Learning Disabled or Victims of Educators' Incompetence?

That's the question:

Americans are generally supportive of "special education." Educating disabled children so that they can live independent and satisfying lives appeals to our sense of fairness and shared responsibility.

But too often, special education inflicts harm by keeping children from reaching their potential. Instead of giving these students an extra hand, the special-education bureaucracy unnecessarily segregates them while passing them from one grade level to the next, irrespective of how well they've mastered material. The result is a system that creates in these students a crippling sense of helplessness and entitlement. This is certainly the case for the least well-defined subgroup of special-ed students, those designated learning disabled (LD).

Though the LD label is used for a wide array of learning problems, there is a thread that ties these diagnoses together: flawed "basic psychological processes," which are required for spoken or written language. In other words, students who don't listen, think, speak, or read on grade level are often labeled LD. Any number of disorders can cause a breakdown in listening, reading, or writing. Some, such as acute brain injury, are legitimate medical conditions that require special attention. Too frequently, however, the only problem a child has is that he or she never learned to read and write effectively in the lower grades. (The primary culprit here is trendy, "progressive" teaching methods. See Louisa Moats's Fordham report.)

A child with poor reading skills finds learning increasingly difficult beginning in third or fourth grade, when school shifts from learning basic skills to acquiring knowledge in various content areas. Struggling readers hit a performance wall over the next few grades and experience failure in class after class. Significantly, many of these students become disruptive and disinterested (especially boys), and/or they withdraw (especially girls). These behaviors, and the poor performance driving them, most often appear at ages 10-12, when children are tested for LD.

Unfortunately, the tests used to diagnose LD aren't designed to recognize reading deficiencies. Many of them are built on the "discrepancy model," which measures individual intellectual ability and achievement to determine if a "severe" gap exists between the student's ability and achievement. In short, before a reading problem is diagnosed, students must establish a record of "low achievement" (i.e., failing) before anyone bothers to ask why they are not learning.

In 2002, the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD) recommended abandoning the ability-achievement-discrepancy classification method because of the problematic measurement and conceptual problems surrounding it. Nevertheless, it's still the basis for LD classification in most educational jurisdictions. The latest version of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) made some progress on this front, allowing (though not requiring) states to move away from the discrepancy model and supporting early identification and intervention. Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Education has failed to complete the law's regulations, so the old, flawed method marches on.

Isn't it funny how all these little segregation programs wind up the same way---making the teacher's job easier and more comfortable while the children get shafted out of a real education?

Many of the kids stuck into the LD ghetto do not have mental disabilities---they have physical ailments which make communication more difficult. Stephen Hawking, were he a high school student, would be pushed down the LD rathole in an instant.

It's no different for the gifted kids, whom are deemed disruptive because they're bored with the glacial pace of most classrooms and can't be expected to waste time not learning anything.

The bottom line in today's public school classrooms seems to be "don't rock the boat or we'll medicate or segregate you."

God forbid we actually measure our teachers on how much our kids learn versus how often the teacher shows up in the classroom.

But I know, I know---the trouble is the parents not spending more time doing the teachers' jobs.

My advice is to start saving for private schools now.