Frankly, I’d like to see a classroom environment that involves frequent massive electric shocks to the kids’ genital regions.
I foresee no particular benefit to the educational process, I’m just mean.
Maybe a better idea would be to change the law so that a) It’s harder to get an IEP. It does seem like a significent percentage of the kids on IEPs or who are in Resource Room are either kids who are in sped b/c there’s no where else for them (its a dumping ground) or Special Snowflakes who have an IEP so they can use things like untimed tests to get an edge into getting into Name Brand College. b) Ensure that the ONLY kids in the mainstream are the ones who can actually HANDLE it. Make it a requirement that kids have to “test in” to be allowed in “regular school minimal accomondations” style education. Send the rest of the kids to either residental schools or schools with formal established deaf and hard of hearing or blind/low vision or whatever disabilty programs.
Indeed, I’d suggest that video games and movies (and television) have something to do with the decline of our attention spans.
Then it stands to reason that statements such as Dangerosa’s are regional or local issues. I just don’t believe that her example is representative of education spending in general. Further, there is a tremendous variance in the methods states use to determine how special education is funded and how those funds are allocated. I won’t argue that there are serious problems with education spending, but I don’t see that reducing special education funding is the solution. At least not on its own. And you don’t just pull money away without a plan of action. I asked what the alternative was. Spend less on what exactly? How do you provide an education to special needs student without special needs resources?
That would make sense considering IEPs often require extra resources including specialized instruction by teachers with specialized skills, equipment and accommodations as well as individualized instruction. BTW, your quote here repeated my own figure:
I just rounded up. It’s still not 80%.
What significant percentage would that be? There are federal guidelines outlining eligibility requirements. The student not only must have a disability but it must be demonstrated that the disability has an adverse effect on the student’s education. If teachers and schools are abusing the use of IEPs, then the problem lies not with the program itself or funding of such, but with corruption or incompetence within the school system.
So, we should discriminate against disabled students and not provide them with a free and appropriate public education? Prior to 1975 when EHA was enacted, only one in five disabled children received instruction. Many of these “damaged goods” were actively denied an education. We should go back to that? Better that millions of children don’t get access to an education based on the fact that they are more trouble than they’re worth? Nice.
I have been a teacher for four years in Cameroon (high school) and China (college.)
What I have learned is that the American education system is actually a pretty darn good system. Of course there are some failures (who in other countries would simply not have the chance to get an education) but for the most part our students graduate with basic skills that will serve them in college or the workforce.
College bound students usually have basic background knowledge covering a wide field of knowledge, basic research skills, at least a good start in writing, familiarity with academic honesty, and good critical thinking skills. Work-force bound students often have vocational opportunities as well as the chance to get the basic background knowledge that we expect people in our society to have. Non-traditional students (disabled, parenting, etc.) have all kinds of options that don’t exist in most societies. Finally, most everyone gets the chance to explore their interests, develop a sense of self, learn to manage their time and participate in the working world through part time jobs, volunteer work, etc. Most high school grads are actually pretty independent and well-rounded people.
Really, there is no comparison to what I’ve experienced in other countries. I teach my college students on a middle-school maturity level because the Chinese system does not teach the sort of critical thinking and personal responsibility skills that we expect from people of that age. Don’t believe everything you hear on TV. America’s system really isn’t that bad.
That’s because, as you said, my 80% is a local issue.
BUT, its a legally mandated local issue. Its because my elementary school has some interesting issues. The majority of parents who can afford private school do - leaving a lot of of kids requiring intervention behind. We have a NCLB failing school (despite having a school that has aggregate scores above the state average) - so the school is putting a ton of effort into intervention in order to keep from being “reorganized.” Right now, some kids are getting five or six hours a day of just math instruction. (And, bless the teachers, they are working unpaid hours in the morning in intervention classes to add another hour to the day for these kids). We have a number of heavily special needs kids, some of them needing one on one attention every day- two or three full time sign language interpreters are working one on one with deaf students, there is a girl in my daughters class that spends several hours a week with a psychologist. A large Somali/Hmong and Latino population needing a large amount of ESL services.
