I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday who shared some distressing news. Her mother works at a nearby elementary school. According to her, the special education program for the mentally disabled there has been dissolved.
I was shocked. I didn’t think that was legal—but apparently it is. The students, who were formally in that class, including my friend’s younger brother, are now in regular classes. My friend’s brother is lucky—their mom is able to give him extra help at home. But what about those who don’t have that luxury—what happens to them?
Apparently the reasoning behind this is the by-now infamous No Child Left Behind Act. Threatening schools with impossible achievement standards and monetary repercussions, holding the wrong people responsible at the wrong times for the wrong things—now, in order to get the best results according to the language of the act, a beneficial program has been dissolved.
I was under the impression NCLB made some concessions for the mentally disabled when adding and calculating their test scores, etc, but obviously not enough, or the program would still be in place.
How long is it going to take before the government realizes NCLB isn’t working? It causes far more problems than it helps anything. The government says everyone needs a high school education, but that isn’t true. There isn’t enough money spent on alternative education, for those who fail in the classroom, who deliberately do their worst because they don’t want to be there and cause nothing but trouble, but excel in other areas, such as mechanics. Two of my best friends, although not troublemakers, fall into this category; we’re lucky enough to have a vo-tech center that offers students ready to enter the work force with practical skills like automotive knowledge a chance to do something useful with their time, instead of sitting in a classroom where they do not want to be and know they don’t belong.
But this ending of special education programs really takes the cake. I regret I don’t have any “quotable” sources, so to speak, on the matter, but as it is, this example, this real event that happened to my friend’s family, and particularly her little brother, is still a testament to the ridiculousness that is NCLB in action.
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