Claiming a disability on the SAT/ACT - have people been gaming the system?

[Anonymous]

Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

Cool your jets. How old is your child? 4

FWIW I have the same kid but older. By SAT time I expect full remediation. My whip smart kid will do decently on the test with no extra time. Will she do better with extra time? Yes. But fine without. I don’t mind disclosure in either case.

[Anonymous]

I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured. How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need? For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much? What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not? How much extra time should the student receive in that instance? What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

Who said that? I am asking for untimed for EVERY ONE. Why should u w the resources be able to get accommodations while those without can’t? If u are really full of empathy for disable kids, u should be advocating untimed tests for everyone. Or is your empathy only extended to your child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

Cool your jets. How old is your child? 4

FWIW I have the same kid but older. By SAT time I expect full remediation. My whip smart kid will do decently on the test with no extra time. Will she do better with extra time? Yes. But fine without. I don’t mind disclosure in either case.

Good for you. Not all kids have parents who can or will spend tens of thousands on tutoring to remediate it. I know several teens who can barely read because the schools and parents failed them (and some are families that could pay and do more). Some kids can be fully remediated..mine has a different disorder and does well without supports (but we removed them as they were terrible) BUT we have spent a small fortune like others have trying to fix it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

Cool your jets. How old is your child? 4

FWIW I have the same kid but older. By SAT time I expect full remediation. My whip smart kid will do decently on the test with no extra time. Will she do better with extra time? Yes. But fine without. I don’t mind disclosure in either case.

Agreed. I would have no problem disclosing that my LD kid got an accommodation for his disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured. How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need? For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much? What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not? How much extra time should the student receive in that instance? What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?

That is what has been pointed out. The accommodations are not personalized. Even those w accommodations- some are benefiitting from too much time while others are given too little. Then u have the abuse by the wealthy in private schools. And then you have the poor/rural/clueless families. Just untimed it for everyone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured. How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need? For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much? What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not? How much extra time should the student receive in that instance? What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?

That is what has been pointed out. The accommodations are not personalized. Even those w accommodations- some are benefiitting from too much time while others are given too little. Then u have the abuse by the wealthy in private schools. And then you have the poor/rural/clueless families. Just untimed it for everyone

But why not have a timed and an untimed option? I think it would be useful for colleges to know which kids are challenging themselves and which kids feel threatened by children who are learning disabled. (I’d happily disclose that my child got an accommodation for his disability)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This “leveling the playing field” is nonsense. I cringe when I hear it. And one of my children has an LD and qualifies for extra time.

Well what do you suggest?

My country separates kids based on ability around 8th grade. I like that approach, it still leaves an opening for the slower kids to succeed, but they do not have to feel inadequate. I find that here in the US slow kids are putting brakes on the whole class in numerous ways and faster kids have more time for boredom, mischief, etc. I am talking about public school in relatively affluent school district.

This is quite off topic, but how is this different than the US? Selected middle school classes are separated by ability, and by high school they are completely tracked into regular, honors, and AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

Cool your jets. How old is your child? 4

FWIW I have the same kid but older. By SAT time I expect full remediation. My whip smart kid will do decently on the test with no extra time. Will she do better with extra time? Yes. But fine without. I don’t mind disclosure in either case.

You might not mind, but your DC might. My DC is 19 and in college and still needs accommodation because remediation only got him so far. People with dyslexia have it all of their lives and it affects their ability to read. They may learn to decode and eventually learn their phonemes but RAN issues will persist and rate will never go beyond a certain point (different for each person).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how little empathy the posters here have for people with disabilities when it impacts you, calling it 'gaming' the system. My child is whip smart, but has dyslexia. I hope none of you who are demanding that accommodations be disclosed ever have to live with a child with a learning disability, seeing your child write his letters and numbers perfectly, but backwards. It is painful, for parent and child. Every day is a struggle in school and with homework. I'm glad you all have perfect children - do you teach your kids to call people with LD's the R-word too?

Cool your jets. How old is your child? 4

FWIW I have the same kid but older. By SAT time I expect full remediation. My whip smart kid will do decently on the test with no extra time. Will she do better with extra time? Yes. But fine without. I don’t mind disclosure in either case.

