Lawsuit over standardized tests...

Some people are just sue-happy.

The thing about testing is that it puts a school’s feet to the fire, especially with LD children.

I think that after going to school for 12+ years, there is a basic body of knowledge that all people should know. If you haven’t been taught some things, then don’t blame the test for being discriminatory — blame your school and maybe ask for your property taxes or tuition $ back. If you haven’t bothered to learn them, blame yourself.

I’m sure that it’s an overstatement that there are no accommodations — think of how blind children or children who are paralyzed will take the tests. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an untimed option on them, either (but then again, show me a child that wouldn’t benefit from more time).

Many schools have attendance certificates for getting through 12 years, so if you can’t pass the test, you don’t go away empty handed. But if you can’t pass the test, you’ve got MUCH bigger problems than whether or not a test is discriminatory, starting with (1) all that time in school was wasted and (2) how on earth will you be able to provide for yourself now that you’re done? Even an accommodation diploma won’t solve either.

although I have the usual bias against lawyers!

Blind and paralyzed students have disabilities that are easily visible. LD children often have disabilities that are not recognizable with casual observation. An LD child may know the material but be unable to mark answers in little circles on an answer sheet — because of visual/motor integration or visual-spatial deficits. Extra time will not compensate for this problem. I’m sure there are many other examples of disabilities that require specific accommodations. Without all of these spelled out in law, parents have no recourse.

Mary

My major concern with having my 9 yr. old son in all special ed class except for gym etc. is that he does get very basic but no history science etc. and is about 1 1/2 yrs. behind his age.

This being the case and if he remains in sp. ed. for his whole school life being sent on to the next grade always behind regular classes when he graduates will he really only be at a 9-10th grade level.

I really don’t like all the testing stuff because many kids do not test well but can do the work. However, until someone comes up with some better alternative that’s all there is.

Lawsuits are not going to make our kids learn more.

The point of this lawsuit is not that the children are not learning more, it is because these tests represent a one-size fits all approach to graduation, and that many of the LD kids, especially those who are not in regular classroom settings will be in no way preprared for an exit exam. The only available alternative is the watered down alternate diploma some states offer sped kids, which is not even as good as a GED (will not get you into college for instance).

I agree that there are too many lawyers and we as a country tend to see civil suits more as a lottery than a means to remedy problems. I do think however that this is a very needed suit, and I hope that it is successful.

I am not familiar with the set up in CA for these exit exams, but early returns from other states which have testing of this sort would point to the schools unfairly lumping children with IEP’s into the mass of kids in reg ed as far as a lack of appropriate accomodations.

I do not agree with social promotion at all. By doing that you are saying the child with the LD is incapable of succeeding or achieving promotion. I do believe that many more kids with LD’s are capable of true success, with the proper accomodations or other attention. The testing process for exit or promotion needs to arranged so that it too complies with the established IEP guidelines (assuming they are correct and appropriate).

Hi Carly,

I have no doubt the higher standards movement that is sweeping the country is a product of the best of intentions. But in my opinion, the idea that all students must pass one kind of test in order to graduate is not well thought out. Do some students (including those with LDs) need a wake up call, and will threats of failure help them get their act together? Maybe. Probably. High stakes testing is one tool that may work wonders for students who “would if they could.”

But giving that same test with no modifications in content, format, or time to struggling LD students who “would if they could” is absolutely appalling. When you say you think higher standards will “put the schools feet to the fire” in a way that will be helpful to LD students, what do you mean? I’m not sure I understand. I worry that LD students will not be at the top of the list of students who get the extra coaching. “Success” for a school means maximizing the number of students who pass the test, and there may be easier ways to increase those numbers than by working more with LD students.

Pressure to perform can be like poison to many LD students, and can actually lower their test scores, as many parents here will tell you. My concern is that the high stakes “remedy” may leave the most vulnerable students worse off emotionally and academically than before. It may cause more students to drop out because they have no hope of passing, and feel more worthless and stupid than ever. Learning disabilities already are a prescription for “earning disabilities.” Do we really want to make getting a high school diploma any harder for these young adults? I do not like the idea of lawsuits, but I sure understand where these parents are coming from.

