When Special Education Goes Too Easy on Students

A long article from the front page of yesterday's WSJ on the very difficult dilemmas surrounding special ed.  I applaud mainstreaming more of these students but can certainly appreciate how hard it is to include a child like one profiled in the article: "Alba Somoza, who has cerebral palsy and speaks only with the help of a computer".
 
What's clearly totally unacceptable is when "reasonable accommodation" becomes outright cheating on tests, policies to give special ed students passing grades (or higher) despite low-level performance, etc.  Sadly, this appears to be widespread -- part of a broader phenomenon to give up on certain kids (mostly low-income African-American and Latino) and pass them along, year after year, with the result that millions of high school students can barely read, etc.  That's why ending social promotion, beginning in early years (like 3rd grade), is so important.

The Bredemeyers represent a new voice in special  education: parents disappointed not because their children are failing, but  because they're passing without learning. These families complain that schools give their children an easy academic ride through regular-education classes,  undermining a new era of higher expectations for the 14% of U.S. students who  are in special education.
 
Years ago, schools assumed that students with  disabilities would lag behind their non-disabled peers. They often were taught  in separate buildings and left out of standardized testing. But a combination  of two federal laws, adopted a quarter-century apart, have made it national  policy to hold almost all children with disabilities to the same academic  standards as other students.
 
The 1975 statute now known as the Individuals with  Disabilities Education Act promoted putting special-education students in  mainstream classrooms. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act said schools would be  punished if disabled children don't pass the same state tests as other  students. It also requires states to set standards for high-school graduation rates and meet them for all students, including those with disabilities.
 
By some measures, the extra attention is paying  off. Test scores and classroom grades of disabled students are rising, and their high-school graduation rate increased to 54% in 2004 from 42% in 1996.
 
But critics say some of the gains have come  because schools have learned to game the system. For instance, federal rules allow states to make "reasonable accommodations" to help disabled students pass tests and graduate, such as allowing extra time on exams. Some schools, say critics, are giving students too much help, for instance by guiding students to the right answers on multiple-choice tests.
 
From 2000 to 2005, special-education fourth  graders showed more improvement in reading and math than the general  population on an important benchmark test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But accommodations also increased. In 2005, 70% of fourth-grade special education students received some sort of accommodation while taking the math portion, up from 44% five years earlier. In reading, 63% used accommodations in 2005, up from 29% in 2000.

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EXTRA HELP
When Special Education Goes Too Easy on Students
Parents Say Schools Game System, Let Kids
  Graduate Without Skills
By JOHN HECHINGER and DANIEL GOLDEN
August 21, 2007; Page A1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118763976794303235.html

GREENPORT, N.Y. -- On June 25, 2006, Michael Bredemeyer threw his tasseled cap in the air and cheered after getting his high school diploma. Two days later, his parents mailed the diploma back.