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| courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain |
Today begins this school year’s round of the so-called “High
Stakes” testing. Though most of our students will not actually be testing
today, there are a number of them who are taking the Career and Technical
Readiness Exam required for certain elective classes. Also, our students with
autism or other learning disabilities will be taking what is called the Extend1
exam. It is like the End-of-Grade tests the rest of the students will take only
there are fewer questions and only two answers to choose from instead of four.
Tomorrow, the End-of-Grade tests start in earnest. Though we
only have twenty-two homerooms here at our school, we will need forty-one
separate testing areas because of the number of children who require testing in
small groups, one-on-one testing, and read-aloud testing. These students are
the children who have either a Federal 504 Plan or an Individualized Education
Plan requiring them to receive such accommodations. All year long, they are
taught in a regular classroom but are differentiated for in the difficulty,
length of assignments, or time allotted to complete the assignments, as well as
being given any tests in a one-on-one or small group environment.
While the philosophy behind offering these accommodations may be
a kind-hearted and compassionate one, in the long run I have to wonder if it we
are really doing these students a disservice. The students get used to getting
the same credit for doing less work while they are in school and then have a
hard time understanding why, when they get out of school and get a job, they
are expected to work just as long and hard as everyone else if they want to
receive the same pay.
One of the graduates of our school system got a job last year
and was fired after six weeks for failing to show up regularly for work. When
told he was fired, the student tried to tell his boss he couldn’t be fired
because he had an IEP and his IEP had an accommodation for being allowed to
make up work for absences. Imagine the surprise on that young man’s face when
his boss explained to him that an IEP was only binding on the school system and
had nothing at all to do with life in the “real world.”
Special Education teachers tell me that students with IEPs are
expected to work just as hard as other students; it’s just that the IEP student
cannot keep up with other students no matter how hard he or she may try. While
this may be true, what I increasingly see is IEP students insisting they be
given less work, easier work, or no work at all compared to the “regular”
students. On the other side of the story, I see the “regular” students becoming
resentful of the IEP students who flaunt their accommodations and brag about
how they get the same grades without doing work that is as rigorous as the “regular”
students. Worse, I see parents who come in wanting their children put on an IEP
simply so the child won’t have to work as hard at school. Yes, it does happen.
We wonder why our students work ethic is eroding away. It isn’t
really that much of a mystery. Why should a student work hard to get good grades
when the student next to him or her does half the work and gets the same grades
because the second student has accommodations? An adult may understand why, but
to a middle schooler it just seems plain unfair.
As always, I remain,
The Exhausted Educator
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