Wall Street Journal on rampant growth in percentage of college students with “disabilities”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

No, accommodations put them on level playing fields.

Part of growing up is figuring out your niche and finding jobs where your quirks and strengths are rewarded.

Speaking as the mother of an adult who received accommodations and services in HS and accommodations in college, this PP is right. Kids who need accommodations are not going to be looking for jobs that they can only perform if the jobs are modified. But, when you are in school, whether it be pre-college or post high school, there are skills that are required to be even minimally successful that you may never use again. The lack of those skills should not bar someone from the education necessary to be successful in this world.

[Anonymous]

Why are disability accommodations as a result of mental illness (the root cause of the large percent, as highlighted in the article) a bad thing? What makes them less deserving of attention and consideration than someone who is physically disabled or blind?

[Anonymous]

This is similar to the proliferation of service animals and I’d absolutely question the underling condition and motivation for these so called disabilities. We’re becoming a nation of weak imbeciles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

Accomodations may also include having another student tasked with taking notes for them. The students who get these work-study jobs are often A students -- so this student gets perfect notes taken by an A student while your B plus student gets notes they took themselves. And if the student is too depressed or anxious (or tired or hungover) to go to class, they still get perfect notes taken by an A student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are disability accommodations as a result of mental illness (the root cause of the large percent, as highlighted in the article) a bad thing? What makes them less deserving of attention and consideration than someone who is physically disabled or blind?

Because it's not clear if those disabilities even require academic accommodations at all. In elementary and secondary school, having a disability alone does not qualify you to get anything. You only get accommodations and services if they're needed. Being anxious does not mean you need more time to take a test, or to have a reduced homework load. Maybe you get some specific accommodations for a panic attack during an exam. But as anyone who has actually dealt with anxiety and panic knows (raises hand!) the proper treatment for situational anxiety is not avoidance; it's learning how to cope with the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

Accomodations may also include having another student tasked with taking notes for them. The students who get these work-study jobs are often A students -- so this student gets perfect notes taken by an A student while your B plus student gets notes they took themselves. And if the student is too depressed or anxious (or tired or hungover) to go to class, they still get perfect notes taken by an A student.

Yep. And the worst part is -- lowering expectations for depressed or anxious people does not necessarily help them at all. They need treatment for their depression and anxiety; not reduced expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

I think it starts way before HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is similar to the proliferation of service animals and I’d absolutely question the underling condition and motivation for these so called disabilities. We’re becoming a nation of weak imbeciles.

I agree. Every little thing gets a diagnosis now. Crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

I think it starts way before HS.

My DS (currently in early elementary) has documented fine-motor delays that absolutely mean that he will be at a disadvantage in a hand-written test. However, I'm currently not planning to accept accomodations that would extend testing time. I think it's important for him to learn about his limitations, within reason. He gets a lot of support to work on his handwriting and focus; but I believe that at testing time, he should just do what everyone else does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

Agree SATs and ACTs are as much a test of getting through all the questions within the time limits as a test of skills/ability. If one kid has say 45 seconds to work out a math problem, it is harder to get it right than if they have 90-120 seconds per question. When there's a strict time limit, many kids don't have the luxury of double checking answers. I think a lot of test prep is to teach kids how to zero in on the right answer, dismissing clearly wrong answers, as quickly as possible. It must also be more comfortable writing the SAT essay when you've got double the time to think and plan.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200

“At Pomona, 22% of students were considered disabled this year, up from 5% in 2014. Other elite schools have also seen a startling jump in disabilities, according to data from the federal government and from the schools. At Hampshire, Amherst and Smith colleges in Massachusetts and Yeshiva University in New York, one in five students are classified as disabled. At Oberlin College in Ohio, it is one in four. At Marlboro College in Vermont, it is one in three.”

I’m sorry, but this is disgraceful. It’s one thing if you are legally blind, but anxiety or ADHD should not be grounds for giving someone twice the time to take an exam. It’s unfair to the more humble students who are less inclined to take advantage of what should be reserved for people are are truly in-need.

The amount of ignorance in PP's comment is really what is disgraceful.

? How so? The rate of increase since 2014 is staggering.

Having a disability isn't disgraceful. Having a disability and attending college isn't disgraceful. Having a disability, attending college, and having appropriate accommodations isn't disgraceful either. Also, ignorant people like OP don't get to decide what is or is not a disability.

but it's obviously gaming the system. No possible way could there be a four-fold increase in "disabilities" in just 4 years. I think the prof's posting above probably explains what's going on about right

Yes there can if people with disabilities were unlikely to be labeled as such until recently. I know plenty of people with ADHD or ASD who've graduated college without having been diagnosed. It's incredibly common in my generation to only learn of your diagnosis after the diagnosis of your child. I also know people who have very successful careers who were unable to complete college because of their disabilities.

