Why is this an issue?
If the school does not have resources for your child then find one that does.

AbbeySomeone: Why is this an issue?
If the school does not have resources for your child then find one that does.

Because then the charter schools say "look how great our test scores are" while the school-of-last-resort public schools have to take all the challenging cases. They take public funds but only take the cheap easy cases. Leaving people wondering why the public schools cost so much and have lower test scores. Leading to further exodus of the cheap-and-easy students to charter schools. Leading to the schools-of-last-resort getting even worse.

Lawnchair: AbbeySomeone: Why is this an issue?
If the school does not have resources for your child then find one that does.

Because then the charter schools say "look how great our test scores are" while the school-of-last-resort public schools have to take all the challenging cases. They take public funds but only take the cheap easy cases. Leaving people wondering why the public schools cost so much and have lower test scores. Leading to further exodus of the cheap-and-easy students to charter schools. Leading to the schools-of-last-resort getting even worse.

That would be a great point if the kids with serious disabilities weren't exempted from the tests.

It's Florida. Aren't all the busses short?

jbuist: I wonder how far into the thread we'll get before people start claiming that charters "cherry pick" their students.

Charter schools aren't for everyone. If your child doesn't fit in, don't make everyone else change to accommodate them; just find something suitable.
There is a reason charter schools are generally more difficult to get into.
In the real adult world this is how things work,

jbuist: I wonder how far into the thread we'll get before people start claiming that charters "cherry pick" their students.

Depends on the charter.

My son was offered to attend a STEM charter school. That school is certainly selective in who they allow to enter. As a result, they have high test scores and don't have to spend money on problem or special needs children. If a child is not performing, has behavior issues or many other things, they can be removed.

Another charter in the same district has to take all the kids in its areas. It replaced a failing public school. It does have the option to remove children that are behavior issues to the public system.

In both cases, the charters have a much easier time of showing 'progress' over the public system because they have greater control of what students are allowed in their environment. Is this the same in all districts? I don't know, but seems to be the majority of cases of how I have heard charters to operate.

Louisiana still requires "special needs" students to take the state tests. The scores still count against the school for accountability purposes. The tests can be modified or read aloud but they still test them. Only the very worst cases of disabilities get a waiver on the test.
Charter schools don't always pick their students, but if there is a waiting list they can choose which students they accept. All that is happening is the creation of a three tier system. Parochial schools for the ruling class, corporate run charter schools for the future middle level workers, and public schools for everyone else. What is needed is technical and vocational schools for those students not bound for college.

"Yet in Miami-Dade, only two out of 109 charter schools serve children with more profound disabilities like autism and cerebral palsy. One is a specialized school for children with developmental delays, the other for children with autism."

Ah. So there ARE charter schools for kids with specific needs. This parent just wants to make trouble.

Yes, let's reduce all schools to a lowest denominator so those the the most severe and disabling needs control what is offered to the rest of us.

How about this. We let charter schools, indeed all schools, tailor their programs to meet the needs of particular types of student. We can set up schools that offer services to those that need them. We have done that for years in many areas with vocational, technical and arts-related schools. Why not schools specifically for students with special physical or cognitive needs?

Oh. We (new window) already do that (new window).

Shut up and get back to raising YOUR OWN kid.

Here's my problem with schools in general: Some people are just not smart. You can usually tell this around the 6th grade. If little De'Quan or Billy can't cut it why do we have to teach to the lowest level and take away from the smart ones?


If anything graduation should be an earned achievement,not something handed to these kids.

/has a teaching degree, left teaching due to this very reason.
//If billy can't read past a third grade level, and can't add 6+3 why the fark is he in 11th grade?

/seemed appropriate

Ah, the US education system. Spend the amount of a Harvard education on a kid that can only count to potato. Keep spending it on the kid for 13 years. Kid graduates with a nice piece of paper. Can still only count to potato.

jbuist: I wonder how far into the thread we'll get before people start claiming that charters "cherry pick" their students.

Considering most charters perform worse then their public school counterparts, I don't think that is going to happen.

tomWright: "Yet in Miami-Dade, only two out of 109 charter schools serve children with more profound disabilities like autism and cerebral palsy. One is a specialized school for children with developmental delays, the other for children with autism."

