Albany is now saying that NYC is failing its special education students. Some schools have a graduation below 35% and above a 20% drop out rate for students with disabilities .
"Low performance in special education is not something that should be expected or accepted," Mills said. "Students with disabilities can perform at high levels." For example, in wealthier districts categorized as "low needs," 72 percent of students with disabilities graduated with a Regents or school diploma, while just 4.5 percent dropped out.
I don't think Mills has a clue as to the actual abilities of some of our special education students. I have a good friend who is an exceptional teacher. One of her classes is regents math. Some of the students in this class have reading and math levels equal to second and third graders. No matter what she does, they cannot master complex topics like factoring and quadratic equations. How can they be expected to graph a parabola when they can barely read the word? Now, lets suppose by some miracle the regents is made easy enough for these kids to pass (it does seem to get that way term after term). Now Mills can claim success! But what will these kids be qualified to do with the regents diploma?
Yes, some students with disabilities do get regents diplomas. We have to be realistic when we say this and look at the kind of disabilites that they have. I had two Advanced Placement Calculus students in this category. One was hearing impaired and the other had a writing disability. Both scored 4 (out of possible 5) on the AP exam. One graduated from Binghamton as a computer science major and is currently finishing an MBA in Boston while the other is a freshman at NYU. Should these disabilities be lumped together with learning disabilities and emotional handicaps? I THINK NOT! Yet, I am willing to bet that is exactly what Mills is doing when he sites these statistics.
I also think it is unfair to compare our large, overcrowded NYC schools to the wealthier suburbs. I have another friend who has an LD son. He is lucky to live in an affluent Long Island suburb. His teacher has much smaller classes and is able to keep in close contact with his mom. He has computers available to use, both in school and at home. Tutoring is easily accessible in his school. There is an online site, "School Island", where kids work on problems at home and submit work to teacher via internet. His family's affluence affords him the luxury of private tutors in math and English. Mill's should get real. Our schools cannot compete with this.
The article ended with a note saying that failure to increase graduation rates to 52% can lead to loss of federal money and more state control. What I would like to know is how less money and more control is going to make these kids do better?
The rantings of a teacher who retired from the classroom but not from education.
4 comments:
It's the same principal as how less tax revenue will make the government have more money, basically. All Republicans understand that.
Mills is comparing apples and orange. In the suburbs, mild learning disabilities are much more likely to be diagnosed as such; in the City they carry a stigma, and the children may go untested. There are also LD's associated with extreme poverty that are just not present in significant numbers in the suburbs.
I think the point about large overcrowded schools and unacceptable facilities is also important. When you squeeze kids in like sardines, and have them learn in closets, bathrooms and trailers, they get the message, special ed. or no special ed.
Understatement of the year. I sit in a noisy hallway if I want to give kids extra help.
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