This is not a new trick. It is proven to work. Remove students with disabilities from the mandated tests and the scores go up.
You won’t be surprised where this is happening. Read about it here.
After all, what matters most? Kids or test scores? In another era, we might have said without thinking twice that kids mater most. But in the age of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, that’s no longer true. The fate of schools, principals, and teachers depend on test scores.
This is sad. It’s wrong. It’s unethical. It’s malpractice.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Can Louisiana get any lower? What are these people thinking?
This one sentence says it all:
This would appear to be a violation of these students civil rights, encouraging schools and school districts to make placement decisions based on what will be best for a schools performance score, and not what is in the best interest of the students they serve.
Will someone in this state please contact their regional OCR office soon?
This nation has got to have a seriously uncomfortable conversation about 37 years of failed outcomes for a large majority of students with IEPs. IDEA was a well intended law when it was signed in 1975 by President Ford as the Education for All Handicapped Children’s Act. Although Congress’ intent was simply to “open the school door buildings.” Through a name change and several reauthorizations of what is now referred to as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004), the good will and warm and fuzzy feelings have eroded and this law is now nothing but an economic albatross or noose around the necks of school district and state department administrators, state and federal legislators, governors and the teacher unions. As a parent advocate across MI and the U.S. I am witnessing the segregation of more and more students with IEPs than I have seen in the past twenty years. There is an insidious movement to warehouse students with ADHD, Mild Cognitive Impairments, Emotional Disorders (this is a vile eligibility that does a grave disservice to virtually 100% of the kids identified as such), Autism Spectrum Disorders and severe learning disabilities. I see the game weekly in MI and IEPs for students with average, above average and superior I.Q.s being given our state’s “alternate” assessment the MI-Access or the newly regenerated modified-MEAP known as the MEAP-Access. Especially in our wealthier (if there is still such a district) districts I see students with learning disabilities taking the alternate assessment so that they don’t count towards AYP. And Michigan’s waiver accepted by Arne Duncan has created a convoluted new system of rating schools and based upon student test scores. It is nothing short of an Education Ponzi-Scheme. We are in the darkest of times for our nation’s students with disabilities. Students with ADHD and learning disabilities are under attack and being exited from special eduction or not identified. The words “special” and “education” do not belong in the same sentence. The word “trust” and “special education” do not belong in the same sentence. How do you fix a problem if you are unwilling to recognize and understand it? Pretending that students with disabilities are in better educational shape than they were in 1975 is being disingenuous. All one has to do is look at the NLTS2 to read about the bad outcomes for students with IEPs. All one has to do is look at labor statistics to see who is not working and who is not only unemployed but unemployable. Dr. Gary Jones’ views are vile but he speaks for the majority. Special Education administrators need to stop drinking the toxic Kool-Aid. They also need to file their GPS navigation systems and locate their moral and ethical compass lost somewhere on the road from teacher to administrator.
ELLs are sometimes classified as SPED. And sometimes students who are not ELL are so assigned to raise ESL subset score so a school can make AYP.
Teachers and parents need to be informed and be good advocates for the children.
Actually this is a good business move. Businesses also understand that some “customers” are more trouble than they are worth.
So, if we look at it from the reform perspective that ” schools should be run like a business” it makes perfect sense to weed out “customers” who do not produce a favorable ROI (return on investment).
Failure by design….
Where can we even direct our outrage in such a mess?
The Louisiana and US laws requiring kids to take accountability-driven tests that don’t benefit them in any way?
Cowardly administrators who abuse their power to direct students’ education, in the interest of their own careers?
Cheats, liars, and frauds who lobby for legislation that destroys educational opportunity for students, to provide themselves with a mechanism to seize control of public assets for their own profit?
An upside down system in which increasing the severity of a child’s classification actually deprives her of resources, and violates her legal RIGHT to be educated in the least restrictive setting?
ALEC? The corporate funders of ALEC? The legislators and governors they corrupted? Journalists who won’t write about this in the public interest, because they’ve been turned into hired advocates by the generous philanthropy of corporate foundation fronts?
