From the San Francisco Chronicle:

California’s budget deal includes a provision to overturn a two-year-old policy that requires students with disabilities to pass the state exit exam for graduation. Gov. Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the pact.

State education officials are still sifting through the agreement to figure out how the new policy would apply to the potentially tens of thousands of students with disabilities who were denied their diplomas over the past two years.

Critics of the exam said the new legislation was the right course of action, albeit belated.

The exit exam “has been an unmitigated disaster for thousands of children with disabilities,” said Sid Wolinsky, Disability Rights Advocates’ director of litigation. “They’ve earned (a diploma) by every possible measure except this one-size-fits-all standardized exam.”

Wolinsky’s organization says 16,000 disabled students fail to pass the exit exam each year. Many of them met all other requirements for graduation.

Earlier posts here.

From the Miami Herald:

A school for hospitalized and homebound kids in the Miami-Dade School District is facing closure because its students don’t score well on standardized tests. School district officials say kids at Merrick Educational Center, who have conditions like cancer and brain injuries, shouldn’t be held to the same standards as other kids.

“The whole process is demoralizing for the students, the parents and the teachers,” the school’s principal said.

But critics wonder: Who’s being served?

From the Washington Post:

Virginia schools are expanding the use of “portfolio” testing, once used only for students with serious cognitive disabilities. Now they’re being used for students with learning disabilities and those with emerging English language skills.

Many educators say the expensive portfolio method provides a surer way to measure kids’ achievement. Others are wary of their relatively high pass rates, which help educators reach academic benchmarks. “It benefits the state, not the child, to say they are at grade level when they are not,” said a mother of a student with disabilities.

AP/Washington Post:

Visiting 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.

From the Seattle Times:

The Seattle School district has suspended two special education teachers for refusing to administer a standardized test to six students with physical and cognitive disabilities.

Parents said the teachers were honoring their wishes; teachers said the test was inappropriate for the students. “My kid is basically the equivalent of a toddler,” said one mother. “You wouldn’t ask a toddler these questions when they can’t do it. … You wouldn’t give a kid a test that is years beyond what they can do.”

A spokesman for the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction said the test can be tailored to individual needs, but parents and teachers dispute that.

Earlier post here.

Related posts here.

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.