This post is a letter written to Governor Tom Corbett’s wife. Corbett is the governor of Pennsylvania. A 12-year-old child died of an asthma attack because there was no school nurse that day; the school has a nurse only two days a week, due to the state budget cuts.
The letter begins:
““Dear Susan Corbett, I hope this note finds you doing well in the governor’s mansion you share with your husband, Tom. OK, that’s a lie. I actually hope this note finds you wild-eyed and shrieking at your husband because you heard what happened to Laporshia Massey, and you want Tom to make things right before another child dies. But if you’ve not heard about Laporshia, I am begging you – mom to mom – to read her tale, take it to heart and then use your wifely influence to make your husband of 40-plus years take it to heart, too. Because what happened is a tragedy…”
Is Susan Corbett angry at her husband? Does she feel that this child’s life might have been saved if the governor had not cut $1 billion out of the public schools’ budget while cutting the corporate tax rates? Does she sense any personal responsibility for the death of this little girl? Or does she shrug her shoulders and say “life’s unfair.” as so many do?
When will state officials in Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Michigan, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Maine, and many other states take responsibility for the damage they are wreaking on the lives of children and communities? Sometimes the death of a single child has the power to open their eyes. Usually the death of a community goes unnoticed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now that is the proper anger and statements on this subject I like to see and hear. You see, they really do not care, as they are sociopaths and only care about how much goes into their offshore account from the corporations and billionaires from their legislated tax breaks and release from obligations for the bottom line. We have a case here in LAUSD where they purposely killed a child. This child was born and immediately needed a heart transplant. They would not give an IEP and sent the child to a charter school without a nurse. The child had a heart attack and died there. To me this is homicide or at least murder 2 or manslaughter and should be prosecuted as being a knowledgeable choice meaning premeditation which is able to be prosecuted under present law and no one did anything. Now the case in Philadelphia. Not premeditated, but at the same time done through fear of retribution by the medical person at the school or they are simply sociopaths and need to be charged with at least child endangerment and prosecuted. I mean all involved, the nurse, her supervisor and whoever told anyone not to deal with situations like this and send them home instead of calling the paramedics as they are legally bound to do. These are also prosecuteable as child abuse, as child abuse is psychological, physical and sexual. This is obviously at least psychological and physical abuse. Charge and prosecute on both sides of the criminal justice code of the state and there are possible Federal Civil Rights abuses in both cases. Why not go to the Justice Dept. also. I am now since I thought of this writing go to my friends with this and we will look at going to the Feds on the potential of a Federal prosecution on Civil Rights abuses.
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I was recently told by a friend the they were tired of hearing about this story… It made me cry. This should be national news. This should be all over the place. What have we become? This is no longer America when we kill our public schools, … and our children. Bless Daniel Denver and his reporting.
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This story & the continuing saga of the missing NYC special education student (from a co-located school site) should, of course, be on every national news station in the country. But, no, we only read about it on education blogs. This is beyond outrageous!
This must stop (&, apparently, will in NYC w/your newly elected officials). We MUST continue the pushback, and it starts with Parent Power–Opt Out now!
Yes, WE can…and we WILL.
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I will say it again “Let’s get federal civil rights and state penal code violation on both the criminal charges of child abuse and other penal code violations such as murder 2 and/or manslaughter on these issues where they did not do their job and due diligence. The Ravich Blog can lead the way. This is what we should do with this mass communication means we are all using as our own media. Just like using LAUSD’s T.V. station for mass communication. It works to build the support for these issues. Why not? Should they be allowed to kill our students for free? If so, what is the next step?
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OCCUPY THE SCHOOLS!!!!
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It is just astounding and shocking to me that there is only a school nurse on duty 2 days a week at some of these schools. Throwing more money at this school system would definitely help, they could hire more full time nurses for all the schools.
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In Utah, we haven’t had a nurse in my school in over 10 years. There’s one nurse to do health plans for about 5,000 students.
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Communist Teacher has another great idea. Why not teach them a lesson and cause them headaches. They cause them for the students and parents and society in the long run to pay for their failures in the criminal justice system and other agencies at a greater cost than having them in school. It must stop and the billionaires must be shamed into hiding. This is a WAR unless you haven’t noticed. So, remember you history and what happens when someone declares war on you? You don’t sit there, that is for sure. And he who properly responds in real time usually wins. That is how we messed them up at LAUSD when Aquino suddenly resigns. Immediately we moved in real time at hyper drive not slow light speed and now the billionaires are in a “PICKLE.” Notice they are delaying the iPads. Not an accident. Careful psychology and work in the warfare world. Read “The Art of War” if you want to counter them as this is their bible.
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AND all the while they stress the need for good education!!!!
Ignorance, politicking or just “money more than people philosophy”?
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1. Who cut the nurse’s job? Was it the state or the district? I won’t assume it was the state. If the school had to make a cut, and decided to cut the nurse (probably in favor of an administrator), I would not be surprised.
2. Many schools have always had part time nurses – including fancy private schools. Every school I’ve worked in had back up people to assist a child in case the nurse was not available. This failure to help the child goes beyond state budget cuts and it is very short sighted to think that’s what this is all about.
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The state government–specifically, Governor Tom Corbett–cut public school funding across Pennsylvania by $1 billion. The district has long been underfunded. It has been under state control for over a decade. The state budget cuts took away the school nurse. The schools in Philadelphia can count themselves lucky to have a nurse two days a week.
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The state budget cuts took away money. But whotook away the nurse? It’s not clear. I’d be willing to bet that the choice to cut the nurse was done at the district or school level – not by the state. I’m sure no administrators pay was cut in that particular district. It is up to the individual disrict to figure out where to make cuts in staff. So again, who cut the nurse’s hours? When people just say “bad state” for cutting funding and then coincidentally a tragedy happens, you can’t blame the state for the tragedy. That’s just correlation and doesn’t do anything to actually solve the problem.
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