I once heard Bill Ayers speak and he said that when he taught, they treated the tests cynically. They’d teach the kids all year, then a few weeks before the test, they’d say, “OK, here’s how to pass the test.” It allowed them to educate the kids without failing the tests. I wonder if in some places this isn’t the same cynical move. Since the tests are stupid, let’s do what it takes to pass and then spend the rest of the time educating the kids? Every time my school talks about trying to get test scores up for the lowest scorers, I worry, because I don’t care what scores they’re getting as long as they’re learning. The desire for everyone to do well on the tests comes from an authentic desire to teach all kids, but I wonder if a cynical approach wouldn’t be better in the long run.
Please forgive me if I run on, here, but this is my field of almost 20 years.
I was told, many years ago, that one of the main reasons for testing special ed kids was economic. The numbers of failed tests were correlated with how much money the city would receive from the state and feds. I don’t know if this is still (or ever was) true, but it would make sense.
Test days are always a challenge in our special ed classes. The kids get very anxious. When taking the test, they realize how far behind they really are, which often makes them either very angry (physical violence) or extremely depressed and suicidal. I will always bring treats and rewards for completion of some sort. You really have to prep these kids.
You’ll very often see “Likes to use his hands” on IEPs. So we give them manipulatives…which helps to a degree. But what it most often indicates, in my experience, is a need to be physically active with a task that involves using their hands and moving about. This, to me, is one of our biggest failures: the relative absence of trade schools starting at an early age. Especially in the urban areas. And, to put it in a larger arena; the loss of so many blue collar jobs in our country. How can we compete with the salaries/non-salaries that are being doled out in these other nations? The blue collar jobs that ARE being created here often require higher order thinking skill sets.
There are just some people that aren’t cut out for academics…yet that’s what we’re being forced to groom them for. When I bring this up, I’m told that I’m insulting and undervaluing these kids, but I think it’s the other way around: to act as though someone who’s not academically oriented is a “failure” is shortsighted and condescending. It’s a very damaging form of snobbery.
We are at a disadvantage, from the start, when comparing our standardized test scores to other countries that already have these trade schools established and running. Germany comes to mind, as one example.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was brought about to deal with the absence of educational programs for children with autism, mental retardation, and physical disabilities (Cerebral Palsy, for example). The huge influx of children with emotional difficulties was the direct result of the crack epidemic in the ’80s. We couldn’t hire teachers fast enough to deal with this. Many of the kids we see now are the children of those kids. Many kids with fetal alcohol syndrome, as well. With parental neglect and abuse issues. Cigarette burns on their bodies. Poorly clothed. Unbathed. It gets very ugly, at times.
This is not what the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was meant to deal with, but there was, simply, no other place to put these kids. Please believe me: it’s extremely difficult to expect a general education teacher with a class of 25-35 kids to teach effectively when you have just one of the kids I’ve taught, in that room. Most of them don’t have the social skills that are necessary to function in that setting. They need a smaller class environment with more intensive adult supervision. The current move to put them back into the general ed schools and NOT allow those schools to place them into separate room is misguided. The concept that it creates a stigma might be well meaning (might), but, all the same, is somewhat myopic. There’s a stigma created when a child is placed in a class where they see, daily, how far behind they are compared to their peers. Which makes them act up. Which makes the class academic environment suffer. The scores of those schools will decline and, if the current system is maintained, many more schools will be closed and replaced by charter schools.
What’s been particularly irksome to many of us is the way in which our individually decided upon curriculum was replaced by the one size fits all system, more than a decade ago. After years of working out a system that worked, including class meetings that dealt with anger management and short periods of class time devoted to physical activities, coupled with structured remedial math and ELA courses; we were forced to use a rigorous general education model (“you can differentiate”) which didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the kids we taught. All those years of experience were dismissed in favor of something forced on us by an outside entity with limited experience in our field.
We need more trade schools. We need to eradicate poverty. We need to rebuild, as a nation.
Wow, that is disturbing. As a teacher of ELLs, it frustrates me, too. So many times they are viewed as kids who need to be fixed. They just need time to learn the language. The most frustrating thing about crunching data for me is that it doesn’t really tell me anything new. I know my students aren’t reading on grade level. Would any of us after a few years in Russia or Somalia? Probably not.
ELLs need time. They should have that time. Here in Pennsylvania, they get a one year pass before they have to take the reading test. That is not enough time.Special education students need accomodations. Why not give them a modified assessment that shows what they can do, not what they can’t? We really need to change our focus. Students should come first, no matter what their test scores.
