Boy with brain stem but not a complete brain, forced to take standardized assessment test

[cali]

They made him take the test

Nobody stopped it.

Nobody in Florida with the power to do so stopped the state from forcing a 9-year-old boy named Michael, who was born with a brain stem but not a complete brain, from taking an alternative version of the standardized Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

He is blind and he can’t talk, nor can he understand basic information, but, yes, Michael had to “take” the test.

<snip>

Rick Roach, an Orange County, Florida, school board member who was following Michael’s story, confirmed that Michael was in fact forced to take the test, meaning that a state employee sat down and read it to him, as if he could actually understand it.

If this doesn’t turn your stomach, I’m not sure what will.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/06/they-made-him-take-the-test/

[Ilsa]

1. It's simply a remarkable waste of time.

The student doesn't suffer for this, for the most part.

There needs to be exemptions for students that are profoundly disabled. Their testing needs to in accordance with IEP goals, not whether they meet literacy goals set for the general population of students.

[KamaAina]

18. There are

schools are allowed to exempt 2 percent of their most disabled students. Clearly Michael would have qualified.

[SummerSnow]

2. Not suprised this happened in Florida

Sickening

[dsc]

3. it happens everywhere

my fathers second wife taught the lowest special education children in her elementary school and had to similarly give a test to a kid with a 60 iq who was blind and in the 1st or 2nd grade. This is the policy that our national government has bought into.

[SummerSnow]

7. Thats horrible. No protection for special needs children.

[zerosumgame0005]

8. Bush's NCLB

was intended to destroy and pervert education, and it is working...

[joeglow3]

11. Sadly, this existed way before Bush.

I saw it in the 1980's when I was in school.

[Smarmie Doofus]

20. It's way, WAY worse now.

I've been teaching special ed since Carter was president. The iep guided instruction .... and assessment... of handicapped kids in those days.

NCLB politicized education in a way and to a degree that it hadn't been politicized before. Banalities like "all children can learn" obscured the fact that some kids learn *differently*.

Obama... a complete blank slate as far as public ed goes... accepted this idiotic premise and compounded the error exponentially with his signature Race to the Top.

Result: kids such as those in OP given standardized testing AND standardized curriculum.

[cali]

6. really? do explain. why is this a trash thread?

and why would you kick it if you think that's where it belongs?

[JustAnotherGen]

19. No worries cali - I am

Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT and said: Just trash it - don't demean the op.

Someone else commented on the lowering of standards around here.


No one held a gun to his head and MADE him read the thread. I have people on ignore, boards/groups on ignore and threads trashed. I don't demean members of DU by pointing out who they are. It's mean.

The good thing is - he/she wont' be back to derail it further. Because supposedly they trashed the thread.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. NYC Thinks Like Fla: Just pretend kids like this don't exist.

Then teach them in exactly the same way one would teach kids w/o handicaps.

The result is this:

http://paulvhogan.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/the-district-75-danielson-pilot-crash-burn-fizzle/

These people are at the very least consistent. Scary and bizarre; but consistent.

[Poll_Blind]

9. Can somoene be specific about what the "stomach turning" violation/outrage here is?

The child's not going to pass the test. Blind, very very limited ability to think. Got that.

Can't tell difference between apple and peach. Got that, too.

I got the reason why he had to take the test, too:

Michael, shortly after birth, came into the care of a woman named Judy Harris who owns and operates an Orlando care facility for children called the Russell House. The facility is under school board jurisdiction and, therefore, is subject to the same rules and regulations as other schools, including the requirement that every child must take some version of the FCAT.

So there's some horrible "charade" going on according to the article's author.

What...is that? That the boy's not going to pass the test? That the boy couldn't pass the test?

What's the violation of...anything here? There was no indication that, for intance, during the test the boy became upset or despondant over his inability to answer the questions or anything like that. There was no indication that somehow his test results are going to "harm" him in any way.

So what is the big fucking meltdown Valerie Strauss is trying to coax everyone into having? What is the nightmare I'm supposed to want to stop from every happening again?

PB

[cali]

10. it's not about harm to this child. It's goes to the absurdity of how these standardized tests are

implemented and how how fucked up the system of testing is.

[antigone382]

14. It might not cause psychological harm to this particular student...

...but if they are willing to go through such a silly endeavor for a child as profoundly disabled as this, there is no guarantee they won't do similar things for other disabled children, who as a result may suffer distress or self-esteem issues that we can't predict. This story indicates that laws need to be changed to better acknowledge and accommodate for the fact that there are profoundly disabled children who need an individual set of goals drawn up that allows them maximum quality of life, rather than uniform educational achievements that may be totally irrelevant to them. We can acknowledge that without necessarily throwing out standardized testing entirely.

[Smarmie Doofus]

16. ^ This.

And the irony is.... we HAD that. It was ( and is) called I.E.P.

WTF happened?

>>>This story indicates that laws need to be changed to better acknowledge and accommodate for the fact that there are profoundly disabled children who need an individual set of goals drawn up that allows them maximum quality of life, rather than uniform educational achievements that may be totally irrelevant to them.>>>>

[libodem]

15. What it does is factor in his test score of zero

With the learning curve of the rest of the class and lowers the total score. It isn't fair. That teacher could be fired or not get a raise because she is considered underperforming. The school could face closure.

If you have a vindictive principal or one with favorites it would be possible to reward or punish teachers by loading the lower performing students into certain classrooms.

I've taken care of brainstem babies. You are blessed to even have a bit of recognition from them. We had a hydrocephalic child with a head like a pumpkin and the body of a baby. I was surprised to hear the nursing staff say that he knew certain caregivers. But that is about the most you can hope for with a profound case.

[bemildred]

12. And they call him stupid.

[LeftyMom]

13. A friend of mine has to give standardized tests to severely autistic kids

and then write reports on how to get them to grade level. These are teenagers who wear diapers, the only way to get them to grade level would be to find a miracle cure for autism.

It's unfair and a waste of time that could be spent teaching them things that are within their grasp.

[Smarmie Doofus]

17. You're depressing me.

Only because I've lived thru it and know it's true.