USA TOday: For disabled, test puts diploma out of reach

This means that unless a way out is provided for LD students, every student with a learning disability will have to drop out of school and get his GED instead. Otherwise, he will be condemned to lifelong welfare, because no employer will hire you unless you have an actual diploma.

Kathy G.
Sue J wrote:
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> http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/june01/2001-06-08-graduation-usat.htm

I absolutely agree, that a diploma has always been awarded if you went to school the whole 12 yrs and passed all your classes, then you qualify. My son has done well in his classes the last 3 yrs, has made honor roll twice this yr in 6th grade, but he has done so badly on standardized tests it scares me that my bright child who comes up with wonderful ideas and stories and draws so well, is not going to be able to exit high school with a diploma simply because he doesn’t do well on the tests used to measure his knowledge.If you talk to him you would never know he had a problem with school. I asked the school guidance counselor about this just the other day, because the results of his terra nova test were so bad in the lang. arts and reading part. He was in the average range for math, soc. studies and science(which was above the median) he had accommodations for those parts, but the total score only included the math lang. arts and reading scores.Her answer was to not worry about this one test. I do worry because this was probly the best he has ever done and he has taken a standardized test in all of his grades.
I feel like their should be standards but I also feel that for some kids an alternative should be in place for finding out if the kid has gotten the knowledge, not whether or not the kid can take a fill in the bubble test.This testing issue is definitely one I feel strongly about because I know personally that if you are good at multiple choice tests, you will do well, I took the SAT and ACT , the FL CLAST test and did well even though the highest math I ever took was Alg. I and the highest science was Biology both in 10th gr. I am a good guesser. But if it was true or false I would have failed in a major way. Some test formats just don’t do well for all people and I think that issue should be addressed by the powers that be who surely know this to be true. We accommodate for kids who can’t do well on class tests, that knowledge should be used to format alternative testing for standards as well.Test for knowledge not test taking skills, there has got to be a way to do that.Just my opinion as a caring parent I am not a professional, I just know the pendulum has to come somewhere in the middle from the no standards to the strict testing of the standards.Thanks for listening to my rant.