Re: Under 40

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Children with IQs under 40, just as children with IQs over 160, are a 
relatively small group.  Many schools enroll no such children.  So 
getting worked up over this from the angle that it's another ploy to 
make schools look bad so open the door to privatizers doesn't hold 
water.

But what is "sickening" about granting equal protection under law to 
children whose needs are very special?  On principle, it seems like a 
great thing.  And it has provided benefits to children with special 
needs.  Madeline Will testified before the Commission on NCLB as the 
mother of a child with special needs and as an officer of a national 
organization that advocates for such children.  She said that NCLB had 
brought significant improvement to the education of children with 
special needs precisely because of its accountability requirements that 
forced schools to take responsibility for them.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: MONICALUCIDO@comcast.net
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 6:43 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Under 40

Truly sickening.

Joe
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Horn, James" <jhorn@monmouth.edu>
> The U. S. Department of Education has given "cognitively challenged" 
a whole
new
> meaning, if you get my drift. The Spellings School Failure 
Enforcement Squad
has
> come up with new demands in Florida to have children with IQs under 
40 FCAT-ed

> each year and to have their scores figured into the failure rates:
>
>
>     "Scores from this special assessment — designed for children 
classified by

> the state as profoundly mentally handicapped, among other 
disabilities — will
> likely count toward school grades in the 2009-10 school year."
>
>
> So in fact these children, many of whom can't attend to their own 
bodily
> functions, will be tested in math and reading--and their scores will 
be added
in
> to determine if the school is making AYP. Retardation, obviously, has 
no
> bounds--and I am not talking about these vicitimized children. From 
the
> Sun-Sentinel:
>
>
>     . . . federal authorities forced Florida education officials to 
develop
the
> new alternate assessment this year for the students deemed unable to 
take the
> FCAT under any circumstance.
>
>     The U.S. Department of Education determined that the state's old 
measure
was
> not sufficient for assessing students with severe cognitive 
disabilities at
the
> lowest level of test taking, called participatory.
>
>     Participatory means that the student answers a question by gazing 
or
> pointing in the direction of a picture card, and the teacher records 
the
answer.
> For example, a teacher holds up a picture of an American flag. Next, 
the
teacher
> holds up picture cards of a tree, a star and a dog and asks the 
students to
> indicate which one is in the upper left corner of the flag.
>
>     State officials say the new assessment ensures that the 
performance of all

> students with disabilities will be included in whether a school meets 
the
> standard of Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left 
Behind
Act.
> If any students are left out of the assessment, schools face 
penalties.. . . .
> The only good part of this story is that, by 2009-2010, this abusive 
madness
> will be in the history books. If it is not, there is surely no way 
back.
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