Peter DeWitt, an elementary school principal in upstate New York, tells a shocking story here.
New York requires students with disabilities to take grade level tests that are far beyond their ability. Some children who literally cannot read are expected to take the same tests as other students of their age.
What purpose does it serve to put these children through this ordeal?
I think of two ways to characterize this behavior on the part of officials: either “educational malpractice” or “child abuse.”
Here is Peter DeWitt’s account:
“Most Special Education Students Couldn’t Read the State ELA Exam
Our special education students had a major issue last week. They couldn’t read the 3rd-5th grade NY State ELA exams they were supposed to complete. The tests are written FAR above the level that most can understand. Our most proficient fifth grade special education students with a Lexile level of 400 had to take an exam with a Lexile level of 700.
Students sat with rigid fists, tears and frustration. Their teachers tried to alleviate their anxiety, although all of this frustration would end up with a 1 or a 2 at best. How couldn’t it? They couldn’t read the exam.
All of this could be equated to taking an exam in a foreign language they have never learned. It had vocabulary they have never seen. They couldn’t sound out the words, and could not ask for help from their teachers. Some of my students could not get past the second word on the 3rd grade exam, which was Tarantula. A few students put their pencils down and wouldn’t budge. Imagine what it must feel like to not be able to read the 2nd word on a 70 minute exam.
Accommodations That Lack Common Sense
Students are classified as special education for numerous reasons (i.e. OHI, LD, etc). Where assessments are concerned, states offer accommodations. In the logic of state education departments, there are students who qualify for time and ½ or double-time so they can take their time through each passage or question. In some cases students are allowed directions read, scribe or passages read. However, some of these accommodations were not allowed for students because the ELA exam is about what students comprehend, and allowing an adult to read it would not give the evaluators a true measure of what students comprehend.
In an interview for the School Administrators Association of N.Y. State (SAANYS) that I did with Commissioner John King, I asked about sending students in to take an exam that they cannot read. Dr. King replied that they require special education students to take on-grade level assessments so the state education department can, “Avoid the scenario where schools essentially are absolved from responsibility for a whole set of students.”
Unfortunately, this is another aspect to accountability. In an effort to make sure that schools do not hide low-performing students under a special education classification so they can boost overall test scores, schools are being forced to make sure that all students take on-grade level exams, even if they cannot read it.
It seems like educational malpractice to force students to sit down and try to take an exam that they cannot possibly read. These students, who in many cases suffer from low self-esteem because of their academic challenges, feel even worse when they sit down to take an exam they can’t read. So they sit there for two hours if they get time and ½ and over 3 hours if they receive double time. In some cases, these students have to eat lunch aside from their general education peers because they missed their original lunch due to their “accommodations.”
What’s worse, is that on the second day of the ELA exam there were two booklets, which had two sets of directions. Given that not all students will finish the first booklet at the same exact time, the directions for both booklets had to be read before both booklets could be completed. This requires students to remember directions for book two that were read 30 to 40 minutes prior to when they opened the booklet.
If you have ever spent time with students between the ages of 8 and 11 you understand that students cannot be read directions for two booklets and be expected to remember those directions 40 minutes later after they finish one section of an exam. We had students put their pencils down and sit there feeling defeated.
True Assessments
The truth is that our special education teachers are some of our most gifted assessors of student progress. They write IEP’s that reflect what a student knows and what a student needs to know the next year. They progress monitor weekly or bi-weekly to make sure their lessons meets the needs of the diverse learning that special education students have.
Special education teachers find value in assessing student progress. Whether it’s through formative assessment or summative assessment, special education teachers assess students with dignity.
The point is for them to use data to drive instruction, not to use it for accountability. In the words of Jonathan Cohen from the National School Climate Center, “Data is being used as a hammer and not as a flashlight,” and the state education department doesn’t seem to care about the social-emotional state of students as they use their hammer.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We are in a sorry state when those who know absolutely NOTHING about children and how they learn tell us how to teach and assess them. As parents and teachers we need to insist that what we do for our children (warning: forbidden words to follow) is developmentally appropriate for them.
