my son's school district did it again

[LWolf]

60. Rules keep tightening.

This year, NONE of my sped students can take the alternative version. It's not an administrative decision. It's coming down from the state, and they're getting it from the feds. We took the NCLB waiver.

As our sped teacher tried to explain it to me, almost no sped students will qualify for the alternate test. So I've got some students this year who have never taken the standard version who will be doing so for the first time. Those scores affect their educational future, my evaluation, my principal's evaluation, and our school's rating. These are students who are, effectively, 3-5 years below grade level, who need assistive technology plus intense small group and 1-on-1 help to access grade level content and to work on closing huge skill gaps.

Our new evaluation system, needed to obtain that waiver, evaluates principals based on school test scores, among other things. The test scores carry a great deal of weight.

As long as student test scores are the measure of school/principal/teacher success or not, you will continue to see policy that is not good for students.

My school just sent letters home urging students who do not meet benchmarks on our district's formative assessments to attend tutoring at our expense. The letter is strongly worded. They also do things like rootbeer float parties as rewards. Not for test scores yet, thank goodness, but for general citizenship and work habits.

This fall I contacted the coaches for various sports myself about not using my sped kids' current grades for participation. It wasn't a problem.

I don't know what state you are in; it's a little different in each state, but the bottom line is that until voters stop putting education deformers into office, it will only get worse. Our admins are doing what they are told, as are we, and trying, under the veneer of compliance, to do everything we can to provide an actual education within the limits we've been set.

It's not your son's school district. It's the laws based on harmful policy that have been shoved down their throats.

You should know that, while private schools do not have to deal with the testing culture, neither do they have to appropriately serve students with learning disabilities. It is still the public system's job to serve those private school students.

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/idea1.html