The Backstory of One Sentence in the State of the Union Address

What Biden *Really* Said About Schools and Disability Issues

There he goes! Catch him, catch him! Someone get the cat!

Right in the middle of Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech, Steve opened the door to our wood-burning stove to see what was banging inside. After peering in and poking up into the chimney, a starling flew out. For a few minutes, a bird flew around the house, as we waved our arms and yelled, trying to steer it towards the backdoor.

Chasing the bird was the most exciting part of the Joe Biden’s speech. We’re supposed to say that Joe was “fiery” and gave a “barn burner speech,” because we’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the White House. It wasn’t. While Biden’s speech was adequate and predictable on the surface, there is an interesting backstory about education and disability policy buried in the speech. Let’s unravel it.

Schools have gradually played a larger part of the State of Union speeches. Actually, the president has little control over the nation’s schools, because education is a state function in our country. Only 8% of school funding comes from DC. But the president can set a policy direction for the country, which can translate into real action in the states. So, what he says is important.

Last night, Biden threw out a couple of throwaway cliches on schools, including “I want to give teachers a raise!” He can’t do that. Teachers are paid by local school districts based on negotiations with the local teachers unions, state subsidies, and the local tax base. The president has exactly zero control over teachers’ salaries in this country.

More meaningful was this sentence: “I want to expand high-quality tutoring and summer learning time and see to it that every child learns to read by third grade.”

There’s a lot in that sentence, so let’s take it apart. High-quality tutoring and summer learning have been the pet issues of a fringe group reformers, writers, and researchers for a couple of years now, as they looked for solutions for covid learning loss.

I’ve written about tutoring and summer school many times in the past two years, including here, here, here. And for fun here’s my newsletter from March 2020 that predicted that closing schools would be a disaster for children.

While rogue writers and researchers have been banging the drum for tutors and summer schools, mainstream Democrats, the teachers’ union, and education school researchers were silent on this. When we pointed out that test scores for reading and math were in the toilet, they kept quiet.

Why? Well, the union’s main job is to get teachers more money. That’s its job. And in many parts of the country, teachers aren’t paid enough to maintain a middle class lifestyle, so fair enough. Because there is a finite pot of money going to education, unions believe that expensive programs like tutoring shrinks the available funding for salaries.

Also, who’s going to do the tutoring? Teachers are afraid that they will be asked to do this in addition to their other tasks without extra compensation. What if they are asked to give up their summers to do remedial work on reading? They don't want that. So, teachers, the unions, and their allies have never talked about tutoring and summer schools.

They have also haven’t raised the alarm about our low reading scores, because the solutions involve more time in school, tons of professional development, and time-consuming curriculum revision. Also, many teachers were true believers of an old reading curriculum that just doesn’t work.

This group led the charge to close schools, which led to entire families driving to Target parking lots for the free wifi, so they could do their math homework on their mom’s cellphone. (Yes, that happened.) Those closures lead to horrific school dropout rates and more. The unions don’t want to have to admit that they made errors. So for all those reasons, low reading scores and tutoring have not been hot topics.

In the NYT this week, Nicholas Kristof admits that Democrats were slow to acknowledge the downsides of school shutdowns and to deal with the shameful fact that only 32 percent of America’s third graders can read on grade level.

We get distracted by these culture wars, but what we should focus on is that only 32 percent of America’s fourth graders are proficient at reading, according to a national test referred to as “the nation’s report card.”…

My fellow liberals like to fulminate at conservatives for neglecting children and provoking culture wars for show, but the left also gets in the way of education. Especially on the West Coast, Democrats significantly harmed children with prolonged school closures during the pandemic.

32 percent. Only 1/3 of America’s children can read on grade level. It’s a disaster.

A couple of months ago, I cornered an elected political leader (yes, purposefully vague) at a function and mentioned our country’s terrible record on education. She ran away from me. Seriously. She took her plate from the dinner buffet and fled to the other side of the room.

So, by talking about tutoring, summer school, and reading. Biden took the smallest of baby steps away from the education coalition. These issues, which only existed in newsletters and tweets by a small group of like-minded advocates, is suddenly getting mention in the State of the Union address.

One sentence buried in the State of the Union address has so much backstory.

And I’m going to give you a bonus backstory. This one about disability policy. Biden gave one sentence that refers to disability issues: “Imagine a future with home care and elder care so seniors and people living with disabilities can stay in their homes and family caregivers get paid what they deserve!”

Full disclosure: After three years of filling out paperwork, I am paid by the state to care for my autistic adult-son. Some people think that we don’t deserve this support, because my so doesn’t have an intellectual disability. Hopefully, he’ll get a computer science degree and a nice job, and will no longer need the help. Until then, he gets government support.

Parents are getting savvier about filling out the paperwork. With the huge rise in autism diagnoses, disability services could quickly go bankrupt. In fact, some states have started cutting back. In the meantime, I’m on a crusade to get more parents into the system to get support with free webinars and websites.

While states distribute the disability funds and act as gatekeepers for who gets what, the money starts off in DC as a block grant from Medicaid. Biden is clearly concerned about Republican cuts to Medicaid, which would have downstream effects on disability payments to the states.

While disability issues only earned one sentence in an entire SOTU speech, it was still meaningful. I can’t recall this issue ever making it to the SOTU before, despite the fact that nearly 1 in 4 Americans has a disability. So that’s interesting, too.

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LINKS

Weirdly enough, I have several conversations this week with friends who have been struggling to get into bank accounts and laptops of deceased family members. Please make a file with all that information for your loved ones.

Yesterday, I recorded a podcast with “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” about ye olde days of the blosophere. I’ll link to it, when it’s published. Fun fact: I started blogging on July 11, 2003. Over 20 years ago. Whew!

Rihanna was paid $6.3 million to sing at a billionaire’s son’s wedding in India. And she didn’t work, work, work!

Food and restaurant costs are insane. Interesting reddit thread: “What’s gotten so expensive that you no longer purchase it?” Does this issue help Trump or Biden?

All those Chromebooks in our schools? Turns out that reading on paper is better than the screen.

Do babies belong in bars?

Travel: For two months, I’ve been working my ass creating an autism advocacy and information group. So, I’m ready for a vacation. Heading to Cancun for a few days. Yay.

Shopping: For Cancun. New Birks, black skirt, khaki skirt, and carry-on bag.

Family/Personal: After five weeks of illnesses, we’re back to doing fun things on weekends. Last weekend, we took Ian to see the NJ Orchestra play the soundtrack along with the first Batman movie. They stripped out the original music from the film, showed the whole thing, and the orchestra played at all the right times. We would have been there on our own? Probably not, but still had a GREAT time. Side note - Newark is looking great.