Posted on 08/21/2007 4:07:00 PM PDT by shrinkermd
...The family of Alba Somoza, who has cerebral palsy and speaks only with the help of a computer, filed one such case. Alba drew national attention in the 1990s when her family successfully pushed to include the then-third grader in a regular classroom. Then-President Bill Clinton backed her cause, and Alba, now 23, graduated with honors from a New York City high school in 2002.
Last year, Alba and her family filed an administrative case claiming her education was a sham. A school report prepared weeks before she graduated showed she had language and math skills at an elementary school level, court records show. "You cannot shunt children through -- you cannot scam them through the system," says Alba's mother, Mary.
Since shortly after she graduated, New York has been paying for a special program for Alba that costs $400,000 a year -- including a full-time teacher, an aide, transportation and extensive technology. The city says it is doing so out of compassion, not legal obligation. The family is seeking to continue the public funding another year to help Alba receive enough education to work as a museum docent.
The Somozas lost the administrative case, but a judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled in the family's favor earlier this year and ordered another hearing. Rather than develop a program that would help Alba reach her academic goals, teachers lowered the curriculum's "level of difficulty" and removed "large and meaningful portions of its substantive content," the judge said. One teacher testified that he did most of the work on Alba's final project in 2002. New York officials say the school properly adapted the curriculum for a severely disabled student.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The problem here is the "blank slate" beliefs of many parents. They assume if you spend enough and try enough you can have a child who can graduate from HS. This is not the case.
IMHO, teachers and schools are unfairly burdened with faulty assumptions easily denied with proper IQ and other testing.
Parents with a severely handicapped child often deny the extent and severity of the disability. The emotional agony of knowing the limitations of their child are too much for them to handle. They then project their hopes onto institutions who can do little or nothing to truly ameliorate the child's condition.
I cannot help but wonder what the parents of the children in this article would have done if the schools had given their kids failing grades or suggested that they couldn’t keep up in regular classes. I suspect they would have raised hell and blamed the school.
“I suspect they would have raised hell and blamed the school.”
And, they would have won that legal case.
Sounds like there’s a lot of blame to go around, in every direction.
Perhaps her parents should have considered homeschooling (hint for Another Reason To Homeschool ping).
Allow me to present the iconoclastic position.
In order for the HS Diploma to actually mean anything, it has to be rigorous enough that NOT EVERYONE can pass or complete the program.
I had a parent last year insist that she wanted the accommodation of having all the material to be covered on each unit sent home at the beginning of the unit, including the homework, quizzes, tests, and final exam - of course all with answers. When we told her no she actually wrote a letter to the director of education in Virginia complaining that we were uncaring about her son and his needs. She also wrote Cong. Wolf, Sen. Warner, and Sen Webb, in addition to the local paper and the WaPo. In her letters she claimed that we refused to give her child an equal education.
We modified her request to a copy of notes, extra time on tests, and an extra copy of books at home. Apparently she makes this same request every year - I guess hoping someone will bite.
As a nation we need to move away from the notion that every child can and will attend college. There are many professions that do not require a college degree that allows one to be quite successful and earn a terrific living. I guess we are Lake Wobegon as a nation - all kids are above average
I was talking to a local kid a few months ago and he said that in the high school, the kids in the “Resource” programs ( read remedial education for slow learners) often got higher grades on exams than everyone else and that the TAs shouldn’t be cheating in making sure those kids get good grades. The regular students see what’s going on. He was pretty unhappy about it.
Good Lord. She's actually writing letters to officials complaining that the school won't let her and her son cheat?
In her letters she claimed that we refused to give her child an equal education.
It'd only be equal if you sent that home to every parent and at that point, why even bother teaching them; just hand out the A's and send them home.
AFTER she graduated, the govt started paying $400K a year for a special program for her?
Thanks for the pings. Truth is stranger than fiction. If I had to make up reasons to homeschool, I couldn’t come up with half of the things that you find that are really happening out there.
In Taiwan, they don’t try to make all public schools the same for all students. The school you attend is based primarily upon entrance exams.
The top-tier students are lumped together in the same school. The same is true for middle-tier, bottom-tier, and special education students. Separating the students based upon ability gives each school the opportunity to specialize. Top-tier schools would be primarily focused upon college preparation. Bottom-tier schools would focus on trade skills.
The competition to enter the best elementary, junior high, high school, and college is fierce. Some high school graduates would delay college just for another opportunity to be accepted at the top colleges if they didn’t make it the first time around. Many primary and secondary students go to private learning schools after regular school in an attempt to have a competitive advantage over other students.
I think the US sytems of lumping all the students together, regardless of ability, does not help to push any of them to excel.
You’re very welcome, and I’m happy to do it. I attended public schools and, in spite of a couple of good teachers, they really messed me up. And I’m far from the only person.
The word needs to be spread, and I think it has begun to take root.
Bad bang for the buck.
Plain stupid.
And as the highschool diploma transitioned from meritorious to a certificate of attendance, jobs that used to be available with a high school diploma now want a non-technical college degree to even get in the door for an interview.
The next big push is dumbing down college to a civil right as well. Free college for anyone with a pulse was a Dem plank in 2004.
Me, too.
That is a valid point. But more important is the instructional methods, both in teacher training and textbooks. The math books are particularly bad.
However, if you really want to get to the root of the problem, read the writings of John Taylor Gatto. He has published a history of American Public Education, and what it was really meant to do. And it was not about education as we would difine it.
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