I put an equally disturbing scenario in my blog yesterday which tells of how the DOE plans to bully–especially high needs parents into making sure their kids take the test. It tells how a principal, DOE lawyer and Network special education administrator handled a high needs parent who wanted her disable student to refuse the assessment. You can read the full text at my blogpost.
It’ s part and parcel of FCAT testing…there have been numerous stories of kids who are highly brain damaged expected to take the exam by grunting what they think the right answer is. It is absolutely disgusting.
My daughter asked her good friend at school how she handled the standardized tests since she was dyslexic. “Can you read them?” she asked her. “Oh no, I can’t,” her friend answered. “But I don’t care. They don’t matter.” Her attitude is great given what she’s asked to do year after year many times per year, all the while being incapable of doing so.
My comments here rlratto.wordpress.com Hell week and the terror continues
http://rlratto.wordpress.com/
“All of those responsible, sit in their offices, stand at their podiums, and spout their BS. yet, none of them sat with a room of children and really looked into their souls and reflected on the damage they have done.”
I agree, damage is what they do.
How is this not a violation of IDEA? An IEP – and for that matter a 504 plan – are legal documents of rights to which a student is entitled. Somehow I can hear those lawyers whose practice is focused on Special Education rubbing their hands with glee over the windfalls they are about to obtain.
I have had students in my classes whose IEPs call for various accommodations (such as fewer answer choices in multiple choice items, being able to have assistance in editing written work before it’s graded, chunking, etc. — very few if any mainstreamed students are completely unable to read the test). Because I follow the IEP (and the law), the student does well in my class.
Then comes the state test. I ask the SPED liaison if the student is going to have the same accommodations during testing, and often the answer is “no, the state doesn’t list that as a possible accommodation.” So, the comparison of her grades in my class with her “achievement of the standards” on the test shows a great discrepancy, leading to the perception that I am not “teaching to the standards.” The student, as an above poster pointed out, knows the test results “don’t matter”– to her. Administrators, legislators, school board members, and the public are, of course. another matter.
Well, Peter D. when you make assertions such as “. . . would not give the evaluators a true measure of what students comprehend.” it shows a complete lack of understanding that these tests measure absolutely nothing other than perhaps a student’s abilitly to take a standardized test. The teaching and learning process, belonging to the realm of aesthetics/quality cannot logically be quantified or “measured”. The sooner you realize that the game you are playing is a false one and causes harm not only the IEP and ESL students but all students the sooner you will be able to get at the rotten root cause of this testing madness and begin to truly do right by your students. But I hold not my breath because more likely than not you know who butters your bread and therefore will not bite the hand that feeds you.
Read Noel Wilson’s work concerning the total invalidity that is the educational standard and standardized testing regime. See his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 .
Sorry Duane but I disagree. I believe that the writing and speaking out that I do “bites the hand that feeds me.” When I said, “would not give the evaluators a true measure of what students comprehend,” I was referring to a rule by the state. Not my rule.
Thanks for your comment.
Peter,
I understand that administrators are under enormous pressure to conform. However that does not absolve them from the harms that are being caused by these educational malpractices. I have started to directly confront all (teachers and administrators) in a more personal manner because I believe that too many for far too long have “gone along to get along” all the while the students are being educationally harmed and, “that ain’t right”. (And, even though certified to be an administrator in 1998, I chose to stay in the classroom because I knew I couldn’t be a part if this current insanity.) I want all to delve into their own personal beliefs and ethics and see if what they are doing can be “squared” with those beliefs and ethics.
Since (notice I didn’t say if) the standards and tests are completely invalid as per Wilson, what justification can one make to not fight against this beast of educational malpractice and ethical compromise?
I cannot fathom any. If you have any let me please let us know.
Have you read Wilson? If not please read the above referenced study along with his take down of the educational testing bible: “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” to be found at: http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5.pdf
Duane
Hi Duane,
What grade do you teach and where? I scanned the Wilson document. Thank you for sending it but I don’t need to read a report to take issue with the validity of the tests I wrote about.
