Not absurd in the least.

This really pisses me off.

In a column at The Detroit News (if I'm looking at the right link it's no longer available for free there, but it has been reproduced elsewhere if you want to google it) called "Does DPS's leader's writing send wrong message?" Laura Berman discusses Otis Mathis, Detroit's school board president.  Later, she asks, "[I]s he an example of the system's worst failings -- a disinterested student who always found ways to graduate, even when he didn't meet the requirements -- likely to perpetuate lax academic standards ...?"  And finally, "'Instead of telling them that they can't write and won't be anything, I show that cannot stop you,' Mathis says. 'If Detroit Public Schools can allow kids to dream, with whatever weakness they have, that's something. ...It's not about what you don't have. It's what you can do.' Because of his struggles and perseverance, Mathis describes himself as a role model. But is he?"

Although this is never stated explicitly in the article (there is a hint), Mathis identifies as a person with a learning disability.  Berman reports that he has some difficulty with reading -- he says that he might need to read something two or three times but that he can not only master, but memorize, what he reads -- and he writes pretty badly (she quotes a couple of sentences from emails he's sent).  Even so, he graduated from high school in 1973, before IDEA, and attended Wayne State after a stint in the Navy.  He didn't graduate until 2007, though, when the school dropped an English proficiency exam as a requirement for graduation.  Berman reports that he challenged the test in a lawsuit that went to trial in 1992, but presumably he lost.

Berman asks, "Is it absurd for a man who cannot write a simple English sentence to serve as the board president? Or to lead the elected board of a district that ranks at the nation's bottom for literacy?"

My answer is:  of course not.  Not being able to "write a simple English sentence" is not the same as being uneducated, as being unable to understand the problems confronting public education, or as being a poor leader.  Even if Otis Mathis in particular ought not to be Detroit's school board president (although Berman doesn't come up with any other reasons besides a certain kind of cognitive impairment that he shouldn't), there's no reason that someone like him shouldn't.

Moreover, a school system that writes people impairments off as inherently unable to assume the top roles -- at a time when we know how to educate students with those impairments to the same levels as nondisabled students -- has no business educating such people, and a public school system that has no business educating a category of children is a public school system that needs to be fixed.

Berman seems to think that having a school board president who cannot write grammatically correctly may encourage students to believe that they don't have to learn to communicate well in writing either.  I think she's got a small point here:  I do think you can consider producing well-written official documents to be an essential part of being a school board member, I do think that when well-official documents need to be created it may become necessary for a school board member responsible for drafting them to use an editor (paid for by the school board) when necessary in order to ensure that they are well-written, and I do think that a public school system should make it clear to students that if they want to succeed in jobs that involve writing they will have to be able to write well, with or without reasonable accommodation.  But the fact that the "lousy writing" quotes in the column come from emails and not official documents does kind of make you wonder whether any necessary accommodation is already being used.  Moreover, as Berman acknowledges that Mathis and his supporters point out, Otis Mathis probably understands much better than Laura Berman does -- or I do, or anyone who picked up much of written English by reading and writing it does -- what disadvantages people who cannot write well face in today's world.  And her suggestion that someone with an impairment that makes learning to write grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs and passages difficult to impossible is "disinterested" is the most absurd idea in the entire piece:  it shouldn't take much thought to realize that someone who makes it through high school and college despite an impairment causing the "3 Rs" to be a major stumbling block for him demonstrates a lot more interest than a nondisabled person who is otherwise similar needs.

And you know what?  This long after Section 504, IDEA, and ADA, a columnist writing about education really ought to understand the disability rights perspective well enough to be able to address the obvious DR criticisms of her position.

Woman turns down sex

and the man in whose home she works (it's not clear to me whether she works for him) tries to have her fired.

Story here.

The reason I'm posting it on this blog is that the man is disabled, the woman is a nurse, and she apparently witnessed other nurses having sex with him.  When she refused, he claimed she was "unfit" to continue working in his home.

A (the? her?) nurses' union is starting a campaign called "I Draw The Line Here," against the expectation that patients should be able to demand sex from nurses, saying that "This type of action is not part of the job responsibilities of carers and nurses."

David Askew "tormented to death"

Here is a link to a story in The Guardian about David Askew, a 64-year-old man from the UK identified as having "learning difficulties", who has been found dead.  Neighbors report that on an ongoing basis, with younger kids joining in as they got old enough, people who were "about 18 or 19 years old" would bother him.  He would either yell at them or give them money and cigarettes to go away.  Adults in the area gave up on calling the police because it was ineffectual.