As a parent of a child with special needs and an activist who has fought for education freedom for decades, I thought I had seen it all. That is until I saw a video of Karla Hernandez-Mats, a teachers union official who was tapped by Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist to be his running mate.
At a recent event, Hernandez-Mats was videotaped talking about her work as a “sped teacher.” She proudly noted her degree focused on “emotionally handicapped” students — and then, the punchline. “That by itself qualifies me to deal with the dysfunctional legislature,” she said. The loud laughter and cheers in that room were a punch to the gut.
My son Samuel was born with multiple disabilities, including Down Syndrome. To our family, he was just Sam — our sweet, caring boy. But to the educational establishment, he was an inconvenience and a burden. Day after day, I would drop him off at the neighborhood public school only to receive a call telling me to pick him up early because it “wasn’t working.” Just getting through those times was hard enough. The idea of his teachers making jokes at his expense is almost unbearable.
People with disabilities did not choose their disability. They deserve education options that meet them where they are, and their struggles are certainly not something to make light of or use for political purposes. Hernandez-Mats’s decision to do so is a reminder of how little the education system respects students it deems a burden.
When my children started school, Ohio did not have programs to help us. Our family spent thousands of dollars of our own money for tutors and therapies after Sam came home. There was no time to be a family, and my husband and I dreaded getting up every morning to start the process all over again. One day, I had enough and decided to try something different. I pulled Sam out of public school and started looking for a better alternative and asking my state to support families like mine. It took years, but we were finally successful in 2011, when Ohio passed the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program.
Our story is one that countless Florida families and students can relate to. The public education system is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and thankfully, state leaders in Florida, Ohio, and other states have recognized that school choice helps families find the education that works best for their children.
But Hernandez-Mats, whose union opposes school choice and the expansion of alternative education options, is a reminder of what we’re up against. Opponents of education freedom want to leave our children trapped in a system that fails them far too often and treats them like a burden — or worse, a punchline.
Crist’s choice to run alongside Hernandez-Mats is a betrayal of his past support for school choice and the families who depend on it. The union in which she is an officer has fought the expansion of school choice at every turn, even suing to try to shut down Florida’s education freedom program in 2016. More than 10,000 students and families traveled hundreds of miles to protest the lawsuit. Since then, the parent army has only grown stronger.
If the lawsuit had been successful, more than 80,000 poor, mostly minority children would have been evicted from their schools and forced back into the public school system. But instead, they have had years of opportunity and are not going back.
My son’s life, and my family’s, has changed because of school choice. I went from feeling like an adversary to the one who was in the driver’s seat of my child’s education. Even better, Sam began to wake up every day excited to learn. He was once told he was the most challenging learner in his public school. At his private school, his teachers told us he was the only student who came in every day asking for more homework. His world had indeed opened up.
It’s deeply offensive that Hernandez-Mats made light of disabled children like my son. But even more disturbing is her desire to trap them in an education system when it fails them. Florida families deserve better.
Tera Myers is an adviser for families of people with special needs at the American Federation for Children and a longtime advocate of school choice.
