Thread by @JenniAgitator

@maxeden99 is a typical supporter of “school choice,” which is all about privatizing and profiting off education. These folks attack IDEA and say inclusion of disabled kids in schools is “dangerous,” because they can’t profit as much off schools if forced to comply w/IDEA or ADA

@AEI neocon “think-tank” that pays @maxeden99 mightily to stan for privatized schools has charged him w/criminalizing disabled children. Only by dismantling IDEA and disability inclusion can his benefactors, school profiteers, use schools as a get-rich-quick scheme.

The whole “school choice” movement isn’t about choice for parents of disabled kids. No, @maxeden99 thinks kids like my autistic son need to be segregated & rotting in seclusion cells so his school profiteer pals profit more from privatized schools. Disabled kids cost too much.

Then he appears as a fake expert on education w/no experience in schools, certainly not ever w/disabled students, in a hearing about school safety and the discrimination faced by kids on margins. But @maxeden99 supports discrimination and abuse of most vulnerable for “safety”

Apparently safety, well-being & civil rights of disabled kids have to take a backseat to the safety of the *normal* kids. Those from whom @maxeden99 school profiteer pals can turn a much higher profit. They know if they have to be IDEA-compliant, their school profiteering dies

@maxeden99 went into a congressional hearing about punishing kids on the margins for their disabilities, poverty, race and said these vulnerable populations need to be discriminated against to keep the able-bodied, White, middle and upper middle class kids safer.

@BobbyScott @DonBeyerVA you had a witness at the KASSA hearing claiming more restraint and seclusion could have prevented the Parkland shooting. I have info and documents that prove precisely the opposite. @maxeden99 lied and I can prove he lied.

@maxeden99 claimed when schools stop criminalizing disabled kids, test scores go down. Of course they do. Not having disabled kids criminalized & incarcerated will make test scores go down. The answer is to better accommodate these kids, not to punish them for being disabled

The answer to lower reading test scores isn’t restraining, secluding, suspending, or expelling 1 in 5 kids who are dyslexic. The answer is better accommodations, and including dyslexic kids by modifying curriculum so they are included and not excluded.

I am dyslexic, I was a “behavior problem” in school. Locking me in seclusion didn’t solve my problem. Teaching me to read solved my issues. Locking disabled kids away to raise test scores solves no problems, only creates more problems. My problem wasn’t behavior, but reading

Yet the endless seclusion I was subjected to as a child caused trauma I’ve carried with me my entire life. I still often have nightmares about being secluded. It caused PTSD. Here is my seclusion story: endseclusion.org/2019/10/28/the…

There are no problems solved behind locked door of a seclusion cell. Seclusion & Restraint of disabled kids causes more problems & lifetime anxiety & trauma. @BobbyScott @DonBeyerVA *I* am an expert on seclusion. I’ve lived it and have never lived it down

@maxeden99 testified we must listen to parents, but when I confronted him on his restraint & seclusion claims, his claim that a ban was a cause of Parkland shooting w/evidence contrary to his claims, he muted me. So listening to parents mantra begs the question, which parents?

He didn’t ask me if I’ve read his book. I did read it. I am disputing his claim. He quoted a teacher at Nicolas Cruz’s school, who claimed restraint and seclusion bans caused his problems, but they weren’t in force when he was in that school

He claimed the paperwork teachers have to fill out to document restraint and seclusion is a de facto ban on these practices, yet my son was restrained and secluded 745 times and we know this because they documented it. Documenting R&S doesn’t end it.

I don’t know if @maxeden99 intentionally lied or was just sloppy about fact-checking, but he has no expertise in special education and his data analytics is faulty because of that blaring lack of expertise. Punishing disabled kids in schools makes schools less, not more safe

@maxeden99 also presented a false dichotomy. Talked about high rates of restraint & seclusion being wrong for disabled, but not Black kids, when majority of Black students being restrained & secluded are disabled being punished for their disabilities.

Black autistic children, on nat’l average, are diagnosed w/autism or ADHD 3 years later than white kids. In that time, they aren’t being accommodated, and are being criminalized for their disabilities. Implicit racial bias sees a disabled Black child as bad, not disabled.

So our schools are punishing Black disabled children at disproportionate rates for their own failure to detect disability rather than to assume it’s just bad behavior, or bad manners as @BurgessOwens stated.