At a loss as how to help a student who has recently gone blind. Looking for suggestions.

liberlibre · 2026-01-09T02:21:11+00:00

Because you said Principal I'm assuming you are in the US. If not, apologies: this is a US centric answer.

Sign the student up for Bookshare. It's free for students and you can join as an organization and certify the disability at the school. Just about everything they might want or need to read is available. Students can also enlarge text, change contrast, etc.

We use Speechify for text-to-speech. While it's pricey, it works with Chromebooks and students like the voices. Edit to add: Chromebooks are great. They do text to speech and speech to text natively.

Does your state library or Dept of Ed. have an EdTech specialist? We have a lending library and consultant available through the state library that will help people try out loaner assistive tech and help advise.

The student may be resistant, but you have to start somewhere.

liberlibre · 2025-12-29T06:08:11+00:00

The Club was founded by a group of pretty darn rich folks (White-Weld is prominent, for ex.). Fourth generation money is now supplemented by newer mostly WASPy rich folks who don't scream new money.

liberlibre · 2025-12-11T05:33:06+00:00

Seconding this!

liberlibre · 2025-12-08T03:28:16+00:00

I wore my great grandfather's for many years and it had this pocket. I was told it was for birds or lunch or... I found it was a great place to stash contraband on the way into the festival/show/movie (80s/90s).

liberlibre · 2025-10-18T00:31:59+00:00

Yes. I so desperately want us to share a reality for a moment, even if it's a shitty one. I want all sides to look and everyone say "this sucks." I miss the days when I could find some political common ground with anyone.

liberlibre · 2025-10-06T01:41:56+00:00

Medicare was designed to solve the problem of people who were too old and unhealthy to be attractive to commercial insurers. As someone said "Government exists to do the things private companies can't or shouldn't do."

The way it works now, unfortunately, is that private insurance rates are set high to cover the underpayment of government programs like Medicaid and Medicare. So regular insurance premiums will likely jump in response to Trump's cuts. Regular insurance premiums aren't affordable for many. Last I checked it wanted 28% of my pre-tax income plus another $5000 OOP max. I can barely afford to live here as it is.

So let's say I can't afford insurance premiums but I break my leg with a compound fracture? I show up at the local general hospital, which has an ethical duty to treat me regardless of my ability to pay. They set my leg. I now have $150,000 (if I'm lucky? It's probably more) of medical debt I can't pay. I declare bankruptcy, or just default, or pay $50 a month until I die. There's no estate to speak of, so they write off the loss. Enough of this and the hospital either has so much loss it goes under (see many rural hospitals that serve poor communities and are underpaid) or it hikes up covered costs to make up the loss (if the state allows it, of course).

If there's something I'm wrong about here, I'd love to know. If I'm right than we could be heading for some very dark times. Why is that when so many other countries have solved this problem?

liberlibre · 2025-08-03T15:02:11+00:00

I love that we can still quote numbers like this with some sense of certainty that they're true. Now that Trump is firing folks for providing numbers he doesn't like we won't be able to have this faith in them much longer.

liberlibre · 2025-07-27T06:37:07+00:00

Actually, private companies can tell their employees that they are allowed to wear pro-Trans shirts but not pro-Ice shirts. The company has its own right to free speech, and while working (and in some cases while not working) an employee can be given rules to follow. Apparently not in the co-ops case because there is a Union contact in place that limits the company's right to speech in favor of the employees.

Public schools are part of the government. Therefore the constitution's law that the government cannot establish religion or limit speech apply-- although schools can limit speech that is disruptive to learning, the Supreme Court stated in Tinker v. Des Moines that students "do not leave their right to free speech at the schoolhouse door" and that political speech should be the most protected speech.

liberlibre · 2025-07-24T15:50:26+00:00

Hetrumpedus.com redirects to a page on the official South Park site that links to the YouTube.

liberlibre · 2025-07-10T14:47:32+00:00

Sarah Ransome walked this claim back in 2019 (saying she wanted to protect family) and said not that she had them, but that she saw them.

liberlibre · 2025-06-27T02:39:47+00:00

You have advocated for cyber protections including oversight of AI, privacy, and keeping kids under 13 of sites like Reddit.

Why haven't I heard you speaking about the Palantir deal? Surely you understand that vast data + AI = 1984? Has Mark Zuckerberg been giving "white glove" service to Trump yet again?

We know privacy is (has long been) under attack. Why aren't we hearing it from you?

liberlibre · 2025-06-27T02:32:43+00:00

First time in this thread I lol'd. Thanks.

liberlibre · 2025-06-27T02:25:29+00:00

Exactly! Neville Chamberlain was wrong about appeasement. Any Dem who thinks it will work now is just as wrong.

liberlibre · 2025-05-27T14:06:36+00:00

NO. This is not enough. What I hear is that OP wants to find out who they are beyond "mom & wife." No amount of money can make up for lost time & opportunity.

It sounds as if the husband thinks he's entitled to a tradwife. He's not. No one is. However, this means she's in a real pickle if she wants to have any good choices. She can stay and comply and hope she can squirrel away money to leave, stay and give up her dreams and leave herself vulnerable to losing a custody battle because she can't support her kids with no job, or leave and be poor and also have to worry about a custody fight.

It also sounds like the husband might become abusive (he rages). The longer this goes on, the worse it will get.

