Since TN mixes gifted with other special needs, the statistics are very misleading. The article doesn't mention that our state raises the bar to qualify for special ed every year so that fewer and fewer children who need services actually get them.

I can't see k-12 folks going to all the extra trouble to get someone classed as special ed, and then do all the IEP meetings and other additional work that is necessary for spec ed, just to sway some NCLB nonsense. Sounds cockeyed, and I'd want to know a great deal more before I went on a crusade about this. Especially because of the gifted kids being thrown into the mix.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

All kids are gifted. All kids are different. The problem is not that some kids aren't allowed to feel special by because they don't get to attend special classes. The problem is that school and educrats insist that there is one single way to teach all kids and that there is one single universal body of knowledge that we can force into kids' heads and call them educated. We need a brand new education model that allows for the individual differences of each and every child. That's how we stop leaving children behind.

We need a brand new education model that allows for the individual differences of each and every child.

We used to have that. Kids took the 3R core curriculum and then they could take music, drama, art, language, advanced science, horticulture, shop classes, sports, etc. and were encouraged to pursue whatever interested them.

Now it's all about NCLB testing and college prep.

is the constant and continuous social promotion of children and the ill defined category of learning disabilities. And it's about the bureaucrats failing to serve the children by failing to prepare them for the future where they won't be considered "special" in the real world. They'll be considered competent or incompetent, and qualified or unqualified.

We may think that's harsh, or that's unfair, but that's the way it is.

The problem is that school and educrats insist that there is one single way to teach all kids and that there is one single universal body of knowledge that we can force into kids' heads and call them educated.

I think most teachers and administrators know there is not a "single" way to learn or to teach. The problem is, for example, if I'm teaching reading or language for fifty minutes to thirty kids, with twenty at grade level, one kid three levels behind grade level, two kids two levels behind, and the rest one level behind, what do you do? You teach to the core, you set aside time to try to help the others, and you move on to the next lesson.

As far as the "universal body of knowledge" goes, when colleges drop all admission requirements and allow anyone to enter regardless of ability or knowledge, then I guess teachers will then be able to teach something other than what is commonly known as a "universal body of knowledge."

Learning disabilities are real. If they don't get the type of education they need, they give up and drop out.

I agree with you somewhat. The problem is that once a child is labeled special ed, then the child is given accomodations so he/she can pass on through without getting to the cause of the problem.

To me, a kid who is three grade levels behind, is not "disabled." They need help and attention, but now, because of the spec ed process, they don't get it, and they don't get the help they need to catch up. That's the tragedy.

How many m-teams have you attended Gary?

I'm going to try to be respectful, because I don't know your background, or your history with this issue, but for your information, I have taught at Mountain View Youth Devt. Center and at a county alternative school, and I have been to quite a few M-team meetings.

Special ed children work harder and under closer scrutiny than their peers.

All of them? That's not my experience. I've personally had kids claim that they didn't have to do assignments and take tests when their IEPs did not allow for modifications.

I don't disagree that some kids need a lot of specialized help, but when I start reading all these absolutes about certain issues - Children do not get labeled special ed without stringent criteria that is heavily documented and supported with extensive psychological and academic testing by professionals.- I realize that I've touched a nerve, and it's best that I end my part of the discussion.

They do not get accommodations to ignore their problems either.

But, before I go, I think you misunderstood me. I think the educators themselves ignore the causes of the problems, and the proper and effective way to remedy them, when they let students pass through grade after grade, with accomodations to help them pass, but which never give them the help they need.

You may not want to admit it, but I've seen it, and I know a number of other teachers who have as well.

I've been to Mountain View and Taft many times for different purposes. ETCCY, TVC, TDMH Council, etc. Children who are incarcerated are not the same as children in our local school system. You are grouping the killers of the Lillelid family with the struggling child at a neighborhood elementary or high school? Most of the Mountain View and Taft children have given up and will spend their lives working the system.

The article which prompted this post was misleading and although I can see the puppet strings attached, I can't yet see who is pulling those strings. Children in TN are not getting the services they need.

Children who are incarcerated are not the same as children in our local school system. You are grouping the killers of the Lillelid family with the struggling child at a neighborhood elementary or high school? Most of the Mountain View and Taft children have given up and will spend their lives working the system.

Let me first apologize for entering a discussion I promised I would leave, but I feel I need to stand up for the incarcerated kids.

When I was at Mtn. View, probably about half were spec ed. Mtn. View has kids in for anything from truancy to, aggravated assault and worse. But, there are a surprising number who did something involving drugs, or theft, who had the bad luck of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and getting caught.

A number of them have been in foster care since birth or early childhood, and when they are released to a half way house, they will intentionally do something stupid, just to get caught and incarcerated again, because the only world they feel adequate in is a state institution.

Some of them are so endangered and neglected at home that they will get into trouble so they will at least be somewhere they are certain they can get three meals a day, a roof over their heads, and feel relatively safer than they would at home.

Then, as someone referred to earlier, they feel like other kids, in a regular public school, look down at them because they are behind other kids their own age. So, rather than being thought of as "stupid," they'll get into trouble, and be thought of as "tough."

Then there are those who have family in the adult prisons, and they think if they get into trouble, they will eventually be with them.

Then of course, you have your psychopaths and sociopaths, which the other kids tend to stay away from in juvenile centers, as they do in a regular public school.

Some kids were at Mtn. View because their parents wanted them there.

Some are there because they were charged with statutory rape for having teenage sex.

In short, please don't stereotype kids in juvenile.
They are there for various reasons, in my opinion, some justified some not.

Taft is a different story. When I worked for DCS, it housed the very violent, a place where other kids did not want to be sent.

And I'll add this stick to the fire:

My main problem with labeling kids as Learning Disabled (LD) is that while teachers and administrators usually go out of the way to make the physically disabled feel part of the general classroom as much as possible, and they go out of their way not to refer to a chilld as having a disability, the opposite seems true with learning disabilities.

If we don't want to stigmatize and segregate a child with a physical disability, why is that some demand that we do that with a kid, who may just be behind, or who may learn a little differently than others?