Ah. So there ARE charter schools for kids with specific needs. This parent just wants to make trouble.

Yes, let's reduce all schools to a lowest denominator so those the the most severe and disabling needs control what is offered to the rest of us.

How about this. We let charter schools, indeed all schools, tailor their programs to meet the needs of particular types of student. We can set up schools that offer services to those that need them. We have done that for years in many areas with vocational, technical and arts-related schools. Why not schools specifically for students with special physical or cognitive needs?

Oh. We (new window) already do that (new window).

Shut up and get back to raising YOUR OWN kid.

No, it's easier to be a whiny AW and get the media involved. OMFG the world is not catering to the needs of me and my kid!
People like that piss me off.

The charter schools in my area have fallen very flat on performance and parental accountability. I am not impressed with them. I also do not have the moolah to send the kidlettes to parochial school so they go to (gasp!) a public school, in the city district, not the suburban districts that have more money and less support systems in place for students with more special needs. Interestingly, I have anecdotally discovered that because of this sensitivity, the city teachers CARE more about my kid and see her as not just a test score number. YMMV.

dahmers love zombie: Unlike the larger public school system, charters can't have a special tax assessment so that they can take the kids who cost $32,000 a year. I'm sure that if the state/county offered up that kind of money, you'd see more charters able to do so.


So the answer is to ban public money going to support private, often religiously-based schools altogether. Private schools are held up as an example of the free market at work. They can be very selective in who they admit, and manipulate the results to gain more taxpayer largess because they are not held to the same standards or audited by the State for performance at all. What is seen in every single case, is the teacher pay is much lower than public schools, they have zero job security, and the CEOs of the corporations get to rape the taxpayers for that 15,000 square foot house in that gated neighborhood and the $80,000 Mercedes Benz. Every single one investigated has turned out to be an overpriced babysitting outfit that provides little if anything in the way of real education.

Wal Mart schools. Buy and Large everything. Their purpose is to turn out good little consumers who will be brand loyal to the extreme and not question things too closely.

Special needs kids need to be kicked to the curb, they are a waste of resources and any education on them is completely wasted. Education should be reserved for those that can work and will pay back the money spent on them.

mongolicious: Here's my problem with schools in general: Some people are just not smart. You can usually tell this around the 6th grade. If little De'Quan or Billy can't cut it why do we have to teach to the lowest level and take away from the smart ones?


If anything graduation should be an earned achievement,not something handed to these kids.

/has a teaching degree, left teaching due to this very reason.
//If billy can't read past a third grade level, and can't add 6+3 why the fark is he in 11th grade?

I've worked in several schools, public and private. The biggest issue IMHO is the parents and it is always the worst parents that are the most trouble.

AbbeySomeone : Why is this an issue? If the school does not have resources for your child then find one that does.

In purely realistic terms, not an issue.

Except, NCLB has decided that we can legislate both nature and nurture out of the picture. It doesn't accept that droolers exist; that evil little bastards who care more about causing pain than learning exist; that some kids have more in their lives to worry about than learning who lost a war 50 years before their birth. Instead, it presupposes everyone as smiling interchangeable cogs, all equally capable of learning, all having stable and nurturing homes, and all eager to fill their minds with state-mandated trivia.

Much like modern corporate America. Huh, funny that.

So why does this headline count as a problem? Not so much because weeding out the "problem" kids counts as cheating, but because charter schools prove what opponents of NCLB have said all along - average kids score better when you don't mix them in with the distraction of kids who will never amount to anything. Charter schools prove that (non-racial) segregation works, at least academically.

And honestly, you can't utter a much worse heresy in the current politico-educational climate.

pla: AbbeySomeone : but because charter schools prove what opponents of NCLB have said all along - average kids score better when you don't mix them in with the distraction of kids who will never amount to anything.

NCLB didn't create "mainlining" the droolers as you call them....that was a movement started by the progressives in the NEA.