Best wishes JJ

It is true that all standards are, to some degree, arbitrary and will over-include and under-include those with skills in the groups of the passers and failers. But without them, what do you have? Where I live, a student can be on the honor roll and be barely able to write intelligently and get SAT scores that are just embarassing. We also have a large percentage of kids classified and I’m not so sure that its because some students’ backgrounds are so horrific that they were never really prepared to learn when they came to school. A few districts away, the kids from the middle of the class get into our top colleges.

You used to be able to count on a high school graduate to be able to read and write English, know a little science, do a good amount of math (and not just arithmetic), and know a little bit of some foreign language. Now, you don’t necessarily get that with a BA.

I don’t deny for a moment that this is probably stressing out a lot of earnest high schoolers who want to succeed and are trying their best to use all of their abilities to learn. And accommodations that maintain the same basic level of academic rigor are fine.

I just get the feeling that there’s a lot of “shoot the messenger” going around and folks are missing the message. Parents — if your child can’t pass these tests, get worried. In a year or so, they’ll be out in the working world where they’ll have to sink or swim. And if their children have these problems, they will have more catch-up work to do to help their children. Non-parents — your taxes paid for this bad education. Everyone — these folks will be your co-workers and employees and if they don’t have basic skills, your job will seem even rougher.

I’d propose that perhaps there could be a SPED test where it is perhaps shorter but at the same degree of difficulty as the regular test. But I’ve noticed that (especially in the litigation community) there seems to be a huge resistence to noting that a child has passed a SPED exit exam as opposed to a regular (or honors-type) exit exam. That way, if SPED children were failing disproportionately, you’d know that SPED was failing the child (or I’d give the kid a chance to fail on his or her own merits, just like other kids). But you’d at least know what it wasn’t the LD that caused the failure b/c that was accounted for.

There are still too many damn lawyers running around SPED. And not a bunch of pleasant, well-mannered, charming lawyers, either.

TAssuming that the complainers surely must be exaggerating is one way of denying there’s a problem.

There are two issues here: whether the tests are a good way of measuring whether you can do what a high school diploma says you can do (and it seems you’re assuming they are), and who should be accountable if a kid gets that far and can’t show in the standard way that they can do what they’re supposed to be able to do.

It would be wonderful and fantastic (and sometimes it’s even possible) to keep expectations high despite challenges and say “hey, LD kids should get to where they can pass these tests.” That is so incredibly far from the truth right now in many places where special ed is watered down, dumbed down and expectations are close to nonexistent for an awful lot of hard-to-solve reasons. Right now, the kids who have to take those tests are the ones paying the price for a system that doesn’t meet their needs.

What sort of alternative would you propose?

Subjective assessments by teachers might not be administratively feasible and no one seems to be in favor of objective tests, even if they are correctly modified.

Letting students age into diplomas doesn't seem to be doing them any favors.

What will happen to students once they're old enough to be on their own does not seem to be affected by whether or not they have a high school diploma or a GED. 10 years after the fact and I doublt anyone'll care. Actual life skills, no matter how they're measured, seem to be what matters, especially to these young people.

Unfortunately, the proof is in the pudding, not the test.

The problem is that the children are being punished when the system is at fault for failing to teach them well enough to pass the test.

when a child gets a certificate of attendence because they cant pass the tests, they are not educated well enough to become productive citizens, their futures are dim. they pay for their lack of education for the rest of their lives, but the system that failed them gets off scot free.

where is the motivation for the system to clean up its act and provide these children with the services they need to learn the material mandated by the state?

the system actually rewards districts and schools for failing to provide needed services (they save money every time they dont provide a child with services) and when the child leaves school and cant read write or preform basic math calculations the school isnt liable for anything. unless the parent is in a position to sue the *ell out of them.

After haveing worked with hundreds of families I can tell you, the only children that are progressing in sp-ed are the ones who have parents the schools fear are in a position to hold them accountable. I am fortunate to be in such a position, but many of the parents I work with have severe disabilities themselves and live in poverty, you tell me how does the system serve those who cant afford lawyers or lack the education themselves to even relize that their childrens rights are being trampled on.