‘You do not speak for our children’
Earlier this year, 19 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the United Negro College Fund, issued a joint statement about what they would like to see in a newly written No Child Left Behind law, an exercise Congress is now attempting to complete. The statement (which you can read here) surprised many parents and educators because of its embrace of faulty thinking about teaching and learning.
For example, it calls for the continued annual standardized testing of all students in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school even though there is no real evidence that this has improved equity or student achievement. It further says that alternative assessments for students with disabilities be limited “only to students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, up to 1 percent of all students.”
Up to 1 percent? One percent is only an estimate of the number of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This rule means that the other 99 percent of students with disabilities have to take the same new Common Core tests as students without disabilities, though with accommodations that can include extra time or having the test questions read aloud to them. The hardships this puts on students with disabilities and their families can be excruciating.
A few years ago in Florida, a boy named Michael born without the cognitive part of his brain was forced to take alternative standardized tests mandated by the state even though he couldn’t tell the difference between a car and a boat. The state finally gave him a waiver, but many parents with struggling children say that giving any standardized assessment to their child is useless. Early last year, Andrea Rediske, the mother of then 11-year-old Ethan, who was born with brain damage and suffered from cerebral palsy,was asked by the state of Florida to prove that her son could not take the state’s alternative exam — even while he lay dying in the hospital. He passed away in February 2014.
It is true that some members of the disabilities community have in the past embraced annual testing of all students under the idea that it is the only way that this subgroup of students will be given attention in their public schools. If schools are held accountable for the test scores of these students, the thinking goes, then educators will pay attention and give them the help they need. That was the underlying principle behind the annual testing of No Child Left Behind, but there isn’t real evidence that ‘You do not speak for our children’ - The Washington Post:
