“It is laughably easy to find 40 kids out of 500 who have SOME kind of problem.”
Exactly, and more often than not the diagnoses are BS- and done to allow the kid to get an IEP and special education, FOR WHICH the SCHOOLS receive federal funding. And in big cities, 8% of the population is still a LOT of people!
If you think every kid with an IEP has a legit special ed condition, well, i disagree. Lots of these diagnoses are complete BS.
Oh for pete's sake. 500 kids is about 25 classrooms and 8% is 40 kids. I can GUARANTEE that at least 1 kid in each class is going to struggle with reading. So, there are 25 kids eligible for IEP's right off the bat. You've got 15 left out of 475 kids. You add in the kids with physical or actual mental handicaps, Down's Syndrome, vision problems, hearing problems, speech impediments, problems with social skills, problems with motor skills and you are going way over 15 EASY, and I haven't even touched on kids with emotional problems.
8% is 8% no matter how big the population is, and chances are there are more than 8% of kids who legitimately need some kind of assistance, especially in elementary school because of reading problems.
If you think every kid with an IEP has a legit special ed condition, well, i disagree. Lots of these diagnoses are complete BS.
I NEVER said that every kid with an IEP has a legitimate problem. I have maintained that it is very likely that more than 8% of the school population will be eligible for an IEP thus making it a losing proposition for schools to make up problems in order to get more money.
There are any number of kids who could use help but don't get it because schools are overwhelmed with the IEP's they do have.
I beg to differ. In our small school of 400 kids, we have about 30 with IEPs. Every single one of them needs that IEP. It's not easy to test all these children...and there are multitudes of testing in different areas such as speech, psychology, occupational therapy, and Special Education Resource.
Of course there are those that try to take advantage of the system for some odd reason, but for the most part, these are children that really do need extra help to succeed in school instead of just being shuffled along.