I understand that you would like to call out administrators like me, but I would prefer to spend my energy working with staff and others to fight testing and accountability on steroids and avoid infighting.
sorry Mr Swacker, but you obviously dont know Peter D and did not read this carefully enough..he bites ANY hand that feeds the machine that force feeds our children regardless of their individual needs and we are so thankful he does!!
Isn’t this the definition of a double cross?
The DoE gives 46 states an NCLB waiver.
Then the DoE allows the most ridiculously difficult tests to be given to Special Needs children.
THINK ABOUT THE MEANING OF THE WORDS!! CHILD ABUSE! EDUCATION MALPRACTICE! ENOUGH! IS ENOUGH!!!!!! The Press of Atlantic City (NJ) today
has a letter to the editor for the public to read and understand that the children, most especially Learning Disabled and Challenged Learners are under attack by the very mandated education system they have to go to each day thinking they are there
to learn and grow for the hope of their futures. Children stepping into an education
test laced trapped anxiety pit of pain!!!! This is not understated and not isolated to any one state or country.
The writer of the letter states “The teacher will face possible dismissal because of the way the new laws are set up. Evaluations are based on student test results. This method might work well when selling products. but it dosesn’t work at all when dealing with humans.”
The watering down and ignoring of special education mandates and services is absolutely being attacked with, in most cases, impunity. Most parents could not sustain a Due Process case. Part of the mean spiritedness of these past years has been the pitting of parent against parent. When dollars get tight the charitable attitude of some becomes a harsh resentment and a silent agreement to take back or redirect dollars to those that are believed to be the best and brightest or where the dollar can produce (in the minds of the intellectual elite) the best return from the value added student. Corporations and government are in a race to the top with other countries and to the dollar.
The architects of the education reforms think special education is charity and do not grasp or embrace an understanding that this is not charity but about civil rights for a level education playing field for the learning disabled of any severity. This becomes lost in their quest for wealth and power. Worse!! Using these students through a vicious test related torture of these same students to break apart the public school system is reprehensible. The architects of these education reforms are misguided and deliberate in their attacks on children and are so far below the standard of decency Americans hold themselves to that they should be ashamed!!!!
Unfortunately, Diane, you cannot shame a shameless person, you can only drive them back under the rock they came from.
As sick as this practice is, it would still be interesting to see how a student who truly cannot read scores.
This is not best practice; this is child abuse.
My fourteen year old granddaughter, an honor roll student who works very, very hard, is well-loved and respected by students and teachers, has earned a bi-county award for doing the right thing, has assisted her dance teacher for two years, struggled through three hours of testing each day of tests last week and still could not finish tests. Yes, she was given extra time to be tortured but not the one thing needed most–a reader for the test, directions, questions, answers. Worse than being tortured for three hours, no accommodations were made for scheduling so she missed math, science and chorus–the bright spot of her day!! And now she is sick, a respiratory virus that will obviously affect her stamina as she she struggles through this second week of testing. What in hell are we doing to our children?!?!?!
Dorothy, please tell your granddaughter and her mom that they can REFUSE to be a part of this abusive test. They are meaningless and NO reflection of her humanity! Do not let these tests define who she is!!
OK… I’m going to try to write this without sounding too sarcastic… but the counter argument the corporate-types and Bush-types bring out is that if we don’t hold these kids accountable in school we are using the “soft-bigotry of low expectations” to discriminate against them… by making this into a faux civil rights issue the corporate-types and Bush-types have undermined the “child abuse” charges… oh, and if you look at the schools that are failing, many of them are rated as failing based on the performance of special needs children or other small sub-populations whose scores are disaggregated to make sure that schools are not short-changing them…
Well stated, wgersen! I would add that this is really the flat-out bigotry of NO expectations, as these “standardized” tests–neither valid nor reliable–themselves are a fraud. Pearson doesn’t want anyone to read their tests because they are fraught with mistakes
(whereby THEY–Pearson–have created “the soft bigotry of low expectations” by assuming our kids are too dumb NOT to notice these ridiculous test ??? {see great example, below, as cited by tuppercooks!}). Yet our taxpayer $$$$ continue to go to Pearson rather than to the direct education (more social workers, smaller class sizes) of American children.
