Political Influence

Ever experience what happens when a high level political decision begins to have grassroots effects on your community?  I remember one of these very distinctly growing up.

Back in the late 70's and early 80's in Massachusetts, there was a big political push to increase the available number of job opportunities for special education teachers.  How do I know this?  Well, for one reason, I, despite being renowned as a pretty smart kid, was - by a number of school authorities - placed in the basket of "special needs".

Now, I remember one night, being in bed with my radio turned on.  It was late, I had just finished listening to either a Red Sox or Bruins game; or perhaps it was Glenn Ordway's sports talk show.  After the program, a local late night political talk show came on.  Now mind you, this is 30 years ago and long before talk media became what it is today.  But on the show, the host was going on a rant of how the political decision to increase the number of jobs for special ed teachers was screwing up community after community in the Boston area.  He noted that in the town of Weymouth, a whopping 40% of all public school students were categorized as having "special needs".  What he finally said, and I still remember him saying it quite vividly, is..."these measures are not in one bit helping out the communities.  The psychological analyses, the core evaluations...they're merely creating jobs for special education teachers!"