Duncan sees problems with exams for kids with disabilities
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009Visiting West Virginia on the first stop of a 15-state “listening tour,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan heard from a special education teacher who said mandated standardized tests are hurtful to students who don’t have the ability to pass them. Duncan later said the teacher was right.
“To have a child taking a test that it is literally impossible for them to pass and having that humiliation, and holding schools accountable for that, that doesn’t make sense,” Duncan said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Teacher Lynn Reichard said she worked all year to build the self-esteem of her students with intellectual disabilities, only to see the students distraught when required to take tests they knew they couldn’t pass.
“They feel so good about themselves, and then they look at a two-paragraph reading passage, and they know six words,” Reichard said. “I have one child here that’s a nonreader, and she’s going to have to take the test, and she’s going to cry.
“There’s just got to be another answer for that,” Reichard said.
Earlier posts here.