Congratulations to high school students who are walking out of the tests (New Jersey, Chicago). Congratulations to parents opting out.
It’s the only way to stop the madness.
This really highlights our fundamental problem. Administrators and bureaucrats have lost all faith in teachers to do their job (that THEY are qualified to do!). So they have created this nonsense that is punishing to our children, provides absolutely no useful information to anybody, and costs money and time that actually contribute to destroying the teacher’s efforts to educate our children.
It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic!
I’ve agreed with many comments and most of yours Al. However, be careful saying “administrators” as a general term. Many principals in New York signed a letter against the use state’s policies (APPR in specific). I think many administrators also feel the shame, pain, and frustration that teachers do. Some don’t, and some are just clueless, like John King. Bureaucrats never had faith, they think of teachers as glorified baby sitters, I’m sure.
You are absolutely correct, stevenmccf99. And it is a great feeling as an instructor to find out that your Administrator has got your back in this testing trench warfare. It is also a very lonly feeling to discover you are on your own when you stand up for the kids. What we need is to find some more school superintendents and school boards willing to stand and be counted aganist all of this testing insanity.
John King’s tough love for special education kids. John King is a sick man.
Does anyone know how much these tests cost, and the breakdown for costs per test for Special Ed children?
The folly of this whole exercise is the notion that it takes three days and four booklets to determine a reliable sorting between 1- 4 unless the purpose is to throw as many obstacles at the students so as to yield very few passing scores. The first rule of testing validity is that a test should test what it purports to test. These test seem to throw all kinds of other variables, not least among them physical endurance.
@Al Tate- 34 million dollars in NY for Pearson to develop the tests. Not sure if that’s a one time payout or annually.
As for special needs kids, it’s been this way for a long time in NY state. My wife is a TA for a 4th grader who reads at a 1st-2nd grade level. He gave it a a go for the 1st two reading passages on Part 1 (out of 6 passages), then shut down for the remainder of part 1 and parts 2 and 3 on the next 2 days.
If it’s not criminal to do this to kids, then it’s incredibly insensitive and shows a lack opf understanding as to what and how kids learn when they have disabilities.
It is glaringly evident that Commissioner King hasn’t spent too many minutes in the classroom, and if he has he must have been sleeping.
Perhaps the solution is to allow some students with IEPs out of taking the exams.
Obviously. Would you please call John and request that please? Gracias!
Here’s another bittersweet true story from last years test. The student was a male, severely autistic 8th grader, when he got to the Talking Pineapple question being a very literal young man, he read it, threw his papers, stormed out of the room while yellling, Pineapples can’t f&*^ing talk!”
Obviously this is a glaring example of abuse.
Nice.
A lesser known fact is that the talking pineapple is actually a metaphor for Arne Duncan. This year’s test will feature the duplicitous mango, aka M. Rhee.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Teachers bend over backwards to accomodate children with special needs. They demonstrate patience, understanding, and compassion each and every day, no matter how trying the day or a given student. The kids feel safe and protected. That is, until the six days of testing. The kids don’t understand why their teachers turn suddenly into uncaring, uncommunicating adults. Humanity and assistance are mandated to disappear, once teachers begin reading from their instruction manual. Yes, I agree, in the eyes of the children and in the eyes of caring adults, this is at least educational malpractice, if not abuse or neglect.
Shame on John KIng. Shame on all supporting him.
New York is not the only state that requires students with disabilities to take grade level state tests. Most do. And…I’m sure most of you have read that piece in The Answer Sheet about the severely disabled young man in Florida (there is a heartbreaking video, as well) who had to take the FCATs. As a special ed. teacher, I had to give state assessments for a number of years to students who: cried; hid under the desk; fell asleep; colored the Scantron sheet bubbles with the highlighting pens; had ADHD & no meds. and filled in any bubble at all, being finished in 5 minutes; threw the No.2 pencils into the ceiling, where they’d stick; whined & moaned; filled in the bubbles, then connected them all; declared,”I’m stupid!” then put their heads on their desks, refusing to finish…and on and on, ad nauseum.
Special ed. lawyers reading this post, TAKE ACTION NOW!
