504s give you an unfair advantage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worked with kids for years. Have seen LD kids think circles around speed demon straight A students. You know, some kids are athletic, some kids crunch numbers fast, some debate on their feet, some innovate, some are leaders, some contemplate at depths you’ll never know. No one’s entitled to anything; some people are just lucky they start with more advantages. A tiny little subset of scores does not necessarily make you a better thinker than someone with an incrementally different set of scores. Yes, some people are “smarter” than others, but you will not necessarily know it by their tests scores. Sure, you can glean some info on whether they appear to be prepared for basic college level work. If you want to tell colleges who to admit, get a job in an admissions office. All this griping suggests there’s only one kind of human who deserves everything. Be glad everyone doesn’t think this way or you wouldn’t be reading your bloody smart device and sitting in air conditioning with the lunch of your choice right now. You have no idea what other people have figured out that you benefit from every minute of the day. And if they were just like all these entitled complainers, we’d be without.

(The merits of which are a different conversation

I agree with everything you say. This isn't inconsistent with the idea that the College Board should just report the test scores of all students (taken under the same time constraints), and let the colleges decide if they matter or not.

Here is a radical thought: The College Board should stop conflating knowledge and logical reasoning with a speed test. Just keep the test the same, but give everyone more time. Enough time so everyone can finish without rushing, even my kid with a genetic eye condition that makes her eyes exhausted unless she takes a break here and there. Because in real life, my kid would take a break to rest her eyes, and her work product would be excellent. Life isn't a speed test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what if the disproportionate number of white kids getting accommodations is actually the effect of racism in a completely different way?
To explain:
There's a kind of rule of thumb that 10% of students qualify for IEPs. Long time since I have seen a breakdown, but a (smallish) portion of that is kids with cognitive disabilities ("mental retardation" in IDEA). (that proportion related to the percentage of kids it is expected will take alternate testing when assessing schools' performance).

Some proportion of these IEP kids are going to want to go to college and will take SATs/ACTs. I have no idea what % of kids with disabilities require extended time on tests, but given the potential rage of disablities--not just processing, there's also kids with tics, there's kids with ADHD, there's kids with physical disabilities--I can see where quite a few would need that.

But here's another thing about IDEA--classification. It has long been noted that white kids are more likely to be classified LD or autistic or OHI with the same presentation as kids of color who are classified ED or MR. And I will bet anything that the kids classified ED or MR are going to be less likely to be steered towards college than kids in those other categories.

In other words, the 2.8% of white test takers getting extended time compared to 1.5% overall COULD be a result of other systemic holding back of kids of color (this is not even getting into different SES stats, worse health stats, and whatever else)--as opposed to white having a chance to game the system their own way.

I have NO problem with kids who need accommodations getting them through the post-secondary application and, yes, educational process. Is life different when you're looking at employment? Depending on the specific job, maybe or maybe not. Regardless, disability should not prevent someone from getting the knowledge, regardless of what they do afterwards.

Anyway, nobody gave me EXTRA SAT points for finishing my tests in a third of the time it took other people and having to endure sitting in the testing room with NOTHING to do, no paper to draw on, no book to read.

With respect to race minority kids who are "high energy" are more likely to be labeled behavior problems than their white counterparts. Caregivers/educators are more willing to consider ADHD or some other LD as the underlying cause for the white child's ADHD. With respect to SES, if a poor child's parent thinks their child has an LD and the school declines testing, that's the end of it. If the school declines to test a child from a higher SES background, the parents can get private testing and with a medical diagnosis can force the school to do it's job. Unfortunately, there is a high correlation between race and SES in this country, so the two things reinforce each other. There might be abuse by white families because they find out which psychologist will "find" an LD and use that person, but the difference in not entirely because of that.

[Anonymous]

What a prickish post.

My kid is 2E. 99 percentile in the two areas that matter of the WISC . 87 percentileIn working memory and 9 percentile in processing speed. My kid gets time and a half. Believe me, my kid wishes the need for the 504 did not exist. How nice it must be to be highly intelligent and process the information at a regular speed.

Op, know that most kids with 504s aren’t getting a leg up on your kid. Nope. In fact, those accommodations are in place for a valid reason.

