Читать книгу A Thin Place - Jack Peterson - Страница 26

April 28, 1992

Angels Camp, California

Just after 7 P.M., Anna turned her 4-wheel drive Blazer around the final corner and pointed it up the driveway and into the garage. After a long flight home, Crockett was finally home, and it felt good to be back. His week in the nation’s Capitol had physically taken its toll. Tired wasn’t a strong enough adjective to describe how he felt. The fast pace could not compare to the peace and quiet of Angels Camp. A few days back in what he affectionately called the circus was all it took to convince himself that he had made the right decision not to run for a fourth term. Everybody had opinions, nobody had answers. Nothing had changed.

Crockett’s first priority that night was to catch up on his sleep. He failed miserably and knew why. He couldn’t resist rehashing his week. His search for information on autism had targeted many fronts, most of which turned into dead ends, but he took some comfort that, at best, he knew where not to look. The highlight of his trip was his meeting with a former golfing buddy. He didn’t know whether it was irony or fate, but a social visit meant to accomplish nothing more than catch up a bit while lying about golf scores from years past proved to be his most productive day.

As Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Education, Brian Furlong was not only inept at playing golf, his leadership ability wasn’t any better. He was a bit of an introvert with very few personal accomplishments, but he always shined when it came to gathering statistics. Problem was he never analyzed what he was presenting. Accurately compiling numbers and reporting them was all that was important to him. What others did with them was not his concern.

Crockett rolled over and fluffed the pillow, replaying once again the question he asked Furlong about special education classes for children in public schools. With a grandson with autism, it seemed an appropriate inquiry to ask the top dog in education. It was Furlong’s unemotional response that was keeping him awake. He remembered it verbatim.

“We have to plan and organize schools nationally for special programs. Since they are partially funded by the federal government, we have to know how many special needs children exist and how many to plan for in the future. We have a special category called Learning Disabled. We just provide the numbers. We let the bureaucrats do the rest.”

Crockett sat up in bed. A sick feeling in his gut wouldn’t go away. Learning Disabled was a term he had never given much thought because it had always applied to someone else. Now it was personal. While in Congress, he has voted countless times for various programs that provided for the needy or the disabled. His aye vote was usually because it was politically correct, not because he fully understood the legislation. A negative vote could have been perceived by constituents as insensitive. Now his insensitivity was coming home to roost. He would actually have to learn about some of the programs he supported while in Congress.

Pulling the covers back, Crockett switched on his bedside lamp and crawled out of bed. He realized it wasn’t Furlong’s insensitive comment about the learning disabled that was giving him insomnia, it was something else. He flipped on a light, walked downstairs, and headed directly for his briefcase on the kitchen table. After thumbing through a disorganized stack of papers, he found the printout from Furlong. A weary mind and two cocktails took precedence over the report during the flight home. The label was familiar.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

Crockett remembered that Furlong said the NCES was part of the U.S. Department of Education responsible for collecting and analyzing data relating to education. The report was a recap of hundreds of pages of submitted data from the original study comparing overall population increases with those of the learning disabled.

After twenty minutes of flipping pages, Crockett found the only part of the report he could understand, a two-page summary. He pulled a calculator from his briefcase, turned the report over, and worked the numbers. Within minutes, he recognized the problem.

1960 US Population: 179 Million

Learning Disabled Population: 830,000

1990 US Population 248 Million

Learning Disabled Population: 1,997,000

General Population Increase: 38.5%

Learning-Disabled Increase: 140%

Crockett placed the eighty-two page report back in his briefcase. The results were obvious. Furlong had done his job but nobody was looking at the results. The disparity between the learning-disabled increases when compared to the general population was so out of proportion even a sixth grader could spot it. How the government could ignore a one hundred forty percent increase in the learning-disabled population in the last thirty years without asking why was even beyond his calloused opinion of governmental ineptitude and bureaucracy.

A fleeting thought came to Crockett’s mind when he went back to bed. He was about to tackle something far beyond his level of expertise but the thought perished as quickly as it came. He had never walked away from a challenge, and he was not about to change his stripes. Something was terribly wrong and he meant to find out what it was.