Arne Duncan and Special Education - [View all]

[TBF]

This is what happens when you let profit be the driver for education in a society. You have buffoons like Duncan "in charge" and you set up both teachers and children for failure -


"We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel," Duncan said.

In announcing a new emphasis and "major shift," the U.S. Department of Education will now demand that states show educational progress for students with disabilities.

Arne Duncan announced that, shockingly, students with disabilities do poorly in school. They perform below level in both English and math. No, there aren't any qualifiers attached to that. Arne is bothered that students with very low IQs, students with low function, students who have processing problems, students who have any number of impairments -- these students are performing below grade level.

"We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel," Duncan said. (per NPR coverage)

And I'm pretty sure we don't know any such thing. I'm pretty sure that the special needs students in schools across the country are special needs precisely because they have trouble meeting the usual expectations.

There's no question that special needs students require more educational attention than simply being warehoused. And it's true that unnecessarily low expectations are no help to any student. But it is also true that an entire educational sub-specialty, a whole other class of training, has been developed simply to address the challenge of teaching students with special needs.

More here if you can stomach it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/disabilities-testing-education_b_5528835.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000020