Accommodation Nation

[Anonymous]

I'm all for accommodations, but the gaming of SATs and ACTs is real.

Easily solved! Just make those tests untimed or add an hour so they're basically untimed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Three things are true:

1. There are kids who legitimately need accommodations and should receive them.

2. There are an unknown number of families (disproportionately UC) who falsely claim disabilities to get an unfair advantage.

3. There’s also a group of kids with typical abilities and traits whose personality challenges have led to a “disability” label, not to gain an advantage but bc of the current trend towards medicalization. Many well-meaning people and parents in this group, but an inappropriate result nevertheless.

Our inability to distinguish between these groups is the root cause of the problem described in the article.

It's mostly #2

PP here. I suspect it’s mostly #3.

I’m astonished by the number of genuinely caring parents who take their kids to doctors or therapy or go through assessments for “normal” kid issues.

Not to mention the trend of starting kids on therapy who have no current need for it whatsoever, to “get them used to it.” SMH.

Are you kidding me? People actually do this?

[Anonymous]

this is clickbait and designed to get everyone all indignant and riled up. i guess it worked.

[Anonymous]

As a professor in the humanities, I find that my students tend to do worse psychologically with assignments hanging over their heads. Because they have a syllabus with due dates, they report being better off planning in advance and not taking advantage of extended times. This avoids having a pile of assignments due at the end of the semester from multiple classes. I also give a lot of time for in-class quizzes, so students generally don't need to go to the disability center to take their quizzes.
And, yes, processing speed is part of an overall picture of intelligence, but not all of it. If you have two children who have the same verbal and math reasoning "scores" on intelligence tests, but one is able to complete the same questions in half the time as another student is at an distinct advantage. The quicker child can simply take in far more data in a given amount of time than the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my school (named directly in the article), most of the students I know with accommodations were playing up allergies/asthma to get permission to have AC units in their rooms. Those numbers are extremely overinflated.

Damn, these schools charging 90-100k a year really need to be giving everyone an AC unit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm all for accommodations, but the gaming of SATs and ACTs is real.

Easily solved! Just make those tests untimed or add an hour so they're basically untimed.

They just need to make reporting extra time as mandatory and it would solve the problem organically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not this again.

You know why rich kids get more accommodations than poor kids? Because poor kids who SHOULD receive accommodations do not because their parents don't know they're eligible for it or don't have time to argue their case, and the schools they attend aren't as attentive to these things as the rich kids' schools.

One of my kids is supremely functional and fast-thinking. The other has severe ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, low processing speed and a speech impediment, diagnosed when he was little and confirmed at 10 and 17. He needed a lot of school services and accommodations, but the biggest help was double time for his low processing speed, measured below the 5th percentile. He had double time for his ACT test, and he has double time in college, that he is trying to wean himself off, because he knows workplaces will not have any accommodations for him.

My son's issues won't go away magically. They will always be there. He might be fired from multiple jobs for lack of productivity. He absolutely needed his accommodations in K-12 and to suggest that our money bought unnecessary services is outrageous. On the contrary, we were sufficiently educated and wealthy to get him the help he needed, and that's why he made it into college in the first place.

Healthcare and mental health evaluations and services NEED TO BECOME CHEAPER, so that poorer families can benefit from them too.

What this article is missing is that modern society is uncovering a host of variability in brain function. That is particularly true for autism diagnoses. It doesn't mean people are gaming the system and being diagnosed when they don't have whatever it is. It means our methods of diagnosis have improved significantly and are covering more and more of the population, and that's why there are more people being diagnosed. And because scientists advance to a more granular understanding of mental health differences, the threshold for diagnosis keeps getting lower. But still, due to cost, it's the rich people who get diagnosed first. It doesn't mean they're lying about their symptoms.

All this poses a greater societal question of how to think about brain variability. We should accept that people function differently and that some are entitled to more time, or noise canceling headphones or whatever it is, without pathologizing their condition and labeling them as "disordered". Because this is really the crux of your complaint: that people with no perceived handicap are acting as if they deserve pity, community resources and extra attention, and that it's not fair, because they're not handicapped.

Instead, you should think about it as: people with different brain functioning are entitled to a different learning or working environment, even if they're just as smart than others, so that they can contribute to society instead of not being able to fit in at all and thus become a drain on society.

I don't think ANYONE begrudges your severe ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, low processing speed, speech impediment, 5th percentile processing kid extra time.

The professor quoted in the article sure is...unless the kid is in a wheelchair, apparently.

Way to miss the point.

What the professor is seeing is that rich kids get every advantage. If you truly believe these learning issues only affect wealthy students who have parents who can afford testing, then you are part of the problem.

The professor correctly recognizes that the scholarship kid with dyslexia and all sorts of other learning issues now has yet one more area where he has to be has twice as smart just to keep up. The rich students get to continue riding the glass escalator to graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not this again.

You know why rich kids get more accommodations than poor kids? Because poor kids who SHOULD receive accommodations do not because their parents don't know they're eligible for it or don't have time to argue their case, and the schools they attend aren't as attentive to these things as the rich kids' schools.