Funny, my kid’s sibling told DC how nice that s/he gets extra time. DC yelled how s/he wishes there wasn’t a need and how nice it must be to not need the extra time.

[Anonymous]

Gee thanks OP. My son needs a 504 because of type I diabetes. When his blood sugar has him higher than you and me chugging 5 full sugar cokes or about to go in a coma - he needs the time to be able to take care of his medical condition before resuming test taking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gee thanks OP. My son needs a 504 because of type I diabetes. When his blood sugar has him higher than you and me chugging 5 full sugar cokes or about to go in a coma - he needs the time to be able to take care of his medical condition before resuming test taking.

What your kid need is not extra time but breaks in between. Not extra time to do the tests but breaks to monitor sugar level and take care of his medical condition. I know of diabetics who got extra time to do the tests and worked to their advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gee thanks OP. My son needs a 504 because of type I diabetes. When his blood sugar has him higher than you and me chugging 5 full sugar cokes or about to go in a coma - he needs the time to be able to take care of his medical condition before resuming test taking.

What your kid need is not extra time but breaks in between. Not extra time to do the tests but breaks to monitor sugar level and take care of his medical condition. I know of diabetics who got extra time to do the tests and worked to their advantage.

LOL sounds like you know a lot about type I diabetes. NEWS FLASH my kid could die in 5 minutes. Seriously. We have contingency plans for lock downs, emergency drills, you name it. Diabetes doesn't wait for breaks. 1) Insulin can kill in a very short period of time. 2) Blood sugar highs could take an hour to get under control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another thing to think about OP is that kids who get 504 are often highly gifted, with some learning challenges. For example a lot of kids with high verbal or performance IQs have slow processing speed as measured by neuropsych tests. So the ones who qualify for 504 are generally high functioning students who may have certain strengths but may need accommodations to level the playing field vis a vis their challenges, with the main accommodations being extended time. Hence the term twice exceptional (2E). Kids who are exceptional in terms of ability without any special challenges will do very well on the tests regardless.

But isn't processing speed a part of the test? Don't the schools have a right to know that the playing field was "leveled?" Why wouldn't you tell the school that the kid got extra time? Then, the answer is, "the kid is super smart, but needed more time." That is an accurate representation of reality.

Not necessarily. Maybe thinking speed is--I don't know. To me P rocessing speed means information processing speed. My kid thinks fast but takes info in slowly.

Are you really interested in a college's "rights"? They have a workaround. Colleges offer accommodations like extended time to students with special needs like slow processing. So they don't need this info to evaluate students and it would be discriminatory to ask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gee thanks OP. My son needs a 504 because of type I diabetes. When his blood sugar has him higher than you and me chugging 5 full sugar cokes or about to go in a coma - he needs the time to be able to take care of his medical condition before resuming test taking.

The OP pointed to a New York Times analysis showing that overall, 504s give a score advantage to kids of every race on tests. Are you arguing that their analysis is wrong, or that their analysis never should have been done? Because this is an article about trends and averages, not about your kid. The fact that your kid has diabetes has absolutely nothing to do with whether affluent parents are abusing 504s. You would think that you would not want people to abuse 504s, so they are still available to people like your son who need them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gee thanks OP. My son needs a 504 because of type I diabetes. When his blood sugar has him higher than you and me chugging 5 full sugar cokes or about to go in a coma - he needs the time to be able to take care of his medical condition before resuming test taking.

The OP pointed to a New York Times analysis showing that overall, 504s give a score advantage to kids of every race on tests. Are you arguing that their analysis is wrong, or that their analysis never should have been done? Because this is an article about trends and averages, not about your kid. The fact that your kid has diabetes has absolutely nothing to do with whether affluent parents are abusing 504s. You would think that you would not want people to abuse 504s, so they are still available to people like your son who need them.

OP’s thread title is “504s give you an unfair advantage”

OP said, “Second chart in this article- it gives an advantage across all races. Want to show this every parent who santimoniously claims they wish their kid didn’t need a 504 for ACT/SAT.”

OP did not specify students who do or do not actually need the extra time. OP did not specifically call out the parents who get their kids extra time when the kid doesn’t need it. OP made a sweeping generalization and then topped it by saying parents who point out they or their kid would rather have regular time and no diabetes, etc. than extended time are sanctimonious.

OP is a jacka$$.