This is a senseless tragedy. This cannot be by accident. No one is that stupid. Do not forget that this is some of the results of RTI. By using the RTI law I can inter-fund transfer up to about 60% of the catagorical state and federal special education funds into the general fund to use for anything other than special education and never lose the funding and not have to keep good records. It is in the law. I explain it on You Tube. The other code word is “FLEXIBILITY.” Cute, isn’t it. More of that “Orwellian Doublespeak.” All carefully worked out by experts in psychological warfare. That is how this entire game is being fought from their side and by only a few knowledgeably doing it on the other side. De Facto they have been winning.
“Accommodations That Lack Common Sense”
My heart breaks for the neediest students.
They are looking for someone to stand up for them.
Teachers, it has to be us.
This is what happens when political expediency is top priority in the job search. What do you expect from a guy who couldnt even meet the minimum qualification of 5 years in a classroom. He hid in charters for 3 and played minor domo to Steiner to get the job. No backbone, no heart, just a rubber stamp for corporate ed reformers. He needs to resign now.
Bravo! We teachers who work with children with special needs have been saying this for quite a while. Explain to me why a student with Down Syndrome has to take the test. If you have to evaluate these children, you’re paying the house and the kitchen sink to Pearson, so have them come up with something, since you don’t trust the teachers to do it.
By the time students have reached my fifth/sixth grade special education class, they have been psychologically battered already. I spend the entire year trying to shore up their self esteem by providing individualized instruction (as per their IEPs), encouragement and the opportunity to feel competent. These kids are FRAGILE! One of the saddest things I have experienced in the last week was a comment made by a student who feels that math is his area of strength. He has achieved a great deal of success this year. Sadly, none of that progress will be measured by this week’s math test. He knew the ELA test was difficult, but this week will be different. “Math is easy for me!” It was all I could do to keep from crying. Lamb to the slaughter…
Can I also highlight the fact that English Language Learners who have been in the country for a YEAR also have to take the test. I have a student who is educated in his home country and really cares about school. He came in mid-April last year. We assumed he didn’t have to take the exam because he had been here less than a year. The Thursday before testing I was told he had to take the exam — and he did. Far, far beyond his reading level, as is expected. Now he has to sit through the math exam and the NYSESLAT instead of practicing his oral and written English.
We have a similar situation at our school, but we are talking about one student, but about 70 high school English learners, refugees from Burma, Bhutan/Nepal, and Somalia. Many have limited formal education in their first language, some NONE. Most are reading at lexiles well under 500, yet they had to sit through Reading, Writing, and Math tests which many native speakers of English, fully educated in the United States, have difficulty passing. I would dearly love to give our legislators and officials sit down for three hours with an exam in Nepali, Karen, Burmese, or even Somali (it is written in the Roman alphabet, unlike the other languages) and see how they fare.
I’m a special ed. teacher, and I have found that some administrators, even special ed. administrators, really do not accept the fact that special ed. kids have disabilities. Too many just assume that, if they only tried harder, they would achieve at the same level as regular ed. kids.
These administrators have master’s degrees. They have had elementary classes in assessment. Unfortunately, they do not believe in the concepts of validity, reliability, or the bell curve.
Some of my students have overcome their disabilities to the extent that they can pass state tests. God bless them. We celebrate this.
But, if they keep that up, we will say that they are no longer in special ed., and make room for the next batch that needs help.
I don’t understand how allowing students to take exams that actually measure their performance and academic growth accurately absolves schools from any responsibility for educating these students. It’s not very difficult to note that a 6th grade student is taking a 3rd grade exam. It’s still pretty obvious, in that case, that the student isn’t performing up to standards. At least when a student takes an exam and experiences some success we can continue to build on it, rather than picking up the broken pieces of their self esteem for the next month.
Where’s a 6th grader taking a 3rd grade exam? I haven’t heard about this before.
