Your Tax Dollars At Work
Via Rachel Lucas comes the story of a girl afraid of school, and the taxpayers willing to pay for her “acute school phobia”.
Rebecca Maykish is 17 and dreads school so much that she stopped going regularly.
In fourth grade.
Those days off have come at a price to her school district and the Palmerton taxpayers who support it. Since 2004, the Palmerton Area School Board has authorized payments of more than $45,000 to help Rebecca make up for her missed school days. Rebecca’s mother, Barbara, has used the money for at-home tutoring and education software purchases. She has also spent it on modeling classes for Rebecca, subscriptions to teen magazines, and travel to New York and Toronto with a summer camp.
All of the expenses were approved by the district.
That’s right. All because some doctor said she shouldn’t go to school. Of course now Rebecca and Babs are being fined by the school district for truancy, since they’ve reached the limit of the “compensatory education fund”.
But wait? A fine for not going to school? Why hasn’t Mommy Dearest simply started homeschooling her child?
Rebecca says she reads for pleasure, enjoying parodies such as ”Zen of the Zombie,” a mock self-improvement book. But her writing skills are weak and she can only do basic multiplication and division on downloaded worksheets. She estimates she spends three hours a day learning. Barbara Maykish has opted not to homeschool her, saying she worried that she would not be able to help Rebecca with her math and writing problems.
Rebecca said she has only one friend in Palmerton. She spent her 17th birthday in March with her mother, who is her only close companion. Her father lives in Peru.
So not only does she have “school phobia”, she’s got the education level of my 2nd grader. She only spends three hours a day “learning”, and mom’s not willing to help her out. She’s worried she wouldn’t be able to help? I’ve got news for ya, ma’am. Unless you too are as dumb as a fencepost… you’ll be able to help.
But wait! It gets better!
Barbara Maykish has been fined 111 times for truancy, with the earliest cases filed in 2003, a year before the compensatory education fund was set up.
She fought the fines, but has lost every case in Palmerton district court, and 10 appeals so far in Carbon County. Maykish, who is unemployed, has paid $1 so far. State law allows a jail term of five days for each unpaid fine, although no judge has threatened jail yet, said Serfass, the school district solicitor.
Payment schedules call for her to pay about $35 a month through the year 2037.
Maykish plans to appeal to federal court, arguing that Rebecca cannot be expected to go to a regular school.
That’s right… daughter’s not going to school and mom’s not going to work. Oh, but it gets even better.
Now that she is 17, Rebecca could legally drop out, but she says she wants to earn a diploma. She can attend Palmerton Area High School until she is 21, but she thinks a cyberschool or another boarding school would be better options.
Because her daughter has gone the past year without any formal education, Barbara Maykish said she thinks she might need another compensatory education fund.
That’s right. We need to give this precious little snowflake another $45,000. Otherwise, how will she continue to receive the valuable learning that a subscription to Seventeen magazine provides?
Here’s the quick lecture. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. The policies that allowed this situation to occur were approved at some point by a politician. Which ideology is responsible for this? The one that believes in individual rights and responsibilities, or the one that believes the government has an obligation to keep us “free from fear”?
On a sidenote, I spent my entire 7th grade throwing up before school. I’d have an upset stomach in the morning, would get out of the car, go throw up in the bushes, and go to class. I had friends, I wasn’t a troublemaker, and my grades were all right. I just was anxious about school for some reason. I wasn’t coddled, I wasn’t told I could stop going to school. I was told (lovingly) that quitting wasn’t an option.
Now I can read with the best of them, though I’ll admit to never being that great with math. Still, I’m providing for a family of five kids without any government assistance. And in fact, my tax dollars are going to take care of people like Rebecca and her mom. Is it any wonder more and more Americans are saying “Hands off my pie”?
May 21st, 2008 at May 21, 2008 - 11:06 pm
I yam udderly speechlist. Two think that won could get aweigh with knot going too school to learn two reed and right and get paid four it. Where is mai $45,000?