Re: FW: Open Letter

[ABurke5054@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/25/2006 9:12:16 AM Pacific Standard Time,  
pgutpgut@msn.com writes:

And while my 30 IQ student is a hypothetical extreme example, there are  
hundreds of thousands of special ed students with IQ's of 80, students who are  
autistic, among others who should not be tested in the same manner as their  
normally functioning peers.  Moreover, districts should not get "dinged"  because 
of their sped scores.

_____________________________________________________________
"Dinged?"  That must be a new procedure in NCLB  accountability.  Of course 
districts should not be held accountable  for children with special needs 
unreasonably, but neither should they be allowed  to evade their responsibilities 
to these children.  NCLB allows  accomodations for testing children who are 
different than their "normally  functioning peers" and my understanding is that 
this topic is under  continuing review.  Many advocates for children with 
special needs have  argued for continuing the regulations that are in place.  You 
keep  complaining about the current regulations so if you have suggestions  for 
identifying schools that need to improve services to childen with  special 
needs and how states and districts should be accountable for improving  them, I 
would be very inerested to hear them.
 
I said before I don't know about teaching reading to deaf  children, nor what 
RF requires or does not require for children with special  needs so I can't 
comment one way or the other about these things and I  wonder why you keep 
repeating the same arguments to me.
 
Art