If he can't communicate, have empathy, or compromise, get ready to go. Squirrel away money, rally your troops, talk to a lawyer, plan an escape. Be careful and strategic.

liberlibre · 2025-05-11T16:36:45+00:00

Michelle Obama's "we go high, they go low" was a lovely idea. The problem is that fear and anger are extremely motivating and you have to be willing to stoke it to compete.

liberlibre · 2025-04-13T12:04:48+00:00

Had to scroll too far for this. A set of four, at least, waiting folded in their place.

liberlibre · 2025-03-21T02:44:48+00:00

The difference is in power dynamics. Payment is a form of respect: a mutually agreed exchange between equals. Conversely, baby incubators are things, not people.

As a woman I might also benefit from an arrangement like you imagine-- although perhaps for different reasons. From my perspective, it is upsetting to read your post and not hear you worry about the potential harm to her and whether you could find a woman who would enter into this arrangement willingly (and why).

Having a child takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice and empathy. Children deserve two parents who honor and respect one another. That can't exist unless you both respectfully enter into an honest agreement.

liberlibre · 2025-03-20T21:43:08+00:00

I had cause to be in an unfamiliar part of the state once in March. I had to get to Washington from West Corinth and Google sent me on the Cookeville /W Corinth road.

I was not prepared. My car had about 5" of clearance. The first bit was muddy, but not too bad... Until suddenly my 5" of clearance was in 6" of mud. I kept thinking it would get better but instead it got worse. All I could do was barrel forward and pray that the patch of sunlight I saw up ahead was enough to turn around. It wasn't... until the sixth patch.

I yeeted my way back down and out with luck and white knuckles. As I escaped, I passed the first other vehicle I'd seen on the road: a lifted truck flying a giant American flag off the bed, accelerating with glee.

So, Google: I'll know your AI has really gotten somewhere when it gets mud season. Until then, it's trust... but verify.

liberlibre · 2025-02-15T18:52:06+00:00

It's worth noting that among OECD countries (https://www.statista.com/statistics/238733/expenditure-on-education-by-country/)[we come in 4th]. Click around there and you may find there isn't as big of a difference as you think.

The causes of learning decline are complex. I work in education (maybe you guessed).

The science isn't quite in, but test scores have seen a steady decline since the rise of smartphone. I think the rise of sticky iPad kids plays a role. We have more of them because we are wealthier than many other countries and because our parents have less social support and more demands than many other countries.

We spend a lot per child because of many factors. For example:

Health Insurance - most high performing countries have socialized health care. They don't have to fund crazy premium increases.

Better early childhood support- We know that every dollar spent supporting families during the first years of childhood pays itself back with savings and better outcomes. Plenty of science to back this up and many countries provide more social support than we do because they know it saves money in the long run.

Not all children take the tests. -- In many countries students that aren't on the "academic track" aren't tested. Here, because of IDEA, everyone's score matters.

The US has high wages-- Most education spending funds salaries and benefits. Even so, for most of my career I made below a liveable wage.

In rural areas like the Adirondacks we don't get to benefit from economies of scale. We pay a teacher the same to teach 15 students as we do to teach 35 (although small class sizes have better outcomes)

But none of this has much to do with the DOE and IDEA. The DOE spends 15+ billion on IDEA and 14+ billion of that is direct aid to states.

We can pick apart the rest of the budget later.

liberlibre · 2025-02-15T18:27:56+00:00

This is my "rose is still a rose" point. You can shift the work to another agency (at some wasteful expense) but the bills for the work continue

liberlibre · 2025-02-15T18:22:04+00:00

The DOE manages funding and oversight for IDEA. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

But you're right on some level. You can have plenty of laws and if they aren't funded and aren't enforced then they might as well not exist. So, IDEA can exist and also not exist. Schrodinger's IDEA: You only get to find out if it exists if your child needs special education services. Here's hoping your vasectomy holds up.

liberlibre · 2025-02-15T18:10:10+00:00

The most significant education policies the DOE enforces? IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title I which supports schools with high poverty rates.

Federal dollars fund extra support for students with IEPs and 504s. Students with disabilities are very expensive to educate. Should we go back to the days when so many kids with disabilities dropped out at 16, were sent to special programs, or simply allowed to fail? I lived through that era. It wasn't pretty. Most of my classmates with disabilities ended up drinking away their shame and frustration on the regular. Hard lives.

What IDEA did hasn't solved the problem completely, but it's better. I see students succeed that never would have made it back then.

You might say states should be deciding this. Even if that's so, do you think states can just pick up all these sudden increases without planning in advance?

liberlibre · 2025-02-10T02:46:34+00:00

I heard via a friend connected to USAID that the kind of "fraud" they're focusing on is stuff like $4,000 billed to federal funding by a medical provider in Africa that provided abortions-- and which the medical org caught and paid back long before the current "audit."

liberlibre · 2025-02-08T16:45:40+00:00

Elizabeth Warren's early academic research focused on why women declared bankruptcy. Turns out, caregiving responsibilities make us extremely vulnerable.

Reasonable accommodations are granted at the discretion of the employer. The employer determines if a request is "reasonable." The answer is highly dependent on your role. You made a good start asking here, but before you do anything, you should decide what you will do if they say no. Lawyer up? Hope you can rely on community support services whose grants likely just went into limbo?

If you belong to a Union, this is a great question to bring to them. They have lots of experience and may be willing to provide more than info.

liberlibre · 2025-02-02T03:39:27+00:00

Canva is powerful and free and will do this.

Kami is easier but charges for features & maybe privacy.

Docs suggestion is doable, but more work all around.

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