Eval for diagnosis of educational difficulties vs classifica

Right now this whole issue is a “can of worms.”

Things have changed ever so much in a relatively short period of time. 20-25 years ago IDEA (PL94-142) was young. Schools set up programs to better serve LD and other handicapped children. I don’t think anyone expected “catch-up,” they just expected progress and some specialized attention. I think people understood that public school did NOT equal “cadillac” services, but differentiated services.

Gradually over the years a profitable industry has grown up around LD. Yes, there was a very small industry prior to IDEA. This industry has seized upon every parent’s desire to have their child at grade level, going to college, etc. Some of these practitioners have been honest and helpful. Sometimes the expensive 1:1 therapies have helped youngsters, it is true.

Now, it seems that parents are increasingly demanding that the special ed. programs in the schools “fix” their child, because sometimes private educational therapy has made a big difference. Now we all spend our time fighting over exactly what the school is responsible for.

Meanwhile we special teachers are working under guidelines set up 20-25 years ago in our states. My state established the resource program and set caseload limits within the climate of the times over 20 years ago. The program worked pretty well, considering no one expected up to be therapists, just teachers.

Now we contend with parents who demand 1:1, sitting along side their child in the classroom for a portion of the day (nevermind that we cannot help anyone else’s children), engaging in a variety of specialized therapies that are almost invariably done only in a 1:1 setting.

Every week a small few parents get on boards like this and lament that their child has not been caught up, other parents advise parents to demand an IEP program that is calculated to catch the child up in 3 years, regardless of the severity of the disability, with no regard to the child’s specific needs and deficits, the rule is: catch the child up in three years, do whatever it takes. If you don’t, then we didn’t get FAPE.

Other parents sue for private school tuition. Consider the local LD clinic in my town. They have a day school. The entire day is spent on reading, language arts, math and an assortment of therapies interspersed. Great, huh? There is no PE, no science and no social studies. This school is run by a credentialed sped. teacher who hires inexpensive paraprofessionals to actually do the teaching and she still charges $9,000 per year! She can get away with only teaching to the areas of need. Public school cannot engage in this practice. How do we compete with this?

You know, given the time and resources, I could do this, too.

I like to be honest with parents. I did that just the other day. Parents don’t necessarily want to hear my honesty. I tell them their 4th grader will improve, by 6th grade I hope he will be close to grade level, however, he may not have the “stamina” to actually take on the daunting task of reading grade level science and social studies text books, etc. His LD won’t ever totally vanish, he will improve and he should be able to complete school and probably go to college, providing the family keeps him focused on his daily reading practice from self-selected materials at home.

I guess the parents accepted what I told them. I have trouble declaring a student reads on grade level until they can read with the accuracy, fluency, prosody, speed and comprehension that is expected at grade level. All of these things rarely come together in less than years and years of hard work.

Then there is always written language to fix, often another “mountain” to climb.

Thank you Anitya for your honest comments; yes as a parent I am very frustrated but need to hear the realities of what school can do..however, I still can dream!

You know, the problem I see is different. That’s not to say that I haven’t seen posts by people who say that a parent should demand that their children be “fixed” by the school. Sometimes that may be reasonable, other times it may not be.

What I have a problem with is the dichotomy between what the school will remediate and/or accomodate, and what they expect of my child. My number one concern is his emotional well-being. He was a happy well adjusted child when he started school, and he has no emotional problems that can not be directly taced to stress in the school environment. THAT is what sends me back to the team meeting table time and again.

That’s the theme that I hear time and again on these boards. Kids who are totally beaten down by a system that can’t or won’t remediate their learning problems, and then won’t make any allowances for the fact that they can’t keep up. Kids that are totally shut down because they are told that they are lazy or not trying so many times by so many people.

And now we are faced with mandatory exit exams. If you feel caught in the middle imagine how these kids and their parents feel when told that, “No, we can’t remediate your child, and oh, BTW, if he can’t pass this monster test in spite of his learning disability, he’s not getting a diploma.”

Karen

There are many kids in the regular ed. system who will not pass the exit exams for one reason or another; certainly what teachers expect of their students is important and even in the regular ed. system, there are problems between teachers’ and parents’ expectations. I have a very bright(nonld) 8yr.old who meets all the teachers’ expectations with no effort..we would like the school to demand more from him and teach him at a higher level but they can’t or won’t in the absence of a gifted program. I also expect a lot more than the school does of my son with ld, more because I think he can do it with outside help and also I know that if he doesn’t get pushed now in 5th grade, the mentality of middle school and high school is just accomodate and lower the standards for these students. What I do see happening is the school not being honest about the expectations for students …that for example spelling is VERY hard to remediate, as is handwriting, and that it can take years for reading rate to increase(I learned these from professionals outside the school).

The problem is trying to find a balance-how much do you push and when do you back off and say they just can’t. You want to have a healthy dose of reality but at the same time not give up. I find that this is what people find the hardest. At what point do you shift gears from remediation to compenstating strategies and life skills. Another problem if one glove does not fit all where do we get the money for all the different gloves? How do we determine which strategy is best for which students? How much time should we give a strategy? How do we prevent teacher burn out? How are we honest with parents but offer hope? Oh so many questions. Sorry for the rambling, just thinking of the many great posts that have been on the board lately. There are no easy answers for any of the questions. Just trying to give everyone perspective that we all have one goal in mind what is best for “our children” but the problem is there is no easy solution. Maybe we parents, teachers, administrators, ect need to get together and try and come up with an answer. Just thinking out loud.

Money.

I think a lot of it comes down to money.

In our district I have watched our teachers
have to do more with less over the years.
And then I watched the district lose wonderful
teachers who just could not do it anymore.

Where that money is going to come from I
haven’t a clue. I know they were close to
fully funding SE at the federal level but
that slipped by the wayside this year.
It would not have taken place until 2008,
the year my son would graduate from high school.

Anne

In our state it seems like the only option for LD is either inclusion or pull-out for a short period of time. These two models are not appropriate for all LD kids. Many could benefit from an LD classroom where they are given remediation for there processing deficits. When kids remediation needs are not being met year after year these students get frustrated, depressed and learn a lot of advoidance coping skills. They begin to act out and the school rushes to label them ED (emotionally disturbed). Now with the new label they have self-contained classrooms to put them in or the school can blame the child’s lack of educational progress on emotional problems and not on LD issues.

In my opinion many LD children are given ED labels because the services they need to deal with there LD issues are not available to them when they most need them.

Helen

Karen, I totally agree with everything you are saying. I guess that is my whole problem right now. The school can’t seem to fix the problem, but they still want to punish him for not meeting their standards. One example….my son’s LD teacher told me one day a couple of weeks ago that he’s never going to be good at spelling, it just won’t happen. But then the next week I get a spelling test I have to sign because he got an F on it. He had 15 words and spelled the first 7 right, missed the next 8. To me there was an easy solution to this problem, give him 10 spelling words, he would feel so much better about himself. And, why if the teacher says he’s not going to learn to spell, make a big deal of this test. I guess my whole feeling is…..if the school can’t remediate my triangle son to fit in their square box, then don’t punish him for it. Yes, I want the school to teach my son to read, but more than that, I want him to have some self esteem left. I go to meeting after meeting, and hear your son is 4 grade levels below in reading and 6 grade levels below in spelling and writing, and he just doesn’t try in science and history. Gee, I don’t have a degree in education, but I think it’s all pretty clear why ” he doesn’t try”.