Sure. But that's not 25% of the entire college class! Come on.

In wealthier areas schools, 11-13% of the kids receive special education services. I would guess that if a college were well known to have a superior students with disabilities office, they would receive a disproportionate percentage of applications from students with disabilities. My DS has dyslexia and ASD and you'd better believe I pay attention to conversations about where other kids with disabilities are headed to for college even though that is years off. Hell, I've mapped out which HSs offer Latin or ASL for the language requirement.

OP's use of scare quotes and "rampant" and PP's fixation on extended test time demonstrate an assumption that the vast majority of students with disabilities are cheaters who just want to game the system. That is a willfully ignorant. It's not clear at all from the numbers that there is abuse or, if there is abuse, what form it takes. We do know is that the percentage of children being diagnosed with ASD is steadily increasing. We know that somewhere around 15% of elementary students have some level of reading disability (but we refuse to screen for it, so it is vastly under-identified). We know that record number of high school students are suffering from anxiety and depression. But here you are, so concerned that there might be college students getting extra time on tests.

I find it extremely hard to believe that a quarter of students in any give college have disabilities that *require academic accommodations.* Just because a child has anxiety or depression does not mean that they need extra time on a test or special care. In fact, that kind of treatment can be counter-productive. Your child with ASD and dyslexia is a different story. Also, where do you get that 15% of kids have a reading disablity? that seems hard to believe.

Require academic accommodations or require accommodations? Accommodations include accessible dorm rooms for students with physical disabilities.

Yale studies in the 90's showed about 20% of the population have dyslexia. They tested all students in the sample population rather than testing only parent or teacher referred students. That study also debunked the myth that boys have higher rates of dyslexia than girls; it's a result of significant selection bias. Dyslexia is a very common non-obvious LD that schools fight tooth and nail not to identify because of the potential resource drain of providing services. They also don't provide services to any appreciable degree. Many parents of kids with any significant level of dyslexia spend hundreds to thousands of dollars a month on tutoring ... which also means that kids of families who can't afford it likely will never do well academically. This is the reality of disability in education ... not this phantom menace of hordes of undeserving slackers gaming the system.

Here is from US News & World Report in 2011 -- http://dyslexia.yale.edu/colleges-step-up-to-meet-dyslexia-challenge/

According to a 1991 study conducted at the University of California-Berkeley, this makes a difference. Dyslexic students taking a standardized reading test scored on par with their peers when granted extra time, but lagged significantly when they were not. Importantly, students without the disability produced virtually the same scores regardless of whether they were given additional time.

But getting such help can be a challenge for those who need it. Each year the College Board administers the SAT to more than 2 million individuals. According to Steven Pereira, the College Board’s executive director of services for students with disabilities, about 32,000 members of the class of 2010 took the test with accommodations.

Pereira says that about 85 percent of all students annually who request assists receive them if they can document their disabilities. However, Shaywitz points out that since dyslexics alone are about 20 percent of the population, the fact that so few students are accommodated suggests there are flaws in how they are handled.

There is a strong belief among some that many kids diagnosed with ADHD also have mild dyslexia since the two have some sort of correlation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

I think it starts way before HS.

And here we are with more ignorance. To receive accommodations for the SAT and ACT, you have to have a diagnosis and a history of needing accommodations in school. You can't go out the night before and get a piece of paper saying you need more time and be allowed more time. It just doesn't work that way. Students have to have a medical evaluation between 1 and 3yrs before the SAT date and an IEP or 504 that has been in place before the appeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What concerns me from a related article is the statement that wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations than poor students.

What happens when these kids graduate college? Is an employer going to give a person who takes twice as long to do something the same salary as someone who meets deadlines?

The student is going to find a field appropriate to their strengths and weaknesses. Like we all do. How is this so shocking?

My dyslexic sibling takes longer to read and synthesize information than his non-dyslexic coworkers. Should he be fired? He has other strengths in his job that compensate for the time he needs to take to read information, and he deliberately chose a line of work where reading information isn't terribly time sensitive so he can spread it out and make sure he's not missing critical information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

In 2017, approx. 136,000 out of 1.8 million, or roughly 7.5%, test takers received accommodations for the SAT.

Examples of typical accommodations available for test-takers with disabilities

Braille and large-print exams
Extended time
Use of a computer for essays
Extra breaks
Four-function calculator
Small-group setting

In order to receive an accommodation, students must already have an Individualized Education Plan in place with such accommodations.