There is a terrible lie out there. It is even perpetrated by this fine website, the place that has helped me keep my sanity for these past five years. The lie is even in this week’ front-page story about reading programs. It goes like this “There is no one reading program that works for every child….” While I have never doubted that statement, its use is an excuse to not teach ANY reading program. Teachers of my vintage were taught to “slow down, do it again and be nice”. Now with tons of research into brain function and many reputable reading programs with years of data, the lie still allows school districts like yours and mine, colleges that prepare teachers and individual teachers themselves to not teach any program because after all no one program works. I know that this week’s article really says, therefore teachers need to know many programs and integrate them to meet an individual child’s needs. But that is not what happens except in a few wonderful places. I have sat in too many IEP meetings, my own son’s included, and heard vague reports of processing problems and goals that say he will “read a passage on a 4th grade level” when I know the teacher has no skills to understand or effect any progress. First, researchers need to tell us what works under what circumstances. Second, teachers need to be trained and supported to deliver these programs. That most likely means drastic changes in schools, since many children need intensive, early intervention. But, that done the child could move into a consistent program and continue building on the foundation that has been laid. We would not accept the lie from any other institution in our society. There is no one cure for cancer, so we’ll just give you aspirin. School districts and all that feed into them are like an educational HMO. (Sorry if the analogy bothers you). Schools don’t really know why your child can’t read, the researchers haven’t really told the colleges, the colleges haven’t told the teachers and NOBODY want to pay for your child to get the best help that is available. So, first its “let’s see if he catches up, to let’s put him in special ed (which has less of a reading program than anyone else), to if he tried harder, to if you were better parents, to gee that’s too bad he won’t get a diploma. The lie says there is no one thing to do and schools interpret that to mean therefore we won’t really do anything and your child and mine still can’t read.
it is not so much of a lie, as it is a con
Angela:
You have stumbled upon a secret that those in control will not want spread around. It is true (despite our wish that it were not), but you are only seeing one facet of it. It can best be illustrated by the Catch-22 of “we do not believe in cookie cutter approaches to special ed” even as they dump your child in a generic program that does not address the individual needs of any of the children in the room.
And I believe that socks is right in her assessment, but I believe that it is only part of the problem. Equally at falt is the NEA, which purpotrates the endless fraud of protecting the most useless members of their ranks and hobbling the most productive (for trying to show up the rest of them), and cadre of ivory-tpwer academics desperate to preserve their ill-thought out theories, a bunch of hypocritical liberal legislators who say pretty things about entitlements and rights they have zero intention of either funding or enforcing, a scattering of administrators across the map who place cost over benefit in their evaluation of curriculum, and a court system which has the power to end all of this, but chooses instead to make it the Due Process Lottery, forcing each family to rediscover the law from the ground up, and then forces us to waste all that time and money (both our own and the school’s public funds) suing to get what the law says we should have already have.
These reasons are all counter productive to our true aim, helping our children, and are central to our deicision to homeschool instead of playing their stupid game. My boy is advancing slowly, although he has already passed up those children who still attend the public gryst mill, and we anticipate he will plataeu both sooner and higher than if the “professionals” had done it. Homeschool 1, Public School 0
Re: it is not so much of a lie, as it is shame
Angela,
Dad & Socks pretty much hit the nail(s) on the head. The issues that I find most disturbing are:
a) there is a union that is of no use to it’s members when it comes to critical issues that directly relate to the origional concept (teaching). Sheila Hopper story is one of many (posted previously), as is your own experience.
b) the due process game (dad calls it a lottery) is a complete and total sham. The lack of balance of any fairness is abundantly clear and somewhat taken for granted by those in power. According to the concept of due process, both parties should have a procedural remedy for a grievance. Rarely (if ever) do you hear about a district taking a parent to due process because the parent refuses to allow the child to be remediated; hmmm. On the other hand, if a parent opts to take a district to dph, the district can retain “consultants” who are experts at dph’s, yet the parent is left to fend for themselves, with no experience in the procedure. Mind you, the dph procedure is one based on protocols and procedures, that if not followed, jeopradize the party that is not following the procedure. And they have the nerve to call this “fair hearings”???
