Posted on 09/14/2009 7:53:46 AM PDT by NMEwithin
Officially reported disability rates in public schools are entirely unreliable and are almost certainly inflated indicators of how many students are actually disabled. Eventually, school and government officials are going to have to acknowledge that our current procedures for identifying students as disabled are fundamentally flawed and commit themselves to improving these procedures. One of the reasons we know that reported disability rates lack credibility is that they vary dramatically from state to state. In New Jersey, for example, 18 percent of all students are classified as disabled, but in California the rate is only 10.5 percent. There is no medical reason why students in New Jersey should be 71 percent more likely to be placed into special education than students in California. Consider also how rapidly special education has grown over the last three decades. Today almost one in seven students is classified as having a disability. That’s 63 percent more than when federal programs for special education began in 1976. Do we really believe that our children’s medical well-being has deteriorated so severely over the last three decades?
What is especially odd is that almost all the growth in special education over the last three decades has occurred in just two of the 13 federal categories for disabilities: specific learning disability (SLD, which includes dyslexia) and “other health” (which includes attention-deficit disorders — ADD). The size of the remaining eleven federal categories combined has remained relatively flat, while SLD has tripled and “other health” has quadrupled...
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
I didn’t know you were sick!
After the member of the school committee was caught with his hand in the till, he moved to California. The state board of education found nothing wrong with the situation.
Oh, but I forget, we live in Massghanistan!
The skewls can’t tell a dunce from a genius with physical coordination problems.
At least the problem is with Special Ed and not with Special K!
Special ed is a lose-lose proposition for teachers: if they treat the special kid differently from the rest, they are discriminating. If they treat them the same, then they aren’t providing the extra attention the parents of the specials demand.
We have a friend who works in special ed in Oregon.....someone needs to do an undercover study of it....he says they get $6000 per head per MONTH....whenever he asks for ANYTHING for the classroom.....it’s there, PRONTO!
Put them all on the short bus.
My wife is a teacher in a public school.
Now that special ed kids have to be mainstreamed in the classrooms, she spends (some days) 80 percent of her time dealing with little Johnny while ignoring the needs of the other 20 kids in her room.
Ain’t that wonderful??? (/sarc)
When every problem is a desease, there is no incentive to make anyone responsible. We continue to drift deeper into a hole from which we will be unable to dig ourselves out. It is Obama's America.
Follow the money.
As usual, follow the money. Stop rewarding schools for identifying kids as disabled with tax dollars and you would see the rate decrease considerably.
My experience exactly. I had classes that contained large numbers of kids with IEPs (individualized education programs) which meant I had to teach them differently and make sure all my i’s were dotted and my t’s crossed—even tho what they asked me to do was often not possible. I also had substantial numbers of non-English speakers, who I could not fail based on their inability to speak/read in English (and no, I do not speak anything but English). I felt sorry for the average everyday kid who I was unable to give much individual attention to. The ADA has done a great deal to destroy America’s public school system.
You beat me to it, but you’re 100% right.
Actually, another fast growing category is Autism. The rates for Autism have grown at a faster rate than all other categories including SLD and OHI. In California the percentage of disabled children in public schools has been given an arbitrary calculation of 10.5% across the board and without regard to what school district is being discussed. My district is way above this percentage, and receiving pressure from the state to reducue our numbers.
Seems to me to be a ‘Duh!’ moment, to follow the money. Hell’s bells, if there were enough money in it, the pulbic skrewels would pronounce EVERY kid ‘disabled’, and have a go at doping up all of them.
It costs more to have 6 kids in a class as oppossed to 20-25 in a class. Most Sp. Ed. classes have an aide in the class as well.
Who demanded all the special programs?..parents! Then they want their kids in regular classes so they can disrupt regular classrooms. Plus, they are "entitled" to every kind of therapy in the book...whether or not it's beneficial.
In many cases it's the squeaking wheel getting the grease.
ANYone making an argument along the lines of ‘’I’m entitled to X at your expense’’ gets nothing but the bird from me.
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