What Do I Think?

Someone asked me what my thoughts were on Palin as the VP candidate. I'm not political by any stretch of the imagination! But this election does have me more interested than I've been in the past.

I do think it's neat, for lack of a better word, that Palin has a child with Down syndrome; and being so high-profile I hope she can bring positive awareness about Down syndrome to the public - the potential is there at least.

However this election is not based on the candidates' families/children and I wouldn't vote for someone just because they have a child with an extra chromosome. Obviously disability issues do concern me, but they aren't the only issues out there.

It's hard weeding through what is rumor, what is truth, and finding unbiased reports...so I actually haven't made my decision yet. I still have some research to do!

So there you have it - not very exciting, or enlightening, but that's what I think, so far anyway :)

Edited: I've also seen the reports that she cut special education spending in AK, but I've since read other reports that refute that.

This article on EdWeek explains it really well. Here are a few quotes:

"...these charges against Palin are false, driven by a misreading of the budget documents for the state.
The "proof," as has been presented, is the part of the fiscal 2007 budget for the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, which includes funding for the Alaska School for the Deaf, students who are patients at the Alaska Psychiatric Hospital, and the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy, a statewide, boot-camp-style program. The budget that year was $8,265,300.

But the next year, fiscal 2008, the budget is shown as $3,156,000, leading to the accusation that Palin cut the department's budget.

The difference in funding, however, is because the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy moved to a budget line item of its own. In the fiscal 2009 budget, you can see that the academy alone has a budget of $6,082,100. When you add that to the $3,156,000 that is being spent on all the other projects, it adds up to $9,238,100--an approximately 12 percent INCREASE in spending on all those particular programs, put together, since fiscal 2007.

Gov. Sarah Palin has quietly signed into law the biggest rewrite of the state's education funding system in a decade, despite hints that she might veto the package.

The legislation phases in increases to per-pupil spending, increases to students with special needs and adjustments to cost factors that compensate school districts outside Anchorage for their steeper costs. It's expected to add an extra $180 million to school districts over the next five years.

Sean Cavanagh, who covers Alaska as one of his beats. He wrote earlier this year that the legislature and governor approved a bill that raises spending for students with special needs to $73,840 in fiscal 2011, from the current $26,900 per student in fiscal 2008."

The article linked by Sean Cavanagh was written in April and starts off "Gov. Sarah Palin and state lawmakers have gone ahead with an overhaul of Alaska’s school funding system that supporters predict will provide much-needed financial help to rural schools and those serving students with disabilities"

So from those 2 articles it would appear she didn't cut the special needs education budget at all.