Sorry. I wasn’t very clear. That isn’t actually happening anywhere, but it should. If a 6th grader reads at a 2nd or 3rd grade level it maks a lot more sense to have him/her take the 3rd grade exam in order to accurately assess what he/she knows and how much he/she has grown. Commissioner King has said that this practice can’t take place because it somehow absolves schools from providing an education to these students. I’m merely arguing that that is not true. It is just as easy to see that students are not performing up to standard (and thereby hold schools accountable) when they take a lower grade level exam and demonstrate some modicum of success as it is for those same students to take an exam at their grade level and utterly fail. In fact, I believe that the former scenario actually provides more useful data about the student AND allows the student to maintain his/her dignity.
How should a sixth grader who reads on a ninth or tenth grade level be tested?
I think if you want to get useful data for teaching then you should be testing high achievers near the level at which they are performing as well. This can be tricky due to the maturity level of some texts written at higher difficulty levels. It might make more sense for the state to commission “high achiever” tests for students who are exceeding standards.
The real problem is with the idea that ALL students in 6th grade across the country should perform within an arbitrary range of proficiency on ALL of the same skills. We like to talk about differentiated instruction and individualized education plans, but then we force everyone to take tests based on their age/grade level rather than their current level of performance. Where is the sense in that? How are we showing that we value uniqueness, individual learning styles, and differing points of view? If we really MUST go forward with standardized testing, then we need to tie it to our students’ abilities and NOT their grade level or chronological age. I’m just spitballing now, but maybe the tests should be labeled by skills and content knowledge to be tested rather than grade level.
I agree that tracking by age is a concern and does not treat each student as the individual that they are. It is also going to be more subject to manipulation by parents. There are clear advantages to “redshirting” children so they can be older for their grade.
What exactly is the advantage to “redshirting”? If we set standards for kids to meet before they can graduate, when they meet those standards, regardless of their age, they can move on to whatever comes next in their life; college, internships, vocational school, self-directed study, whatever. What advantage is there to being older than the other kids who are working on the same skills as you?
Here is a link to the results from research in the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21579484
1) This is journalism, NOT research. 2) The educational research that is alluded to compares students relative age within a given grade-level. If we eliminate the idea of grade and teach and test based on students’ developmental state (i.e. – what do they know and what are they ready to learn, aka their Zone of Proximal Development) then this phenomenon will disappear. There will be 9 year-olds and 14 year-olds doing what is now considered 6th grade work. There is no “grade” or “class” placement for parents to manipulate. It is purely student achievement that determines what is taught next, and whether they are ready to graduate.
Perhaps research is research. Here is the link in the article: http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/digitalAssets/169664_Cambridge_Lit_Review_Birthdate_d3.pdf
I saw that. It compares the relative age of students (i.e. birth month) WITHIN a grade level. See my previous reply for why that is irrelevant.
I certainly agree that age and ability are very very different things. I have sent students through high school with significant learning disabilities who graduated with limited academic abilities and students who have graduated high school having taken Ph.D. level courses.
I’m glad we can agree. It is very frustrating to be mandated to teach to individual learning styles, do all the paperwork and data collection for IEP’s, and differentiate my instruction for each of my students and then force them all to be the square peg in the round hole.
Duplicitous. Hypocritical. These are the words that best describe education policy in NYS.
Edd,
You seem to understand an issue that eludes almost everyone. The concept of Reading on Grade level needs to be analyzed and flushed out.
Current policies seek to create ghost distributions with all children above the mean!
I sm glad someone is standing up for students. It crrysinly is NOT Commisioner King!
Every spring, the Philadelphia public school students take the standardized tests, or PSSAs. (Starting in 2013, the district has switched to a different test called the Keystone Exams.) These tests are a huge part of how schools are evaluated and rated. It is from these scores that Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) is determined. There is a big push to prepare the eleventh graders for the tests from the beginning of the year to test day, usually after the first of the year. This particular year at Vaux, the students took the test over a course of several days. They were divided into several different classrooms for three to four hours in the morning, with two teacher proctors per room. All eleventh graders take the test, even the SPED students. Schools across the country take statewide tests very seriously, because of the implications that they present. In the five high schools where I have taught, there has been a common atmosphere at test time: the school is quiet and rules must be strictly enforced. In the classroom that I proctored at Vaux, it was sometimes a challenge to maintain the serious atmosphere.
