We were talking about metropolitan governments this week in my State and Local politics class and education on the blog. I’ve got a post that combines both topics.

When Ian was two and a half, he was diagnosed with a severe speech delay. He had a few months of the state’s Early Intervention program, which was a disaster.

When he turned three, the town was given the responsibility for his education. The town had a special education pre-school where they dumped all the kids with special needs. The problem was that each kid had something different and needed their own particular type of help. Ian was especially odd, since he couldn’t talk at all, but could read. The teacher hadn’t encountered anyone like Ian before. For two years, he did not receive appropriate treatment.

Then it was time for Kindergarten. A sympathetic administrator put him into a special program outside the district. It’s a regional special education program that deals with kids who are just like Ian. It’s within the public school system, but it collects the one kid in town A with Ian’s issues and another kid in town B with Ian’s issues and puts them all in one classroom.

After two weeks in the new school, we noticed improvements in Ian’s speech. His handwriting was outstanding. He was happier. He was doing so well that by November, we had revised his IEP.

What are they doing differently? Well, the program is geared toward kids with speech problems. The teacher and I correspond daily about his progress. They focus on social skills and keep the academic goals high. If he gets upset, they write down what they want him to do, since his readings skills are much higher than his audio-processing skills. They have highly trained assistants in the room. His classmates are more like him. His classroom is in a regular school, so he plays with regular kids at recess. The teacher is trained to deal specifically with kids like Ian and not kids with the range of other special education problems. He’s doing more challenging academic work than Jonah did in Kindergarten. We want to keep Ian in this program for as long as possible.

Despite the wonderfulness of this regional program, there are a lot of forces that prevent more programs like this from starting up. Our town isn’t all that thrilled about its tax money traveling outside the town. Well, that’s the biggest problem and the only one worth talking about. It’s money. People want the money kept local.

We’re in the midst of a horrid budget problem in New Jersey. Corzine has been floating one proposal after another to deal with the upcoming doom. One proposal that went no where was to increase the tolls on the local highways.

Another proposal was to consolidate services among the ridiculous amount of small towns in New Jersey. Does each town really need its own police department and its own school district? No. It would be much more efficient to merge the administration of those programs. And, judging from Ian’s experience, it would have much better outcomes. But this proposal hasn’t gone anywhere either, because of the entrenched interests in local towns and the localist political culture in New Jersey.

Ian’s school model could be expanded to meet the needs of all sorts of kids — the highly gifted, athletic, artistic. Schools could be set up to attract parents who want a traditional education versus those who want a more progressive agenda. Too bad there are so many forces working against this system.