By the way Diane, there is a typo in your message: kids mater most. You did ask us to let you know about these things, I’m not trying to nitpick.
Looking at all the replies and vast information and truth which is there for all to read
and digest, you have to wonder why there was not more in the way of a push back and fight for these children. Where were the national organizations who profess to be the advocates for them? Where were the unions to protect their special educators? Where were the special education professionals who knew this was happening and held back
from making a unified scream and alert?
As an advocate for these children for nearly forty years, and as a mother and aunt of challenged learners from mild to severe, I have been fortunate to fight along side with others, but we have been drowned out by the silence of too many!!!! Is it too late to turn this wrong headedness around for the future of millions and the souls of as many? It matters, like the actions of Diane Ravitch to awaken and expose the deceit of the Rheeformers, to do something, and have voices like those teachers in Seattle, Washington, bravely rise up and sleep well!!!!
Push through drop out!! Inclusion before readiness!! Punishment by test!! Zero tolerance and lack of identification!! Ignoring the laws and mandates put in place for
the protection and understanding for appropriate programming and services for these
struggling and disabled learners!!! Deliberate and greed induced sorting mechanisms
to rid the corporate human raiders from having to educate and train the learning challenged, the poor and disenfranchised, the immigrant!!! On and on and on!! What an ugly place we have come to in this country and what a disappointment education has to face in it’s own behavior and lack of courage in the face of special education and why it exists for millions of children!!
Do I sound upset?! You bet! Am I grateful for all of those special education professionals, all those teachers who are faced with children they may not
know exactly how to teach but love them and try to help them, some administrators who
would dare to protect them and provide what they can when their resources are dwindling and the public and corporate, even government, would choose to abandon and dispose of them? You bet!!! It is not easy to stand up and be counted but in the end it is as important for the person who can make the difference for those who are unable to speak or advocate for themselves!
My respect for advocates of children knows no bounds. And I appreciate the words of encouragement from your post here.
I can give you one very important reason why you don’t hear a loud cry from the teachers: the media.
A couple of years ago, we organized a massive rally outside of City Hall, here in NYC. Multiple unions. Tens of thousands of people showed up in an peaceful and inspiring demonstration. Media coverage? Nothing that afternoon, evening, or night. Nothing the day after. Nothing ever. The newspapers, TV, and radio stations (and magazines) did not seem to think that this event was “newsworthy”. I have friends who didn’t know anything about it.
The mayor of our city, who is in charge of the DOE, is a multi-billionaire who owns and runs a very large media/communications corporation with all the connections that stem from such an organization. A man who has publicly stated that he’d fire half of our teachers and double the class sizes if he could have his way.
Add to this the fact that this anti-union sentiment is national in scope.
You can read other posts here, stating other ligit reasons for the relative silence. But just know that we have and still do raise our voices. We’re just not being heard.
Thank you for responding and feeling my frustration. I appreciate your response in noting the media component and the importance
of media control. We are used to mass media information and getting spoon fed with a thirty second sound bite of what we are
needed or wanting by others to react to. Much of it blatant manipulation. We are held hostage to our own government/corporate and media moguls (who themselves are manipulated) to react as if
puppets on a string.
We are historically sitting on the edge of yesterday, while our children are being thrust into a new world order tomorrow. Cold, expedient, efficient, measured, like the lines in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany where human fodder could be used for everything from a lamp shade to the experiments of medical maniacs. Too harsh?!
Tragically, I think not!
Reblogged this on aquinnmcc and commented:
I have found that some schools are doing that already. This is what I believe have cause higher test scores in some communities.
Sorry, but I’m running several days behind. I have been busy doing research on the web. I recommend that all go to yahoo and type in Ken & Yetta Goodman-The University of Arizona, Tucson, for important information. Dr. Kenneth Goodman’s article published on Schools Matter is most important for all to understand the serious problem we are up against. See his article “Whose Knowledge Counts”, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 on apparently his blog “Ken Goodman’s Morning Post”. His email address is Kgoodman@u.arizona.edu. The latest phone number listed is 520-621-7868.
Well written and concise. It’s obvious to those of us in the profession. It’s important to have people like Dr. Goodman, who can spell it out for those who aren’t.