There were five students in the room I proctored. Four were SPED students. One was MMR, and read at first grade level. He was given the same test. After a few minutes, he put his head down, because he did not understand the reading. Teachers are not allowed to help, only to say, “Do the best you can.” He didn’t even bother to ask.
Takierrah and Courtney were working on their tests, until Courtney looked up and caught Takierrah looking at her.
“Stop looking at me!”
“You’re ugly, I will fuck you up.” “I can’t stand your black ass.” “You’re black too!”
“No, I’m light-skinned.”
“You’re still ugly.”
“I’m cuter than you.”
“Get outta my face.”
“I’m not in your face, because if I was, I would fuck you up.”
They did manage to settle down without a physical confrontation,
but this scene made a huge impression on me. These tests would be used to evaluate the progress of our school. They were obviously way above the level of comprehension level of the Special Education students, yet the students were not given any accommodations at all. When I asked an administrator about this, she just shrugged, “That’s just the way it is.”
From the book, “Passed On: Public School Children in Failing American Schools”
by Louise Marr. Chapter 3: No Longer a Special Education
This is criminal. It’s really, really ugly and heart-wrenching.
I am often asked to proctor extended time testing on our all-too-frequent assessment days (quarterly interims, ACTs, PSAEs, practice for all of the above, etc.). I have been told it’s because I “get it” by our very talented, also very frustrated, special education team. By “get it,” they mean that, as a traditionally-certified teacher (in a charter network which favors TFAers) who attended an actual school of education, I have taken a few required classes on student learning differences and understand that not all kids can be lumped into a mediocre average and expected to achieve the same baseline level of understanding given “optimal input” and prison-like management. My husband works in mental health, so I am also inappropriately (illegally) consulted on student psychological issues far outside my job as a Latin teacher. It amazes me how clueless, or maybe worse, how careless, our schools have become with these students. Our school has an AMAZING special education team, yet they are ignored, forgotten about, and not consulted when it comes to the students they know best. Many have left or are leaving to take their talent elsewhere, and who could blame them?
When I proctored my first extended time interim (a totally unnecessary in-network assessment incentivized by bonuses for both students and teachers whose scores compete with other schools in our network), I was shocked and appalled at what we do to our kids who already struggle to stay focused on one narrow task and sit still in their normal 45-minute class periods. We put them all in a room together, and make them sit still and silent for four hours. It was miserable for me, and I can only imagine how miserable it was for them. One student managed to pull a dollar bill out of his pocket, and studied it intently for a good 10 or 15 minutes during his math exam, no doubt running out of time when it came to actually completing the test. Knowing this student, I’m sure something in his exam inspired some spark of curiosity that he couldn’t ignore. This type of exploration might have been acknowledged positively, could have lent itself to a “teachable moment” to help students see some cross-curricular connections between printed money and history or culture (I’m going to pretend he was reading the Latin). But instead, I was expected to silently discipline the student after the test for not “focusing hard enough” on his pointless, soulless, disconnected interim exam.
I hate where we are headed. I hate how little schools are allowed to appreciate real, connected learning, curiosity, and critical thinking. I hate to see brilliance stifled by enforced mediocrity. I feel so lucky to have attended schools before this wave of “reform,” but heartbroken for so many of my students who trust their futures to a system that is ultimately failing to help them reach their human potential, because being human is too messy, too hard to assign convenient numerical values to, and apparently undesirable to our policymakers and their corporate sponsors.
Someone wrote earlier about special ed. lawyers. I would like to know whatever happened to sp.ed.organizations such as C.E.C. (Council for Exceptional Children), and L.D.A. (Learning Disabilities Ass’n.) and the National Council for Learning Disabilities (N.C.L.D.) I belong to two out of those three organizations–have for years–and I thought that a large portion of the mission was advocacy for special ed. students (and parents). I was absolutely appalled, today, when I received & read the latest copy of the C.E.C. magazine, Teaching Exceptional Children, and finding–on the first page–a big thank you “to the following organizations for their generous contributions throughout the year and for the CEC 2013 Convention & Expo…Pear$on!” (Other companies, as well, but none too ominous to mention here.)