Agreed. I would have no problem disclosing that my LD kid got an accommodation for his disability.

Your DC may view it differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is back to the idea that all kids can choose to take the test timed or untimed - then graded within each cohort.

Actually this is pretty smart. Give all kids the option of taking it timed or untimed but have a box that must be filled out. Either:
TIMED
UNTIMED
UNTIMED-DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION

You have to select one. (No HIPAA/IDEA violation bc you don’t have to disclose that you got a disability accommodation- you could just check UNTIMED.)

This way, kids who took the timed test would go to the top of the pack, and whiny parents who think Johnny should have more time because Larla with dyslexia got more time can have Johnny judged accordingly by all the top schools they thinks he deserves to go to.

There shouldn't be a top of the pack for timed. You could as easily say that anyone who chooses 'untimed' was more deliberate and a better student.

Sorry but if I’m a college admissions officer and I’m comparing a 1500 timed, a 1500 untimed due to disability accommodation, and an untimed for no reason, the timed kid is looking the best to me and Johnny-untimed-for-no-reason is looking the worst. Worse then a kid who got a timed 1400 even.

And this, plus apparently a complete lack of comprehension or ability to think critically, is why you're not an admissions officer. Do you even have a job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured. How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need? For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much? What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not? How much extra time should the student receive in that instance? What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?

That is what has been pointed out. The accommodations are not personalized. Even those w accommodations- some are benefiitting from too much time while others are given too little. Then u have the abuse by the wealthy in private schools. And then you have the poor/rural/clueless families. Just untimed it for everyone

Ok how about this...
You have the option of TIMED or UNTIMED. You have to say which one you chose. If your kid has a documented disability and has been approved for accommodations, your kid gets accommodations that do not have to be disclosed. This is more consistent with IDEA and would mitigate any potential bias that college admissions officers have towards LD kids. So LD kids would just check TIMED.

This way, all you parents who are bemoaning that your non-disabled kid didn’t get extra time- well now you can have extra time. And colleges will know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured. How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need? For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much? What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not? How much extra time should the student receive in that instance? What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?

That is what has been pointed out. The accommodations are not personalized. Even those w accommodations- some are benefiitting from too much time while others are given too little. Then u have the abuse by the wealthy in private schools. And then you have the poor/rural/clueless families. Just untimed it for everyone

But why not have a timed and an untimed option? I think it would be useful for colleges to know which kids are challenging themselves and which kids feel threatened by children who are learning disabled. (I’d happily disclose that my child got an accommodation for his disability)

I actually don't think those buckets would be labeled the way you have described. I'm someone for whom extra time probably wouldn't make much difference. So for me, I would probably stack up better if I took the timed test relative to others who take the timed test. But I can see there are kids who would do substantially better on an untimed test - and they might wind up in a much higher percentile because of it. Learning disorders or no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that accommodations should be made, but I do have a question on how they are structured. How are accommodations, specifically extra time, accurately calibrated to a student's need? For example, if all the students without accommodations in a class have difficulty finishing an exam on time or with no time to review answers but the students with accommodations have no such problems does that mean the amount of extra time they were given is too much? What if 50% of the class finishes the exam and 50% does not? How much extra time should the student receive in that instance? What ends up being fair to the student needing extra time but unfair to the other students in the class?

That is what has been pointed out. The accommodations are not personalized. Even those w accommodations- some are benefiitting from too much time while others are given too little. Then u have the abuse by the wealthy in private schools. And then you have the poor/rural/clueless families. Just untimed it for everyone

Ok how about this...
You have the option of TIMED or UNTIMED. You have to say which one you chose. If your kid has a documented disability and has been approved for accommodations, your kid gets accommodations that do not have to be disclosed. This is more consistent with IDEA and would mitigate any potential bias that college admissions officers have towards LD kids. So LD kids would just check TIMED.

This way, all you parents who are bemoaning that your non-disabled kid didn’t get extra time- well now you can have extra time. And colleges will know it.

100%. It becomes like two different tests. Kids can pick which version they will do relatively better on- and all is disclosed since its not about disabilities anymore. Not unlike the SAT vs ACT.