I am a financially independent researcher. I work out of my home office in Spanaway, Washington. I work with other financially independent researchers, such as The Chain Reaction. The Executive Director, Katie Dolan, is one of the authors of PL 94.142 Education For All in the State of Washington, which led to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). I have a BA in American Studies from the University of Washington. While at the UW I concentrated mainly on the civil rights movement, which included the study of landmark legal cases that abolished the Jim Crow Law and segregation in public schools. I am currently working towards a Master's Degree in Secondary Education.
In 1994, my youngest son was born deaf and blind; he and his brother have been my inspiration. The lack of services provided my son with a disability made me question the public education system. My husband and I successfully sued several government agencies in order to uphold our son's right to receive a free appropriate public education. The case was settled and our son received a monetary payment from three of the four named defendants. Personally, I do not believe suing the government is the best option, however, in my son's case it was the only option. I filed 11 complaints with various government agencies and no real restitution was awarded, or was there any action taken against the agencies that failed to serve our son.
During that process, I became an expert in special education law. I have acted as an independent advocate for children with disabilities, and have never once charged a parent a fee for my services. I uncovered terrible acts of injustices done to children with severe disabilities. Throughout this work I realized that something terrible was going on within OSPI. During my investigative research of OSPI activities, I found that a high ranking employee, Ms. B.J. Wise, was running her personal business out of the agency, and using her position to give contracts to business associates and sponsor workshops relating to her publisher. The Executive Ethics Board found she had violated the law and fined her $15,000 and the publishing company she was working for agreed to pay an additional $20,000.
Since then, I have investigated the behavior of Bergeson, McCune, and Griffin. Their personal relationship with Carkhuff is the subject of the current ethics complaint. As a result of my investigation into the contracts given Carkhuff I stumbled on the real problem, the hidden agenda, and that is why I have developed this website. It is my hope that my research will help others to understand the truth about "education reform" and then be able to take action to save our public schools and rescue our children from the grips of these ill guided individuals.
This is just a brief overview of my work as an independent researcher. I have consciously chosen to remain financially independent to ensure that my research remains untainted.
Sincerely,
Nancy Vernon
