Figure a timeline such as this one:

Sept-Oct 2011- bad teacher reports about not paying attention etc.
Nov 2011- I begin to search frantically for a doctor to test our daughter quickly
Dec 2011- testing (after a one month waiting list)
Dec 2011 - I meet a lady in the grocery store who knows about people who tutor children with dyslexia for free.  I am excited to learn of such a thing
Jan 2012- test results: dyslexia
Jan 2012- search all over for any tutor at all who will work with her, send paperwork to free tutoring place
Feb 2012- realize I am not going to find anyone this way and we need help.  Stick her in expensive (and worth it- private school for Orton-Gillingham immersion.  Thank you God!
June 2012- Get a letter from free tutoring place saying they will accept her for fall tutoring but need to assess her.


This brings me to now.  I called the free tutoring place the other day (I had been putting them off because I wasn't certain if she could go back to the private school or not and didn't want her tested needlessly -again).  I was honest about where she was at with her school and situation.

Here is what I found out.  Their agenda isn't so much providing free tutoring as it is providing training for people who want to learn the Orton-Gillingham method (mostly teachers).  Geesh good thing I didn't have to rely on that for my daughter.

Okay so yes I come to this from a parent's point of view but they really want children who have had NO real experience with Orton-Gillingham, this gets in the way of their training.  They want to go through the whole sequence themselves with the child.  Mostly parents have private help already but they find that out after they have accepted the child and put them into their program. 

Their customer (the REAL customer) is the teacher who wants to learn to tutor Orton-Gillingham.

I'm still digesting all this.  I'm sort of in shock that it really is THIS DAMN BAD for parents of children with dyslexia.

So while in my own personal life my child is 90% likely to go back to her fantastic private school (thank you God!) I cant help but think of all the children in my community (and throughout the country) who are 1. Not getting the teaching methods they need in school 2. Not really going to have too much opportunity outside of a school setting to get the teaching methods they need.

This is not okay.  I personally see our educational system as in a state of emergency until learning differences can start to be handled in such a way as a small fortune isn't required to get children what they need to learn to read. 

Our society is digging a very deep hole for itself.

Classism has got to go and so has No Child Left Behind.  The entire system of writing IEP's needs revamped and we are going to need boatloads of people who are able to teach adults to read one day if this country is ever to maintain it's position as a first world country.