One of my kids is supremely functional and fast-thinking. The other has severe ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, low processing speed and a speech impediment, diagnosed when he was little and confirmed at 10 and 17. He needed a lot of school services and accommodations, but the biggest help was double time for his low processing speed, measured below the 5th percentile. He had double time for his ACT test, and he has double time in college, that he is trying to wean himself off, because he knows workplaces will not have any accommodations for him.

My son's issues won't go away magically. They will always be there. He might be fired from multiple jobs for lack of productivity. He absolutely needed his accommodations in K-12 and to suggest that our money bought unnecessary services is outrageous. On the contrary, we were sufficiently educated and wealthy to get him the help he needed, and that's why he made it into college in the first place.

Healthcare and mental health evaluations and services NEED TO BECOME CHEAPER, so that poorer families can benefit from them too.

What this article is missing is that modern society is uncovering a host of variability in brain function. That is particularly true for autism diagnoses. It doesn't mean people are gaming the system and being diagnosed when they don't have whatever it is. It means our methods of diagnosis have improved significantly and are covering more and more of the population, and that's why there are more people being diagnosed. And because scientists advance to a more granular understanding of mental health differences, the threshold for diagnosis keeps getting lower. But still, due to cost, it's the rich people who get diagnosed first. It doesn't mean they're lying about their symptoms.

All this poses a greater societal question of how to think about brain variability. We should accept that people function differently and that some are entitled to more time, or noise canceling headphones or whatever it is, without pathologizing their condition and labeling them as "disordered". Because this is really the crux of your complaint: that people with no perceived handicap are acting as if they deserve pity, community resources and extra attention, and that it's not fair, because they're not handicapped.

Instead, you should think about it as: people with different brain functioning are entitled to a different learning or working environment, even if they're just as smart than others, so that they can contribute to society instead of not being able to fit in at all and thus become a drain on society.

I don't think ANYONE begrudges your severe ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, low processing speed, speech impediment, 5th percentile processing kid extra time.

The professor quoted in the article sure is...unless the kid is in a wheelchair, apparently.

Way to miss the point.

What the professor is seeing is that rich kids get every advantage. If you truly believe these learning issues only affect wealthy students who have parents who can afford testing, then you are part of the problem.

The professor correctly recognizes that the scholarship kid with dyslexia and all sorts of other learning issues now has yet one more area where he has to be has twice as smart just to keep up. The rich students get to continue riding the glass escalator to graduation.

Why is the solution taking away accommodations and not making testing in the public schools more robust so that there is equal access?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm all for accommodations, but the gaming of SATs and ACTs is real.

Easily solved! Just make those tests untimed or add an hour so they're basically untimed.

They just need to make reporting extra time as mandatory and it would solve the problem organically.

Make Discrimination Great Again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will no longer subscribe to the Atlantic or even add traffic to their site, but I can imagine what the rest of the article is like. You know what the solution is to this 'problem'? Give everyone extra time - it is ridiculous, particularly at the college level, to think one person is smarter or better educated or better prepared because it takes them less time to solve a problem or write an essay than the next person.

Yea, time to complete is a marker of intelligence. If it takes you hours to solve a problem someone does in 20 minutes you are not as smart as them. The world doesn’t have infinite time to allow the slowest to catch up.

What you’re pointing out is not everyone is meant to go to college.

But we're not talking about 20 minutes vs. hours. We're talking about a contrived situation--a, say, 45 min to 3 hour timed exam--that isn't reflective of how virtually anyone works in the real world. And kids with extended time typically get 1.5x time. Not hours vs. 20 minutes.

I'm all for universal design, where we design assessments where feasible to make the "accommodation" accessible to all. That means 24 or 48 hour take home exams with word limits, in some cases. It means research papers. It means making the time limit such that time isn't a barrier unless speed is the very thing being tested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will no longer subscribe to the Atlantic or even add traffic to their site, but I can imagine what the rest of the article is like. You know what the solution is to this 'problem'? Give everyone extra time - it is ridiculous, particularly at the college level, to think one person is smarter or better educated or better prepared because it takes them less time to solve a problem or write an essay than the next person.

Yea, time to complete is a marker of intelligence. If it takes you hours to solve a problem someone does in 20 minutes you are not as smart as them. The world doesn’t have infinite time to allow the slowest to catch up.

What you’re pointing out is not everyone is meant to go to college.

But we're not talking about 20 minutes vs. hours. We're talking about a contrived situation--a, say, 45 min to 3 hour timed exam--that isn't reflective of how virtually anyone works in the real world. And kids with extended time typically get 1.5x time. Not hours vs. 20 minutes.

I'm all for universal design, where we design assessments where feasible to make the "accommodation" accessible to all. That means 24 or 48 hour take home exams with word limits, in some cases. It means research papers. It means making the time limit such that time isn't a barrier unless speed is the very thing being tested.

But that is not the purpose of grades or scores such as in the SAT. It’s not supposed to be the real world. A college can take only one student, Bill or Bob. They made the same score on the SAT but Bob had extended time. Therefore, Bill is smarter and should be the one accepted.