I went to a school for grade 6-8 that was all about "diversity and mixing." To that end, they had 'mainstream' programs where the 'tards would be placed in regular classes. Yeah,. thats a fanstastic idea. The kid who has to struggle to speak his native English is just going to be so pleasant to have in French class.

szyska: I went to a private high school, The school had entrance exams to see if you should be there so they could pick who they wanted to come. In my opinion the best thing that private schools have is that if you screwed up; i.e. dealing drugs, low academic performance, fighting,... etc they just throw you out, end of argument. I remember one kid was caught dealing weed. This was a Wednesday, he was gone that day and never spoken of again.....

Guess his parent didn't have enough money to buy some new computers for a classroom, or help out the alumni fund. Sucks to be him.

Lawnchair: AbbeySomeone: Why is this an issue?
If the school does not have resources for your child then find one that does.

Because then the charter schools say "look how great our test scores are" while the school-of-last-resort public schools have to take all the challenging cases. They take public funds but only take the cheap easy cases. Leaving people wondering why the public schools cost so much and have lower test scores. Leading to further exodus of the cheap-and-easy students to charter schools. Leading to the schools-of-last-resort getting even worse.

Having come off a long-term IT contract with a public school system, I can state without equivocation this is complete, utter bullshiat.

The true problem is that we want to pretend - in direct contradiction to all the evidence in front of us - that all children have an equal capacity to learn in exactly the same way. I can't tell you how many children I witnessed that had absolutely no business being anywhere near a school, rich or poor. Some should have been seized from their parents while their parents were incarcerated. Some would have had their lives improved 1,000% being seized just because.

And don't get me started on the parents who discovered what an IEP was. The second they would learn about the IEP program, I guarantee you their precious little snowflake would be certified by some incompetent quack as having some kind of disability. They would then immediately set about bankrupting the school district to make sure their precious little snowflake had the most expensive toys to 'compensate' for the perceived disability.

I actually witnessed one of the "visually impaired" children running around a HS football game without his glasses, playing with the other kids. Funny that, he didn't run into anything, stumble or otherwise give you any indication he was anything other than normal. This is a kid certified by an eye doctor (I suspect coached to lie by Mom) as being 20/250. The icing on the cake was when I took pictures of the kid checking out and using a laptop with a 13" screen. This was after the district spent several thousand dollars on special 23", high-contrast monitors everywhere this kid could possibly park his butt to use a computer. They also dropped over $700 on an iPod-wanna-be specially 'designed' for the sight-impaired because a normal $200 iPod with VoiceOver just somehow, in some way, wasn't good enough for her little snowflake.

No kidding - I laugh because this 'specially designed' audio player had 26 buttons on it, while the iPod just two. Somehow 26 was 'easier' to use than 2. Hell, I couldn't figure out all the buttons and there is nothing wrong with my eyesight. Not to mention it was a steel-toed boot to the nuts type-pain trying to get any audio file actually loaded on the thing. I have been in IT for 30 years, I have more degrees than a red-hot thermometer, and it was the better part of three days of my time to even get one functioning sound file running on that hunk of junk. I pity the actual blind or near-blind people condemned to actually using the thing.

But I digress.

Armed with the evidence the kid wasn't as visually impaired as represented, the school board had a come to Jesus meeting with Mom. Mom promptly lawyered up, and the long and the short of the story is that even after proving precious little Johnny and Mom were nothing but two-bit con-artists and frauds, the State Department of Ed came down on the district like a ton of bricks. Why? Because Mom had scheduled little Johnny for eye surgery. That was all it took. Note I didn't say she took little Johnny in for the surgery, just scheduled it. That was all the 'proof' the buffoons at the State DOE needed. Screw the photos showing Johnny using a 13" laptop, which according to his eye "doctor" was impossible.

Oh, education is broken all right. It's being held hostage by stupid parents who believe it actually is possible to guarantee outcomes. It's being bankrupted by morally and ethically corrupt parents who figured out the school district is the new lottery with better odds. It's being wrecked by parent who are far too quick to defend their precious little snowflakes, when they should be taking those snowflakes over their knees. But most of all it's been broken by sanctimonious, oh-so-credentialed but dumber-than-a-post 'educators' who are trying to make reality fit a fantasy of equality that can not, does not, and can never exist.