Each one of these services is needed by the individual it serves - but the school has a limited budget - and once those services are funded (some of them legally mandated), you get left with large classroom sizes and the smarter and average kids being left to fend for themselves - there is simply no time or money left for them.
I like our school. Our teachers are dedicated. My higher ability kids manage to score well on standardized tests despite the lack of attention (we give them a lot of enrichment at home). And, since we aren’t Christian, we don’t have a lot of choice (ok, no choice) in private schools that wouldn’t create huge transportation hassles. And, because our kids do well, we aren’t eligible to move them out either - not without getting into that transportation issue.
Some of the other Moms and I have been talking about an evening group enrichment - “homeschooling” our kids after school to fill in some gaps that aren’t funded for our kids.
At a technology-for-educators conference I went to, my last session was just for fun: it was a teacher in rural NC who has started a World of Warcraft club at his school and was talking about its educational benefits. I won’t go into all those here, but he did say something intriguing. Computer games have gotten phenomenally good at holding students’ attentions for extended periods of time. Kids do have a great attention span when playing these games. Maybe instead of decrying their influence, we educators study what they’re doing to grab student attention and figure out if any of the lessons are transferable to education.
I don’t really know what would be transferable, but it’s an interesting idea. My students, for example, go to thrice-weekly sessions in the computer lab where they work on math and reading. Would they be more engaged by these lessons if they gained experience points and loot for answering questions correctly, and if occasionally a correct answer dropped rare loot?
Dangerosa, first off, I want to say that I respect your concerns. As a mother of two, one of whom is still in school, I can relate. It certainly does appear on the face of it, that funding reform is needed in your district.
However, I disagree with you that your school’s funding profile is legally mandated. They may be legally obligated to meet the special needs of the student as outlined in the IEP and meeting those obligations obviously costs money; but they are not legally mandated to spend X% of their budget meeting those obligations. I don’t doubt, based on your comments, that district suffers from a disparity between needs and available funding. But you can’t solve the problem by cutting funding alone. Doing that does not absolve the school of the obligation to meet the IEP requirements. They are going to have to find a way to meet those needs in a more economically feasible manner.
Generalization coming: In every school district there is waste. Any district that is as financially in trouble as one that spends 80% of its budget on 20% of its students must find a way to eliminate waste. Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, it’s challenging. But, no, that’s not likely to be sustainable. So, I have to admit that your school’s highly unusual (I’m guessing without any hard data) funding profile does indicate that reducing funding for disabled students is a sensible goal. But, with all due respect, they damn well better have a reasonable plan of action for meeting IEP requirements in spite of the reduction in resources that a funding cut will likely necessitate.
I would, however, reject the notion that a reduction in special education funding is a sensible goal for the federal government.
That’s just bribery. But that’s not what makes WoW and other computer games, so intriguing to kids. I agree with the teacher that kids can get some education in a game such as WoW, as well as some practical skills, like budgeting (managing her virtual money). Of the many benefits I can think of, my daughter (who started playing WoW at around 7) improved reading comprehension skills (instructions for quests), communication skills and working cooperatively with others (teaming up to complete tasks), hand-eye coordination, typing and mouse skills (sounds silly but apparently significant according to a resource lab teacher), troubleshooting computer minor program errors (my game is freezing, what do I do now?). I think her time playing WoW has tickled her creativity as she is now dabbling in computer art and graphics.
That being said, I still strongly believe games like this require moderation and most certainly supervision. It is all too easy to get sucked in to the point a child will ignore other opportunities for enrichment.
I find it very interesting that the word curiosity has not been used so far.
It looks more like the grade schools are designed to kill children’s curiosity and psychologically condition them to conform to AUTHORITY more than anything else.
But now we have netbooks and public domain science fiction.
All Day September, by Roger Kuykendall
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24161/24161-h/24161-h.htm
Science fiction made science more interesting than the teachers.
