The Fury of Poverty

There were seven of us at the table. The student was eleven, with a pert pageboy and a charming lisp. The social worker was thirtyish and gently male. But the rest of us were middle-aged females.

You couldn't truly paint any of us with an unchanging brush - certainly the speech pathologist, with makeup caked to a mask and perfect bright red nail polish, wouldn't fit into the same slot as I, in my trail-running shoes. But there was an important distinction nevertheless between the school professionals and the parent.

"Lizzie's" grandma had arrived late at the meeting because her husband was late getting the car home. Her hair was long, limp and anything but carefree, the mouth a severe line, the eyes topped by tired, drooping lids. She wore some sort of nondescript navy blue windbreaker; her belly bulged over her gray knit pants, clad in a maroon t-shirt with faded flowers. A stuffed purse emitted frequent rings from her cell phone.

A minute into the first presentation of the evaluation of her granddaughter's academic skills, she said "Grade level. I want the grade level." for the first time.

Anyone who's been in education longer than a year knows that simply getting the grade level is inaccurate. A kid's score on a test indicates only how he or she scored in comparison with all the other kids who took the test. If they scored the same number of points as the median of the kids in the same grade, they're at grade level. So on a writing test, the kid could be way above grade-level skills in organization, and way below grade level in spelling, but still score at grade level.

But grandma had learned that demanding this information was a way to stop educators in their tracks. She is the parent; in today's educational atmosphere, what she asks for, she gets, especially with a child who receives special education services. So nobody argued with her, or tried to explain; everyone supplied the grade level approximation of each test as asked.

Grandma ran the show.

Putatively I was there to help the team formulate middle-school level goals and services.

Actually, I quickly realized, my presence was required so my school knew who we would cope with next year. And eventually I undestood that arguing that the services written into the plan were unrealistic at the middle school level would only inflame conflict. The one time I tried, grandma responded with, "if I don't get what I need (want, I thought privately in response), I'll just take Lizzie somewhere else!"

I suppressed the thought "well, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.." and relaxed. Somehow we'd make it work, like we always do.

As I drove back to my school, though, I didn't think of the services we will provide for Lizzie - who by the way is a charming, hard-working student who will have no trouble whatsoever next year.

I thought about grandma.

At one point, the talk around the table turned to funding, as it always does. Grandma's view: "You're not gonna tell me the school district doesn't have money... look at all those buildings, the schools they've closed that are just being used for storage! They've wasted money, and now they want us to pay!"

And I thought, I bet she voted against 2-C. I bet she assiduously watches the coverage of the tea party movement on Fox; I bet she goes to every rally she can make it to.

Grandma suspects everything about the system. She, like millions, believes that she's been taxed to fund goodies for the ruling class.

And the tragic part? She's right.

Look at the faces of the senators on TV. Don't they look like they have daily facials along with their shaves, at the Senate barber shop we pay for? They wear Armani suits and silk ties the price of Grandma's family daily food budget, for her, her husband, and all seven of the grandkids who live with her.

Grandma's at least sixty, maybe more; but no golden-age-retirement for her. Somebody has to feed, clothe and shelter those kids her progeny made and abandoned. And she's angry, about it all, about the one old car, and the budget that allows for only second hand clothes for her, and no time or money for manicures like that speech pathologist has.

And right now, she can only scare five educators at a granddaughter's staffing meeting.

But watch out.