Didn't the Simpsons already do this?

1macgeek: Lawnchair: AbbeySomeone: Why is this an issue?
If the school does not have resources for your child then find one that does.

Because then the charter schools say "look how great our test scores are" while the school-of-last-resort public schools have to take all the challenging cases. They take public funds but only take the cheap easy cases. Leaving people wondering why the public schools cost so much and have lower test scores. Leading to further exodus of the cheap-and-easy students to charter schools. Leading to the schools-of-last-resort getting even worse.

Having come off a long-term IT contract with a public school system, I can state without equivocation this is complete, utter bullshiat.

The true problem is that we want to pretend - in direct contradiction to all the evidence in front of us - that all children have an equal capacity to learn in exactly the same way. I can't tell you how many children I witnessed that had absolutely no business being anywhere near a school, rich or poor. Some should have been seized from their parents while their parents were incarcerated. Some would have had their lives improved 1,000% being seized just because.

And don't get me started on the parents who discovered what an IEP was. The second they would learn about the IEP program, I guarantee you their precious little snowflake would be certified by some incompetent quack as having some kind of disability. They would then immediately set about bankrupting the school district to make sure their precious little snowflake had the most expensive toys to 'compensate' for the perceived disability.

I actually witnessed one of the "visually impaired" children running around a HS football game without his glasses, playing with the other kids. Funny that, he didn't run into anything, stumble or otherwise give you any indication he was anything other than normal. This is a kid certified by an eye doctor (I suspect coached to lie by Mom) as being 20/250. The icing on the cake w ...

This is why some schools interview children and their parents before admitting them.

Gunderson: Ah, the US education system. Spend the amount of a Harvard education on a kid that can only count to potato. Keep spending it on the kid for 13 years. Kid graduates with a nice piece of paper. Can still only count to potato.

To choose to let the disabled fall behind is a step towards eugenics. If we choose efficiency over compassion we stop being a Christian nation and become fascist. Nazi's taught the world one thing, once you start making selfish decisions under the guise of what's best for the majority, atrocities soon follow.

Thisbymaster: Special needs kids need to be kicked to the curb, they are a waste of resources and any education on them is completely wasted. Education should be reserved for those that can work and will pay back the money spent on them.

Ok Hitler, thanks for advocating for social engineering, but some of us actually recognize the potential of these students and are compassionate enough to help improve the quality of their lives by helping them develop the tools they need to increase independence and self reliance. As a special education teacher I can tell you these students are able to contribute to society, many of them do a lot more for us than those meth addicted kids we see in general education. There are many jobs available to them, and they work those jobs with greater consistency and diligence than most people, they deserve the opportunity. They certainly don't deserve to be oppressed, uneducated, and locked away in state run homes simply because bigots like you are unaware of their abilities.

LeftOfLiberal: Gunderson: Ah, the US education system. Spend the amount of a Harvard education on a kid that can only count to potato. Keep spending it on the kid for 13 years. Kid graduates with a nice piece of paper. Can still only count to potato.

To choose to let the disabled fall behind is a step towards eugenics. If we choose efficiency over compassion we stop being a Christian nation and become fascist. Nazi's taught the world one thing, once you start making selfish decisions under the guise of what's best for the majority, atrocities soon follow.

If they are disabled and placed in a mainstream classroom the rest of the class falls behind frequently when it is disrupted by their particular issues. If they can't fit in they should be in an environment where they will be catered to.

LeftOfLiberal: Gunderson: Ah, the US education system. Spend the amount of a Harvard education on a kid that can only count to potato. Keep spending it on the kid for 13 years. Kid graduates with a nice piece of paper. Can still only count to potato.

To choose to let the disabled fall behind is a step towards eugenics. If we choose efficiency over compassion we stop being a Christian nation and become fascist. Nazi's taught the world one thing, once you start making selfish decisions under the guise of what's best for the majority, atrocities soon follow.

Okay Goodwin, that argument has nothing to do with eugenics. No one is being prevented from procreating. It's simply an apt analysis of the return on the investment of public tax dollars on one student vs another.

