C’mon, it’s Chicago. If the dead can vote, surely the blind can drive?
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose]
And conditions of
[quote unquote]
“blindness” can get better, what with advances in medical technology, so what happens if some supposedly
But will having taken Driver’s Ed when she was blind actually help when she regains her sight?
From the article:
And Bosda, as the others have said, that’s because none of us have blind kids in school in the CPS and/or thought to bitch about it before. I’m surprised that it took this long to get to the media. But fuck, it’s not like they’re putting these kids in slave labor; they’re just wasting a quarter/semester/whatever sitting in a useless class.
(Side note: On the scale of things, 20/70 vision is pretty good, even as a best-corrected vision.)
A schoolmate of my brother’s was blind (living in the ‘burbs of Chicago, back in the early 80’s). They asked her to take drivers’ ed. She asked for a book for it in braile. They could not produce. She did not need to take. QED.
Although I bet there are said books in braile now.
According to State Regulation, he doesn’t have to do either, dammit! :dubious: :mad: :smack:
Oh, c’mon. Blind kids having to take driver’s ed is a great story. How could you pass that up as a journalist?
What’s the school’s excuse going to be when the student demands a road test just like all the other students get?
The local regulation is more specific and supercedes it, otherwise the whole city and numerous other municipalities in the state would be violating the state regulation, and they’re not.
I could quite well be wrong, but I was under the impression that they don’t offer the road portion. I thought most schools around here had dropped that (budgetary reasons) in favor of teaching the book/rules-n-regs portion only, and then teens have to go to private driving schools or learn from parents, etc., for the road part. I know my hometown school did that back in the early '90s and they’re only in a middling-to-large city in Wisconsin, so I wouldn’t be surprised if more cash-strapped school systems like CPS had as well.
I just want to applaud the State of Illinois for providing driver education to all its young residents. It cost me here in British Columbia about 700 dollars to provide it for my daughter several years ago. Unfortunately not all young drivers are getting it.
Yah! And next thing you know, people will be marrying their pets! :eek:
Chicago has transcended the normal limits of bureaucracy and raised it to a thriving art form. The rational part of my brain tells me I should lament the stupidity, but the aesthetic part of me can’t help but admire the beauty of the breathtaking heights to which the Chicago machine has ascended. It’s like watching the Platonic ideal of a bureaucracy.
So what happens to their GPA for being forced to take a class they have no use for and fail?
Part of drivers ed class is your drive time. How can they be passing these children without having drive time logged? They are passing them without completing the course?
There are so many issues that kids anywhere have to face today. I think one of the issues about this one is that it is so easily fixable.
What is actually involved in this course? I can see considerable utility in a course which helps a blind person determine if their driver is driving dangerously.
The district does not offer behind-the-wheel or simulator training; they offer the classroom portion only. Students are on their own for the rest of it.
As I said before, I think a similar course on traffic safety for the vision- and hearing-impaired is a useful thing. But to put them through something like this just to fulfill a requirement is stupid beyond words.
Robin
I’d just like to praise ** Thudlow Boink** for that most excellent of whoooshes, well done.
When there is no more room in hell, blind cadavers will drive your taxis.
Or something.
You know, a friend of mine in high school was blind, and had been her entire life. She once told me that her dad (who also happened to be my Spanish teacher) would sometimes take her down to the desert and let her drive the car. Nothing around for miles and miles, so she could just go nuts behind the wheel.
So maybe driver’s ed for blind kids isn’t even that bad an idea.
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose]
And conditions of
[quote unquote]
“blindness” can get better, what with advances in medical technology, so what happens if some supposedly
She would still have to pass the written and driving tests then, regardless of whether she took driver’s ed. Meaning if she didn’t take driver’s ed and pass the test at 16, she’d have to pass at 18. Hell, I didn’t take driver’s ed at all and got my license at 29 after sitting for the written and driving tests.
Color me non-outraged. Passing a written road-rules exam will take a couple of hours of study, tops. Anyway, why is knowledge of written road rules considered be supremely useless for the blind? Maybe they might like to know what is going on when other people are talking, for example. There’s enough presumption in the OP that an advocate for the blind could take a mighty big swipe at.