[Anonymous]

My son with a hearing loss first diagnosed at age 2. He ended speech therapy to learn to properly pronounce words and he still has difficulty with pronouncing all the sounds in every multi syllabic words. Background noise makes it even harder for him so being close enough to see the teacher’s mouth well and having his better ear near the teacher makes it easier to understand.

It’s mild enough teachers don’t notice at first because he is quiet, hard working and well behaved. He is willing to come home and watch YouTube videos with close captions to understand what he missed in class and spend extra time completing work.

What has been frustrating to see is that he often would not get to sit next to the teacher or even in the front of the room because so many students had accommodations. Teachers would tell me since he was doing well (because if all the extra hours he spent studying) and was well behaved they had to prioritize other students who were talkative, had advocates, were behavior problems, etc. How does a teacher decide sho gets preferential seating when 10 students have that accommodation?

It was particularly challenging during COVID and teachers wore masks. He would ask for notes and some teachers would roll their eyes. He tried showing a teacher that he missed certain words on his notes so he wasn’t sure about an example or detail and the teacher told him he needed to try harder.

So yeah some kids are getting accommodation to gain an advantage but who it ends up really hurting are other students with disabilities.

My son is in college and doesn’t want to use the disability office because he has had so many negative experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Three things are true:

1. There are kids who legitimately need accommodations and should receive them.

2. There are an unknown number of families (disproportionately UC) who falsely claim disabilities to get an unfair advantage.

3. There’s also a group of kids with typical abilities and traits whose personality challenges have led to a “disability” label, not to gain an advantage but bc of the current trend towards medicalization. Many well-meaning people and parents in this group, but an inappropriate result nevertheless.

Our inability to distinguish between these groups is the root cause of the problem described in the article.

It's mostly #2

PP here. I suspect it’s mostly #3.

I’m astonished by the number of genuinely caring parents who take their kids to doctors or therapy or go through assessments for “normal” kid issues.

Not to mention the trend of starting kids on therapy who have no current need for it whatsoever, to “get them used to it.” SMH.

Are you kidding me? People actually do this?

Oh yes. Therapy for no reason except to get used to it.

And the new trend—raising kids as “gender neutral” from infancy. Have an acquaintance in NYC trying this with their newborn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will no longer subscribe to the Atlantic or even add traffic to their site, but I can imagine what the rest of the article is like. You know what the solution is to this 'problem'? Give everyone extra time - it is ridiculous, particularly at the college level, to think one person is smarter or better educated or better prepared because it takes them less time to solve a problem or write an essay than the next person.

Yea, time to complete is a marker of intelligence. If it takes you hours to solve a problem someone does in 20 minutes you are not as smart as them. The world doesn’t have infinite time to allow the slowest to catch up.

What you’re pointing out is not everyone is meant to go to college.

But we're not talking about 20 minutes vs. hours. We're talking about a contrived situation--a, say, 45 min to 3 hour timed exam--that isn't reflective of how virtually anyone works in the real world. And kids with extended time typically get 1.5x time. Not hours vs. 20 minutes.

I'm all for universal design, where we design assessments where feasible to make the "accommodation" accessible to all. That means 24 or 48 hour take home exams with word limits, in some cases. It means research papers. It means making the time limit such that time isn't a barrier unless speed is the very thing being tested.

But that is not the purpose of grades or scores such as in the SAT. It’s not supposed to be the real world. A college can take only one student, Bill or Bob. They made the same score on the SAT but Bob had extended time. Therefore, Bill is smarter and should be the one accepted.

Grades are designed to show mastery of subject matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son with a hearing loss first diagnosed at age 2. He ended speech therapy to learn to properly pronounce words and he still has difficulty with pronouncing all the sounds in every multi syllabic words. Background noise makes it even harder for him so being close enough to see the teacher’s mouth well and having his better ear near the teacher makes it easier to understand.

It’s mild enough teachers don’t notice at first because he is quiet, hard working and well behaved. He is willing to come home and watch YouTube videos with close captions to understand what he missed in class and spend extra time completing work.

What has been frustrating to see is that he often would not get to sit next to the teacher or even in the front of the room because so many students had accommodations. Teachers would tell me since he was doing well (because if all the extra hours he spent studying) and was well behaved they had to prioritize other students who were talkative, had advocates, were behavior problems, etc. How does a teacher decide sho gets preferential seating when 10 students have that accommodation?

It was particularly challenging during COVID and teachers wore masks. He would ask for notes and some teachers would roll their eyes. He tried showing a teacher that he missed certain words on his notes so he wasn’t sure about an example or detail and the teacher told him he needed to try harder.

So yeah some kids are getting accommodation to gain an advantage but who it ends up really hurting are other students with disabilities.

My son is in college and doesn’t want to use the disability office because he has had so many negative experiences.

The other disabled students aren't the enemy here. The enemy is the school's inflexibility and unwillingness tom comply with their legal requirements. The teachers need to be mic'ed and he should be getting live captions transcribed.