As a parent of kids who went to a charter school and former board president of said school, which was sued by a special needs parent after the school manager farked up their services prior to my tenure, I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

IEP. Individualized Education Program.

This is what it's all about. If a student has one of these, they are considered "special needs" or "different learning." They have services described within the IEP and those need to be fulfilled as mandated by federal law.

By and large, IEPs are a good thing for students with learning differences. But, they do come with a significant cost. Public schools are required to take any student in their geographic area, typically a city or unincorporated county land. Charter schools are slightly different. They are required to take any student which is in their geographic area, typically the county of origin and all adjacent counties. This is because they each have a mission in their charter which makes them special so their range is expanded to be sure their mission can address enough students needs.

But this is the catch: If the special needs student's IEP *DOES NOT MATCH* the charter school's mission, they are not required to take on the student. For example, a student with serious learning disabilities like Down's Syndrome is in no way prepared to take on a course of independent study, so those charter schools will not typically take such an applicant. There's a bit of murkiness here, but that's really how it works.

I think the system works as it should, but special education is bankrupting the system. There are parents out there who will work the system till it bleeds for themselves and their kids. There are also parents out there who just want their kid with dyslexia to get a couple hours of services each week to help then with reading before their brains become hardwired, making it tougher for them as adults. It's a difficult balancing act, but I don't think charter schools deserve nearly as much of the blame as they are getting. The education labor lobby is fighting this fight tooth and nail and they love trotting out examples as in the article. It is a really tricky situation with no good solution.

/Not a Republican
//Not a Democrat
///Pro Charter School

LeftOfLiberal: Gunderson: Ah, the US education system. Spend the amount of a Harvard education on a kid that can only count to potato. Keep spending it on the kid for 13 years. Kid graduates with a nice piece of paper. Can still only count to potato.

To choose to let the disabled fall behind is a step towards eugenics. If we choose efficiency over compassion we stop being a Christian nation and become fascist. Nazi's taught the world one thing, once you start making selfish decisions under the guise of what's best for the majority, atrocities soon follow.

I always thought that the Nazis taught the world that an EZ-Bake oven makes a horrible Hanukkah gift

Wow, so many people are demonstrating their ignorance of the disabilities that would qualify a person for special education. Not all students receiving special education have severe cognitive disabilities. Students with autism, as described in this article, can be just as smart and even smarter than students not on the Autism Spectrum. They just need to be taught to differently, but that is true of almost all students, that why teachers today emphasize differentiation in their classrooms. A very small portion of special education students are exempt from standardized tests, and a large portion of these students are able to earn a full diploma.

The biggest challenge any of these students face in life comes from the bigotry they face everyday. People here making comments referring to them as 'tards' or 'droolers' or any of the other insensitive remarks create a world where these students are unable to succeed, but not because of their disability, but because of your bigotry. There is no difference between making pejorative remarks about people with disabilities and being racist, sexist, or homophobic. You have put yourself in the same category as the KKK and Nazis, the world would be a better place if you didn't exist.

If it's her kid's education she's concerned about, why doesn't she just f**k the superintendent?



Why am I in this handbasket, where am I going and why is it so hot in here?

relcec: mrjones61: Wow, so many people are demonstrating their ignorance of the disabilities that would qualify a person for special education. Not all students receiving special education have severe cognitive disabilities. Students with autism, as described in this article, can be just as smart and even smarter than students not on the Autism Spectrum. They just need to be taught to differently, but that is true of almost all students, that why teachers today emphasize differentiation in their classrooms. A very small portion of special education students are exempt from standardized tests, and a large portion of these students are able to earn a full diploma.

The biggest challenge any of these students face in life comes from the bigotry they face everyday. People here making comments referring to them as 'tards' or 'droolers' or any of the other insensitive remarks create a world where these students are unable to succeed, but not because of their disability, but because of your bigotry. There is no difference between making pejorative remarks about people with disabilities and being racist, sexist, or homophobic. You have put yourself in the same category as the KKK and Nazis, the world would be a better place if you didn't exist.

sure, I can buy that. the reason retards can't grow up to be president and end up sweeping at mcdonalds or sorting hangers at goodwill, if anywhere, is because of bigots like me pointing out they are actually retarded.

