Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton is worried about the students in special education who failed their exit exams — almost half of them, by the state’s count. He wonders whether California is harassing them by insisting that they pass. An excerpt:

We need common sense here. One size doesn’t fit all. Education is more than abstract academia. It’s also about building social skills and self-confidence — about reaching as high as possible, and not being punished for not fulfilling some bureaucrats’ or politicians’ expectations.

We should call a time out and reexamine the exam for these special kids.

See earlier post here.

From USA Today:

Groups representing people with Down syndrome say Sarah Palin could help boost efforts to help people with disabilities live more independently.

Among the priorities they cited were additional funding for physical therapy after birth, long-term financial incentives to help people with Down syndrome pay housing and medical bills into adulthood, and strengthening the No Child Left Behind law.

They also called for lifting the $2,000 cap on assets for Medicaid eligibility requirements, because the cap encourages people with disabilities to make less money in order to qualify for federal benefits.

Madeleine Will, vice president of public policy for the National Down Syndrome Society, said advocates also want Congress to make changes such as:

• Requiring doctors to provide more detailed information about Down syndrome to parents who receive prenatal and postnatal diagnoses, including life expectancy data and contacts of local support groups. The idea has support from lawmakers on both sides of the abortion issue.

• Allowing families to save money in tax-exempt accounts that can be used to pay for expenses associated with education, medical treatment and employment training.

High school special education teacher Wayne Grytting, writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says state bureaucracy is needlessly denying students with disabilities the chance to graduate with a diploma. It’s not fair to withhold diplomas because teachers can’t figure out the rules for submitting portfolios for student work, he says.

Last year, half of all disabled students failed the portfolio, many because of unseen errors by their teachers. You would be hard pressed to find a special-ed teacher who is not aghast at what we are being mandated to do. State education “experts” act like astrologers pretending to do science.

At our high school, disabled students are learning to cook, swim, use PowerPoint, garden, bag groceries, climb rock walls, use Metro, paddle canoes, manage recycling, surf the Internet, do pottery and woodcrafts. We’d love to produce meaningful portfolios that respect the richness of what our students accomplish.

Anonymous comments on Grytting’s op-ed question whether students in special education should be receiving diplomas at all, and whether parents should be responsible for all life-long costs of their children. Many of the posts are hostile.

See related post here.

From the Washington Post:

A new report from the Montgomery County [Maryland] school system says the county’s special-education teachers are having so much trouble administering an alternative version of the Maryland School Assessment to severely disabled students that nearly one-fifth of students tested last year failed solely because of errors committed by the teachers.

The finding is significant because of the difficulty Montgomery and other counties have had in meeting annual targets under the No Child Left Behind Act for special-education students.

Special education was a factor for 15 of the 21 Montgomery schools that missed annual targets last year under the education law. Four elementary and four middle schools missed adequate progress goals solely because of special-education scores.

Among the report’s recommendations: mandatory training for teachers who give the test.

From the San Francisco Chronicle, [Riverside] Press-Enterprise, AP in San Jose Mercury-News:

High school seniors in special-education classes will have to pass California’s exit exam to get a regular diploma this June under a legal settlement filed Friday.

One advocate for disabled students estimates that at least 20,000 members of the class of 2008 who are in special education still have not passed the exam.

An exemption for disabled students expired after last year’s senior class graduated.

… The settlement requires the state to hire a consultant to study students who have failed the exam, and determine whether there are students who have mastered the material but still cannot pass the exam, even with accommodations.

From the [UK] Times:

British exam regulators report a 43 percent increase in the number of students who were given extra time or extra help to complete standardized tests, sparking allegations of affluent parents exploiting the system to benefit their children.

A number of experts agreed yesterday that the rules were open to abuse. Tom Burkard, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and director of the Promethean Trust, a charity for dyslexic children, said that many middle-class parents were exploiting the system to gain an unfair advantage for their children.

“Schools are under great pressure not to give students extra time in exams. When they do, it’s usually the result of pressure from middle-class parents,” he said.

From the Baltimore Sun, an editorial favoring a proposal by Maryland schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick that would allow students who have repeatedly failed exit exams to graduate if they complete a senior project instead.

While testing students to determine how much they have mastered important subjects is worthwhile, all students must be given adequate preparation to pass the tests and — particularly for special-education students — sufficient options to meet graduation requirements.

… More flexibility is rightly at the heart of Ms. Grasmick’s proposal … All students should be given every chance to show that they have mastered their subjects and that they deserve a diploma.