And there is this:
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
Are you sure we need schools anymore?
http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html
dt
Oh I know! Place them in a regular classroom and give them VERY minimal accomondations, (For example for a deaf kid give them preferential seating, speech therapy and an FM device, as well as token “help” in the resource room from teachers who do not know how to teach kids with classic disabilites) and claim that you’re within the law. That happened to me you know. (mainstreamed to the max deaf kid…not even the resources of a teacher of the deaf, and getting a notetaker was like pulling teeth!)
Yes, I am well aware of that. But misusing IEPs is pretty much akin to claiming your kid has "ADD just to get benifits. Misusing IEPs does happen quite a bit especially in wealthy achiver suburbs where parents can “diaganoses shop” It’s not a GIANT problem, no. But I actually even know of a case where two deaf kids were doing AWESOME with minimal accomondations (meaning honor roll, advanced classes etc. Really good for any kid in other words) But b/c they weren’t making straight A’s the mom was fighting the school district to provide a very special accomondation.
I would say that warehousing kids who are just in the resouce room b/c its a dumping ground is a worse problem.
What?!?! Where the heck did you get THAT? 
Kids with disabilties would still get a FAPE. What I mean is that we should get rid of the assumption that all kids with disabilites would be best served at their neighborhood school or under a “mainstream to the max” approach. They still could be served at public schools, especially ones with formal established sizable programs, and especially if they only needed mimimal accomondations to thrive. Also, this wouldn’t be for the bulk of kids with disabilties. Most kids served under special ed are learning disabled or ADD. This would be more for the kids with “classic” disablities such as hearing, vision etc. Besides, even if they are at a specialized school or in a formal sizable program, it’s still FAPE/LRE.
What I’m saying is that we need to be very careful about who gets mainstreamed. Besides parcipiation in a formal sizable program consolidates resources, so dhh or other classicly disabled kids can be served as a group rather then indivdually.
What you’ve listed here are special needs resources. The question I asked: How do you provide an education to special needs student without special needs resources?
I don’t have a problem with giving them minimal accommodations in a regular classroom so long as it meets the requirements of the IEP. That’s all some kids need. Others need more. If the school does not or cannot provide the resources necessary to meet IEP obligations they are falling outside of the law. There is some latitude here, given the fact that the IEP team that determines how best to accommodate the child is comprised of school officials, teachers, and specialists. They have a voice in determining what resources are guaranteed in the IEP. The IEP is a legally binding contract which requires the school to fulfill its obligations. If it is determined and listed in the IEP that the student will benefit from a note-taker for every lecture, they must provide one. Failing to adhere to the IEP can get a school in big trouble.
Again, not a problem with the system. More of a problem with abuse of the system. It’s going to happen regardless of how strict your system is. The only solution is to ferret out the abuse and punish the abusers. That’ll cost more money, of course.
From here:
I contend that the assumption is that the government has an obligation to provide an education to all children, regardless of their level of ability.
As far as mainstreaming disabled students goes, I feel it should be the default for children, just as it is for adults. Disabled students should be encouraged, at every opportunity, to function within the mainstream as it better prepares them for the real world, for lack of a better term. They have every right to not be marginalized and separated from their peers. It would be far more expensive and cumbersome to build separate schools to educate the disabled and separating them makes it easier to marginalize them, just as it does with the impoverished.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here that’s different than what’s already going on, except that there’s a tremendous variance among schools as to how large, resource-wise, their special needs programs are. Are you suggesting that only certain schools should offer special needs programs and students from schools without them get shipped over to the ones that do? But not all students, just the students that are physically impaired? Would you mind clarifying?
I understand the value in consolidation of resources and to an extent, I believe this is already happening, but what’s the feasibility of bussing individual students around town to a centralized physically-disabled accommodating school?
But once they meet their obligations, they have used X% of the budget. There is no more money. And the amount of money available in our district has been decreasing. State funding has been radically cut. Property taxes, which provide the bulk of funding, took a hit along with property values - plus the number of unoccupied/foreclosed homes on which taxes are difficult to get. If funding where limitless, I wouldn’t have an issue. But funding isn’t and meeting the IEPs are killing us. There has to be a better way.
(And the school has suggested we get ADD diagnosis for our kids - particularly our daughter, so they can get IEPs and the school will need to give her attention).