First, like most of us, you can't be president either. That has more to do with social class than cognitive ability (GW Bush proves that). Secondly, your a bigot and oppressive to these people because you recognize one aspect of them and use that to predetermine their potential. You focus on one disability and disregard their multitude of abilities. And you do this without actually knowing them, just based on some generalize prejudice formed from your willingness to unquestionably accept what others have told you. Go out and meet some of these people and tell me they are worthless and have nothing to contribute. I work in special education and know first hand what these individuals can do; they are tremendously creative, have a unique perspective that can help all of us better understand they world, and they never judge someone based on a single trait before even meeting that person. That's a lot more ability than you have demonstrated in your post.

Zeno-25: LeftOfLiberal: Gunderson: Ah, the US education system. Spend the amount of a Harvard education on a kid that can only count to potato. Keep spending it on the kid for 13 years. Kid graduates with a nice piece of paper. Can still only count to potato.

To choose to let the disabled fall behind is a step towards eugenics. If we choose efficiency over compassion we stop being a Christian nation and become fascist. Nazi's taught the world one thing, once you start making selfish decisions under the guise of what's best for the majority, atrocities soon follow.

Okay Goodwin, that argument has nothing to do with eugenics. No one is being prevented from procreating. It's simply an apt analysis of the return on the investment of public tax dollars on one student vs another.

I always find it odd that a capitalist cries about the cost verses benefit of educating those with special needs but see no flaw in paying a CEO 500 times the pay of the workers.

As for the eugenics statement, I said it is a step in that direction. If someone isn't worth educating why should they breed, why feed them? You can't say these things won't happen, they happened in this very country in the past.

mongolicious: Here's my problem with schools in general: Some people are just not smart. You can usually tell this around the 6th grade. If little De'Quan or Billy can't cut it why do we have to teach to the lowest level and take away from the smart ones?

If anything graduation should be an earned achievement,not something handed to these kids.

/has a teaching degree, left teaching due to this very reason.
//If billy can't read past a third grade level, and can't add 6+3 why the fark is he in 11th grade?

But the problem is that at just about every school board meeting, you'll have some addressing the board saying that their kid is "gifted and talented," and they demand that the school board bend over backwards for their kid. Or it's a parent that runs for school board not because he/she wants to benefit the kids in their district, but because their kid is coming up through the system, and they want to make sure that they can do anything they can to benefit their kid - while that kid is in the system. Once their kid has graduated, they don't care anymore. Or if a similar situation becomes an issue later, they are the ones that are complaining the most.

/was on the local school board for a few terms
//got tired of the mothers who kept complaining
///got really tired of most of the other board members who rubber stamped budgets and other items

LeftOfLiberal : To choose to let the disabled fall behind is a step towards eugenics. If we choose efficiency over compassion we stop being a Christian nation and become fascist

What a bizarre juxtaposition (and a three-way at that, if we include your handle) - 10/10, my friend!

To pretend you meant that as a serious argument for a second, though, no one has suggested we turn the droolers into Soylent Green. Rather, that maybe, just frickin' maybe, we would have a higher ROI by investing in the average and (god forbid!) the above average kids who will some day go on to cure cancer. Instead, we dump truly fantastic amounts of money into, as the GP pointed out, a kid who will never learn to count higher than "potato".

You can put lipstick on a pig...

mrjones61 : Students with autism, as described in this article, can be just as smart and even smarter than students not on the Autism Spectrum.

Just don't even go there. I have gotten so goddamned sick of everyone who doesn't perfectly fit in with their peers playing the "autism" card.

Real autistics sit in the corner, shriek if you touch them, and bang their heads against the wall over and over and over. The smart but shy little girl who just doesn't make friends easily already has a perfectly cromulent, pathology-free label to describe her - "introverted".

Or to put it in terms that should make your poor little bleeding heart just asplode, I've met real live legitimately-diagnosed Aspies with far better social skills than I have. That would make me feel "bad", if I cared. How dare you try to make me feel bad! You know who else made people feel bad? ;Q

You can not teach an apple to be an orange no matter how many IEP studends you try to main stream.
Life, it's not fair.