All this talk about school has me a little fired up! Here's my beef...
In our school district, we live in the SF Bay Area in an affluent area, there are early intervention programs for children with all kinds of disabilities. Any kind of disability you can think of is covered. Here is a list of some of them, straight off the district website.
Deaf/Hard of Hearing
Deaf-Blind
Visually Impaired
Speech-Language Impaired
Specific Learning Disability
Multiple Handicapped
Orthopedically Impaired
Other Health Impaired
Mentally Retarded
Emotionally Disturbed
Autism
Traumatic Brain Injury
They start working with these children as soon as they are identified, sometimes as early as age 3, by their teacher/parent/pediatrician/etc. These programs adapt the state's curriculum based on the child's abilities/disabilities. They are given an Individual Education Plan. I think these programs are neccessary, useful, and obviously, costly.
Here's my pet peeve, what do they do for children on the other end of the scale? Those who might be bored in class, frustrated with the slow pace, need more challenging work? The answer is: almost nothing. They don't even attempt to identifiy these children until the end of 2nd grade. Then, like most districts, they offer enrichment programs, like GATE (Gifted and Talented Education). These enrichment classes are in addition to their normal curriculum and the kids must make up any regular class work they might miss while participating. There are also two classes of mixed 3-5 graders at one elementary school where the top 1% of kids tested in the district can go to be challeneged and interact with like-mided children. That's it, that's all.
What about the rest of kids? Shouldn't the schools try to recognize and incorporate all children's abilities and adapt their rigid standards to fit all kids? I know that the district relies on the state for funding and standards and I think California is failing. What do you think? How are your schools doing in identifying and accomadating children of all abilities?
5 comments:
My kids aren't in school yet, but yes, it is frustrating being at the other end of the spectrum, as I remember from my childhood. In Elementary school, we had some gifted and talented programs, but it wasn't much. In junior high, all classes were tracked when I was in sixth grade, which was great. But the school was phasing out tracking and by the time I was in the eighth grade, only math was tracked. I feel like junior high was a real waste of time.
That said, I can easily see why local and federal governments put their time and energy into kids who lag behind or are at risk of lagging behind. Over achievement isn't generally seen as a problem in the way these other things are.
When I was in the fifth grade, I got really bored and was allowed to skip ahead into sixth grade. That was about the best that my school system could offer, but it really did help.
It is a bummer that the gifted children are not being provided for. Here they do something called Enrichment (same as GATE), but it doesn't happen until 3rd or 4th grade. The problem here is that they split all the kids in the program up so that none of them are in class together. They have to leave class to do their gifted stuff and then make up the work exactly like the GATE kids. THe parents of these children want them to all be in the same class and have that class be THE Enrichment class so that it can be paced for these talented students. It makes sense, but for some reason, our school district will not do it. I don't have any children in the program as of yet, maybe I won't, my kids are a little lazy. But I think that your school district probably figures that parents who want their kids to be challenged will put them in private school and spent their own affluence instead of the state having to.
I think that the community has to get together (meaning the government funding or state funding) to help when someone has a big trouble or handicap that will eventually challenge the stability of the society afterwards. It means that if you leave unassisted parents or individuals in deep trouble where they can not get over this handicap or trouble alone without help, it will threaten your society in the long term. That is why "developed countries" do their best to avoid this situation and take a little bit of money to everyone to help the ones in great need. If you had a trisomic child or a child being deaf, you would probably need support from the others to get going. If unassisted, you could become agressive and mad against the rest of the world that leaves you in the shit, and your child could become a danger to the society later on. Which is the big difference between this end of the spectrum, as you call it, and the other end!! If you are gifted, then good for you, you are the one to be able to make the best of it, and I don't see why the state should interact in anyway in this. As long as you don't become an extremely violent or dangerous person, why would you want to use a little bit of money from everybody to help you?
It is funny you ask yourself that question, because I have asked it to myself not long ago, concerning the unemployed people that receive support from the French government to help them find a new job. I was thinking, why do we give them taxpayers money while they don't work! It is so unfair for the ones who work! And this is all the debate between being left wing and right wing I think. And about where you put the solidarity line in your society. Personnaly I am a centrist, if you wonder. And I do wish really hard that Obama will win this election!
If you wonder why resources are piled at one end of the spectrum, the answer is "test scores, test scores, test scores." In our test obsessed educational system, schools have no interest in improving education for students who are already achieving 80% percentile or above. The goals for "No Child Left Behind" require that 100% of students, including students with disabilities, achieve 80% proficiency by a said year. The problem for the high achievers is that there's nothing really in it for the school to educate them properly.
Our superintendent told us that the best way to raise scores for the lowest achieving students is to put them with the highest achieving students. He also mentioned, in passing, that this, incidentally, does nothing for the high achieving students.
I am all for providing services, IEPs, etc. for special needs kids. I think it's wonderful that we live in a country that sees the futures of these kids and their potential as important. BTW, kids identified as "gifted" also have a team meet on their behalf to create an IEP.
This is a touchy issue because, as people have mentioned, "why should we be so worried about the smart kids? They already have so many advantages, etc." If you have a kid in that boat, you know the answer.
Every child attending school deserves to be educated, not just the ones who can't pass the tests. These bright kids should not be stuffed in a corner with "The Brothers Karamazov" while the rest of the last reads "One Fish. Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish." Doesn't the kid who scores in the 99th percentile also have untapped potential for growth?
I think all schools are feeling the "NCLB"pressure because time is running out for them to meet the standards. There was a recent NY Times article about this. Many principals thought that the feds would never really go through with their threats. This continues to be bad news for bright kids. The stakes are so high for the schools to get everyone up to 80% that the smart kids are often the ones that get "Left Behind."
I can see both sides here. I am for helping both the slower kids and the gifted kids. There must be some way to do it. Where does the money from all the dumb fundraisers go anyway? Why don't they do fundraisers for the gifted kids since the government money is going to the slower kids? I think that another option if you had a gifted kid is to either homeschool or do additional learning activities at home if there is time left. It seems like kids today are overscheduled with tons of stuff like dance or sports or music. That is a whole other issue though for another post.
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