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?
