pay tuition. It's a GREAT program! Chase loved it and Cass will start next year. However, our neighboring districts don't offer preschool. Their pre-K SPED students recieve services at a private preschool with a similiar set up to my district's. What bothered me was the reporter's repetitive use of "taxpayer dollars" in describing the ruling. As if using taxpayer dollars to pay for SPED was a new, unfortunate thing. The ruling was 6 to 3--that's a pretty clear majority! But more importantly, taxpayer dollars have been funding SPED student tuition at private schools since the federal law madating services was enacted.

The story made it seeem as though parents were milking the taxpayers for a high-dollar education when in reality some private schools provide services to SPED students that public schools just can't provide, thereby providing a quality of education the public schools can't provide. This horror at "taxpayer dollars" funding private school education was downright laughable to me, well, it would have been if it hadn't pissed me off so much!

I guess it was a nice reminder why I hate the MSM...