Testimony by Dana Taboadela of Rockaway, NJ January 18, 2005

We are here tonight in behalf of our children. If we do not represent them, who will? There is strength in numbers. We can not do this alone. Teachers have unions, boards have representation, all at our taxpayer’s expense. Yet most parents are left in the dark struggling to make ends meet. New Jersey needs to keep high standards for our children and hold schools accountable for our children’s education . As I left my last IEP meeting the director of special education drove way in his porsche yet the school can not find the money to design an appropriate reading program so that my dyslexic child with an above average IQ can sit and read a chapter book. I thought to myself what is wrong with this picture? The parents from New Jersey are here tonight and we are here to be heard. Short term goals and benchmarks need to be kept in place so that progress can be measured throughout the year and programs can be changed if one is not working. Why should our children or parents wait until the end of the year to find out if our children have failed? Programs needs to be reviewed at least yearly because our children’s needs can change as they age. Full teams need to be present to make decisions about our children and the law can not allow them to handle life changing decisions through a phone call. Our children are more important then that. Stay put provisions need to be kept in effect to avoid districts being allowed to make unilateral decisions to programs. There is already a great injustice between the power and resources that schools have verses parents.

50% of all students in special education in the public schools have learning disabilities -- 2.25 million children; Source: U.S. Dept. of Education 1992

 75% - 80% of special education students identified as LD have their basic deficits in language and reading; Source: National Institutes of Health

35% of students identified with learning disabilities drop out of high school. This is twice the rate of their non-disabled peers. (This does not include the students who are not identified and drop out); Source: National Longitudinal Transition Study (Wagner 1991). 

60% of adults with severe literacy problems have undetected or untreated learning disabilities; Source: National Adult Literacy and Learning Disabilities Center 1994

50% of juvenile delinquents tested were found to have undetected learning disabilities; Source: National Center for State Courts and the Educational Testing Service 1977

Up to 60% of adolescents in treatment for substance abuse have learning disabilities: Source: Hazelton Foundation, Minnesota 1992

62% of learning disabled students were unemployed one year after graduation; Source: National Longitudinal Transition Study (Wagner 1991)

50% of females with learning disabilities will be mothers (many of them single) within 3-5 years of leaving high school; Source: National Longitudinal Transition Study (Wagner 1991)

31% of adolescents with learning disabilities will be arrested 3-5 years out of high school;

I warn you tonight learning disabilities do not correct themselves.

As I see it we can put our efforts and money into investing in our children now to provide them the education and skills to be productive young men and woman or we can pay later to support them in the prisons, detention centers, and welfare lines.

I’d like to also point out that Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Charles Schwab, among many other’s had learning disabilities so there is great hope and potential for our children with disabilities. Do not throw them away!

I am here tonight to be the voice for Rockaway Township parents and the parents of New Jersey that New Jersey needs to keep our code strong. Thank you!

Dana Taboadela