Placement for Borderline

Do they really QUALIFY as LD, or does your district just place them in special ed. because they fail in regular ed?

Our present system of rigorous standards and heterogeneous grouping is “death” for many in the 80-90 range of IQ as well. Regular education needs to accomodate more variations in student need, however I think part of our problem is that we are under the direction of public opinion in many ways, when people start criticizing a practice, we are apt to stop the practice (good or bad, and we have examples of both), so we end up with public opinion (the loudest ones) shaping educational policy more than good sound judgement.

An example, we have a cry for better teaching of reading. Fine. So, this translates in to things like NCLB and more laws. We have some of the toughest standards in the USA in CA and the requirement that all students meet these standards. We have little to assist us and no way to accomodate the group of students of whom we are speaking. This group will always be low academically, but if we look at the talents lower IQ kiddoes do have, then we can certainly educate them to be happy and productive people. But, today everyone must go to college or have a shot at college, so we beat teachers and students to be proficient at grade level wherever our state has set that bar.

So, we have a cry for better teaching along with a demand for all students to be pretty much alike. How does this help kids who, try as they may, cannot be like the pack along certain lines? Where is the sense in this? What happened to looking at students as individuals? IDEA was a good idea in that sense, but even now I am pressured to write standards based IEPs, so it becomes a little more challenging to meet the needs of my students.

Wow, only 2-3 grade level behind and have 70-80 IQs? These kids are doing great! What kind of accomodations are you considering? I constantly profess that if it requires a modification of curriculum then it is not appropriate and the student should be remediated in the resource setting. Everyone doesn’t agree -that’s life. Also, if these kids have such low IQs and such slight discrepancies, how in the world did they ever have a sufficient discrepancy to qualify for LD? A 20-30 point spread would put them as low as 50 standard score, that is very low.

More of a challenge? A complete impossibility. Unfortunately and of no fault of kids - some are smarter then others - period. A low IQ is not going to college is not going to become a professional requiring extensive education and reasoning skills. However, there are many respectable jobs and post secondary training/educational facilities that will emphasis their strengths, of which they have many. I constantly fight the “going to college” syndrome. Many parents just don’t get it.

In my state, we only need a 15 point difference between IQ and achievement to receive LD ruling. Also, most of these students were retained at first or second grade level and so are chronologically a year or two older than there grade level would indicate. As fas as accomodations for them I was thinking
about having text on tape, peer tutor, shortened assignments. But even with
this I don’t think they will really comprehend the content and vocabulary of 4th to 6th grade Social Studies and Science work. I am teaching their reading ,writing and math in the resource classroom. My question is, how do
you determine what constitutes “educational benefit” to the student. Is there
benefit in just being included although you can’t really comprehend what is
taught?

Unles there is a clear pattern of LD processing deficits, most of these kiddoes from the 71-85 range are not LD. By definition they are not handicapped, they just “suffer” from borderline to low average intelligence. Civil rights issues contributed heavily to the common practice of heteogeneous classrooms which today must teach all students state mandated grade level standards. These kids are dying on the vine in this scenario, they always had difficulty. They can learn, at a much slower rate. They can be educated and they can become adults who hold jobs and live responsibly, if they have the tools. If they are rushed through curriculum at a pace at which they cannot learn then they will become dropouts and will most likely suffer in many other ways.

The kind thing to do is get over our hangups and educate this group of youngsters appropriately in the general ed. curriculum at an appropriate pace. They represent, statistically, about 17% of our youth. They have a right to an appropriate education and should not be swelling the ranks of special education.

When and if a child matures and realizes that he or she wants to attend college and may have a shot, but lacks the college prep. program, our system in the U.S. is designed to give people who want it second and third choices. The door never really shuts. Our community college program will take students and give the the college prep. training when they are 18 or 19. There are many ways and programs. I think we owe these kids a decent education, with literacy and good job training so they can lead happy and productive lives. Most of them should never see the inside of a special ed. classroom.

You might want to double check the point spread information. I think that the discrepancy is different at different ages/grades. I believe they are smaller at the younger ages. I’m sure a psy. out there will be able to answer this.

So would you support tracking? There are times when I think that is the only way to truly help the kids with low IQs would be to instruct them in specific learning skills.