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Problems with the rush to label children
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Something written by the SF Education Examiner, Caroline Grannan caught my eye. In her article on the corruption of charter schools in Philadelphia, she mentioned that a school receives $23,279 for every special-ed student regardless of the degree of disability. She added that 14 percent of the schools students were classified as speech or language impaired.
This is not unique to charter schools. We experienced this with my daughter. From the time she entered public school (She went to private school Pre-K for two years first) we were urged to have her tested for ADHD. I disagreed and refused to do so and it caused a major problem between her Kindergarten and First Grade teacher and me. (What they did not know was that I had private informal testing done that said she was fine.) When we decided to homeschool, I made the error of telling her first grade teacher in January of that year that we would homeschool the next year. From that point on, there was an overwhelming campaign to get her labeled as speech impaired and to get me to agree to bring her in once a week for extra services. I turned that down as well. She is 12 years old now, and while she is still a high-energy child, she is advanced academically and her speech impediment (which we affectionately called the Wa-wa’s) is long gone.
In a conversation with a distant relative who is also an administrator in NY public schools, he told me how some parents actually want these labels on their kids because it made them eligible for extra assistance with tests and helped to raise test scores. Having the kids labeled also allowed many of the parents to get NYC schools to pay for specialty private schools. He complained about how the children who were labeled at the insistence of their parents ate up a huge part of the schools budget in special services. These parents had learned to manipulate the system. While this is not a wide-spread problem, is a serious one that un-does the city’s benefit from labeling kids as special ed.
I think what appalls me most about labeling of school children is that over all, kids are disproportionately labeled based on race. According to the NEA,
NEA views disproportionality -- when students of a particular population or demographic group are over- or underrepresented in special or gifted education programs relative to their group's presence in the overall student population -- as an important issue to address in local or state efforts to close the gaps in student achievement.
While the Truth in Labeling issues are being taken seriously, I feel like improvements are moving at a snails pace. Schools are abusing labeling. Parents are abusing labeling. Kids are being told that they are less-than or not as smart as others. This will have long-term effects that people are not willing to look at.
I am begging and encouraging parents to question any labels that are being put on your kids. I am asking teachers to consider if these kids really need labels, or perhaps just time to mature.
As a final example, I present myself. Back in the early 1970’s I was placed in a special Ed Kindergarten and First Grade. As my mother recalled it, when they gave me the verbal assessment, I refused to cooperate. I was instantly labeled before anyone had ever taught me to read or add. To make a long story short, an incident where a teacher spanked me ended with my being re-tested to get me out of that teacher’s classroom. In the spring of my first grade year, I was moved from special-ed into the most advanced class. Go figure. I graduated high school with honors and have an IQ that got me an invitation to take the MENSA test. Had I remained under those labels, I doubt we would have ever really known my potential.
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