Rarely do I dispute dad’s opinion, I believe this charade of due process is not only a “catch 22”, but it is a system of protection for the bigger “system itself”, so as to beat up, terrorize, punish and disarm any and all who may challenge the status quo. The few who make it through to the end are so bludgened and beaten, and so exhausted from the guantlet (let alone broke from the expenses), that rarely do they turn around and jump back into the arena to fight (well understood). Furthermore, districts will also finally aquiesse to a strong parent, under the condition that they will “take care of their child”, but must sign legal documents of promising to maintain silence about the case!
Lest anyone forget, the “hearing office” is a hired contractor by the state, who, if the district is found out of compliance, must then act upon the finding. Common sense would dictate that if the contractor found too much in favor of the parents, then they would be jeopradizing (killing) the goose that laid their golden egg every year. In CA alone, the contract (at least used to be) in excess of $1 Million per year!
c) failure to enforce laws. In no other field could such blatant disregard to State and Federal law be ignored and go on unpunished. Doctors and lawyers would go to jail if they did the same in their field as districs to in education. The problem has never stemmed from lack of protections, it is abundantly clear that the “fault” (if it must be called that) lies in the lap of the violators and the ineptness of the authorities to punish them.
It is not necessary to write new laws, it is clear that the current laws, if enforced would change everything. Instead, it is procedural protocol to have to drag the district into a kangaroo court (called due process) and then try to prove that they are in violation of certain laws. Even after that is done, then forcing them to comply is another issue.
Most parents on the bb here know full well how many people are employed between due process, office of civil rights, oseps, osers etc., yet how many of these people hired to “protect the children” are actually effective in doing a “fair job”? Tough question. This isn’t even covering the ineffective administrators and the tenure protected wastes of oxygen, who at the very least (as dad says), drag down, no “hobble the most productive” teachers.
It’s far more than a catch 22, it’s a sham, and a damn shame.
So much for early am venting :)
Andy
Re: it is not so much of a lie, as it is shame
Oh how I agree with you all. Here I am tellng my children that everything you do has a consequence. Where I should be telling them everything except if you work for the NEA and fail to help the children who need it. I to have been in a battle with my school district since my son was in 2nd grade. He is now in 7th, retained once and I had to fight for that. We also had to enlist the aid of a lawyer which was not cheap. Through this all our district rewarded our Director of Special Ed with tenior.
WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE! Sorry I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just so frustrated and I know nothing is going to change for the kids that don’t have their parents fighting for them. They go on believing that their child is doing great because that is what the teacher is telling them. Teachers that are not experienced with teaching children with LD. My sons teacher totally ignored his IEP in 6th grade. We need some kind of watchdog over these school districts to make them accountable. Why should they care if there are no consequences.
Actually, there is a watchdog...
First of all, remember that the NEA is not a regulatory or overseer organization, but a UNION, in place to look out after the interests of the card-carryers (teachers). The org which is supposed to oversee the public schools is the good old DOE, a toothless lapdog which will do nothing to confront the NEA or to draw undesiraed attention (read negative press) to any school district UNLESS that district chooses to commit heresy and abandon the pathetic curriculum/philosophy of “discovery learning” that has swept thru our schools since the late 60’s.
The problem resides in the very direct conflict of interest in having the DOE self-police. What needs to happen is for all enforcement of the law (as Section 504 and IDEA) to be turned over to an agency which actually DOES enforce the law, the Justice Dept.
There currently is a group which does act as a watchdog. It is set forth in law and regs under Due Process. That group is you and I, the parents of children with extra-ordinary needs. We are the ones who must monitor the process from the first IEP to the last rites of graduation. Never mind that we are already working full time (or more), that we have other children to attend to, that we are very ill-trained to supervise the schools, or that we are not privvy to much relevant material, such as internal memos, meetings between staff and administrators, the various topics covered under the seminars that administrators and teachers attend, etc.
This is why we made the decision to homeschool our autistic child, rather than dance the perverted macabre dance of Due Process with the losers in our local district.
Again , Angela I feel the need to comment. Your probably fallen asleep,finally! Rest well. Ironicly you brought the health care industry into it,I believe there are a lot of similarities. Pharmaceutical companies are running the show,just like publishers of reading programs are running the gig in public schools. Truth is,these companies want the school to use their program,not the one that works,just the one that keeps them buying more of their books. A perpetual customer of sorts. The intensive remediation,well my kids need it,and how can one afford them? It sickens me. If left in public schools,these kids get the chevy,not the cadillac. Some say,well gee wouldn’t it be more cost effective to just use the more expensive intensive remediatiom program and be done with it? Probably,but then again we wouldn’t want to put those publishing companies out of business,now would we?