Imagine, Pear$on, the company that make$ its $$$ OFF the misery of our special education students! Pear$on, the company that actually TAKE$ $$$ AWAY from our special education students and programs. Come on, C.E.C., what insignificant proportion of $$$ do you receive from Pear$on in comparison to the billions of dollars our states are spending on their test prep materials and tests…all the while these same states are cutting their programs, in order to pay…Pear$on?!
And, N.C.L.D. isn’t much better in the fact that they have made the statement that for L.D. students NOT to take the tests is to “dumb-down” curriculum for said students.
Same to you, N.C.L.D.–your organization, of all, should know that one size definitely does not fit all, the purpose of the I.E.P. is INDIVIDUALIZED Education Plan, and that not ALL students with Learning Disabilities should take the tests.
That having been said, special education organizations, when are you going to STOP having “conversations with Arne,” and START advocating for the very populations for which you are named? Our students need your help, their parents have been asking for it (in this or other blogs, I have read parents’ comments, “Where are our special education organizations in all this?”) and our good, caring, hardworking highly trained, experienced and qualified special education teachers will be losing their jobs (if they haven’t already lost them) because everyone knows a child tested at 7th grade level who reads at fourth grade level does NOT pass the Reading Comprehension testing.
(Even the highly esteemed New Trier High School hasn’t made A.Y.P. in–what?–2 or three years. Why? Because of their special education subgroup scores.)
But–I digress–C.E.C., L.D.A. and N.C.L.D.–and any other special ed. organizations out there that I left out–you KNOW what you must do for the children. Do it NOW!
So….. I ask…. when does all this inappropriate testing become child abuse?
I get the impression Only teachers and educators know about children…Children with disabilities represent a large group. My son and other children are part of that group. My biggest peeve was scaffolding built by lowering the bar among Sp Ed teachers. These children can take tests and pass them if receive accommodations based on their disabilities. I see nothing wrong with testing. Teachers administer test all the time with students complaining about the relevance, many students do poorly. Aren’t high stakes testing designed by your scholarly educators and peers? Why should students refuse to take national high stakes testing but be forced to take local high stakes testing prepared by local teachers in the classrooms? Should schools not be accountable for children’s education? Quite honestly, I have not seen any articles on how we improve education for our children, only ones attacking any accountability measures. For shame indeed.
I have no problem with testing, either: it’s how I know whether my students have learned new concepts or need remediation. What I have a problem with is the amount of time young children sit to take tests that don’t tell us anything we already don’t know about our students. Here in CT third-graders take two weeks (!) worth of tests, 45-60 minutes a day. This is overkill. I also have a problem with the politicization of test scores. Instead of using the scores as one piece of data (I’d italicize those last four words if I could on my iPad), teachers and administrators get slammed and schools are closed. Please remember that we assess to help children grow in their understanding of subject matter. Test scores are one way for us to help children learn, but one score on one test should not decide whether a child has learned the material or a teacher has taught it.
Hi Lehrer, Absolutely Agree!
I think zero tolerance does not belong in education.
In an ideal world, everyone would sit at the table and listen to those most affected.
This is far from an ideal world.
-Angela
I absolutely agree that with accommodations some students can pass the high stakes exams. Students under the CSE are afforded an individual education, though. It is unfair and pointless to ask a child to take an exam that is written more than two grade levels above his or her reading level. I’d also like to point out that students’ listening comprehension levels are also easily measured, and often a disability in reading comprehension is tied with a disability in listening comprehension. For example, a student in 9th grade may read on a second grade reading level, but have a listening comprehension level of fourth grade. As a result, the CSE decides this student will have his exams read. If the exam presented is written at a 12th grade level, that student is unable to access the material. The exam is too hard for the student and measures nothing but they’re guessing ability. Also, I disagree and resent that you believe scaffolding “lowers the bar.” As a special education teacher, I have incredibly high standards for my students, but they are individualized. I do not ask them to complete tasks they are utterly incapable of. I teach, remediate, and improve their skills in a fashion appropriately matched to their unique disabilities.
Well said, Alexis! Thank you!