Educators & Teachers - Do you think NCLB?

Question

is putting our learning disabled children back in the closet.

I am seeing in our district that many "multiple units" (our term for learning disabled classrooms) in the better schools are being closed and moved to lesser-performing schools.

I believe this is to keep statistics for the "good" schools high for NCLB purposes.

Is this happening in your district?

I know the "one size fits all" law is unpopular. Do you see this effect, too?

Answer 1

I do believe NCLB is negatively impacting special needs children.

The problem I see is the one size fits all. I look at my colleague's class. She had a TMD (trainable mentally disabled) class last year and now this year she has been swamped with severe/profound and moderate autistic which is not her area of certification. No one has provided her any training, although the director gave her a book on sign language. However, according to the law these students must be tested on the same curriculum as their grade level counterparts. None of them could possibly pass the algebra test.

Answer 2

NCLB is not very good for children that have disabilities.

The tests modified and not modified do not meet the needs to assess progress.

Many of the students cannot take those tests...

We are seeing autism units tested like mainstream students with minor modifications. According to bush the tests show the teachers are not educating the kids at an acceptable level and the schools lose their funding.. its not fair.

Rich schools don't hire.. won't hire special needs teachers because of the loss of funding..

inner city schools take on the special needs units and receive special grants from the districts to house the schools.. but then lose funding because of nclb.

Answer 3

NCLB does not address any student with special needs -  they were left behind by their peers long ago!  I moved from a large school district to one that has one school, K-12, so moving the students to another school is out of the question.  I would not be surprised at all to hear school districts were doing just what you suggest.  If they have some stellar schools with a few that are "not performing up to standard", it's easy to blame the teachers and administration of the non-performing school for the failure to make adequate yearly progress.  

NCLB does not address at all the fact that a student has to want to learn.  Great teachers can inspire some students to learn and achieve, but first the students have to be willing to do their part and actually learn.  It's rather difficult to motivate students to learn something they aren't interested in (I know because I was one of those students!).  NCLB lays all the responsibility on the schools, but I think the students and their families have an equal part of the responsibility in the education of the students.  In my self-contained special education class, I use the analogy of a trike to let my parents and students understand my expectations - the student is the front wheel and does the steering and pedaling, the parents and teacher are the back wheels doing the pushing.  If parents and teachers don't push together, the trike goes in a circle and if the student does not do their part in steering and pedaling, who knows where we'll end up!

Answer 4

I definitely think NCLB is really leaving behind our special education students. While I agree that inclusion is a great thing, not every kid can learn at the regular pace. For example, an eighth grader reading on a second or third grade level should have some resource (or pull-out) instruction in addition to the inclusive setting. I am not familiar with classes being moved to other schools, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.