The state of public education - CNN article about illiterate graduate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

How would the uneducated parent know that they need to request an evaluation or that an evaluation is a thing that exists? Or that, while the schools in her much poorer country taught kids to read, American schools somehow wouldn't

Well, in most cases a concerned parent would talk to a teacher. I think that is kind of obvious. The teacher isn't hard to locate.
Then above the teacher is a whole slew of admins at any school. They are kind of hard to miss. They usually have a big office with lots of devices, desks, shelves and some PA devices. They hang around that office a lot so there's always someone there. Talk to some of them and at some point a parent would be directed to the county/city department for such things.

Why would the parent be concerned if the school tells them everything is fine?

+1 I'm a school psychologist who just tested a 9th grader for a special education re-evaluation. Student has a 3.7 GPA. Per testing, she is reading at about a 2nd grade level. Parents had NO CLUE their child was so far behind. They saw the good grades...no behavior problems...and assumed all was well.

(This is a crap urban high school where reading scores are really low and behaviors are really bad, so a well-behaved student who turns in work--even if it's crap-- will be passed through with great marks.)

[Anonymous]

Sounds like some super checked out parents. My kid and I read books to each other for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

How would the uneducated parent know that they need to request an evaluation or that an evaluation is a thing that exists? Or that, while the schools in her much poorer country taught kids to read, American schools somehow wouldn't

Well, in most cases a concerned parent would talk to a teacher. I think that is kind of obvious. The teacher isn't hard to locate.
Then above the teacher is a whole slew of admins at any school. They are kind of hard to miss. They usually have a big office with lots of devices, desks, shelves and some PA devices. They hang around that office a lot so there's always someone there. Talk to some of them and at some point a parent would be directed to the county/city department for such things.

Why would the parent be concerned if the school tells them everything is fine?

+1 I'm a school psychologist who just tested a 9th grader for a special education re-evaluation. Student has a 3.7 GPA. Per testing, she is reading at about a 2nd grade level. Parents had NO CLUE their child was so far behind. They saw the good grades...no behavior problems...and assumed all was well.

(This is a crap urban high school where reading scores are really low and behaviors are really bad, so a well-behaved student who turns in work--even if it's crap-- will be passed through with great marks.)

I’m conservative and I think this is such a travesty of justice. Appalling. Where are all the liberal rioters when there’s actually a reason to complain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How the hell is any kid diagnosed with ODD allowed to stay in school. The diagnosis is literally just an acknowledgment that the kid does not behave even remotely appropriately and should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Outrageous.

Seriously. I don't know how anyone can look at the symptoms and not understand that.

1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful
4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for their own mistakes or misbehavior
8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past six months

How can those set of symptoms be accommodated? How can any teacher teach someone with those symptoms? How can any other students learn in a class with someone allowed to do those behaviors? How can any parent blame a school system for not teaching a kid with those symptoms?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How the hell is any kid diagnosed with ODD allowed to stay in school. The diagnosis is literally just an acknowledgment that the kid does not behave even remotely appropriately and should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Outrageous.

Seriously. I don't know how anyone can look at the symptoms and not understand that.


1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful
4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for their own mistakes or misbehavior
8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past six months

How can those set of symptoms be accommodated? How can any teacher teach someone with those symptoms? How can any other students learn in a class with someone allowed to do those behaviors? How can any parent blame a school system for not teaching a kid with those symptoms?

ODD can be misdiagnosed. A child who is not being supported to learn, at all it sounds like here, will act out in anyway she can. I suspect (although obviously I am guessing here) that if the school gave her intensive learning interventions back when she was 5 she might never have received this diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How the hell is any kid diagnosed with ODD allowed to stay in school. The diagnosis is literally just an acknowledgment that the kid does not behave even remotely appropriately and should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Outrageous.

Seriously. I don't know how anyone can look at the symptoms and not understand that.


1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful
4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for their own mistakes or misbehavior
8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past six months

How can those set of symptoms be accommodated? How can any teacher teach someone with those symptoms? How can any other students learn in a class with someone allowed to do those behaviors? How can any parent blame a school system for not teaching a kid with those symptoms?

ODD can be misdiagnosed. A child who is not being supported to learn, at all it sounds like here, will act out in anyway she can. I suspect (although obviously I am guessing here) that if the school gave her intensive learning interventions back when she was 5 she might never have received this diagnosis.

Maybe. The only case where I know of a student with this behavior, he could not read. He was never able to learn to read. He repeated 8th grade 3 times, then quit school. Before 8th, he got social promotion, as near as anyone can tell. Eventually, he got a job as a laborer on a construction site, but he never moved up in construction to any trade or skilled work, because he could not read.

The root cause was fetal alcohol syndrome, meaning underlying brain damage in utero. This was in a middle class suburban area, not at all urban, not ghetto, and the student was as white as a sheet (and was not any ethnic minority). Father owned a successful small business. Mother was SAHM, but had been a secretary. Both parents were good readers, neither parents were alcoholics, but they did like to drink wine/beer/cocktails before dinner every day. No amount of intervention would have changed the child’s inability to read - because the underlying in utero brain damage from alcohol exposure was not fixable. Tragic, really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How the hell is any kid diagnosed with ODD allowed to stay in school. The diagnosis is literally just an acknowledgment that the kid does not behave even remotely appropriately and should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Outrageous.

Seriously. I don't know how anyone can look at the symptoms and not understand that.


1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful
4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for their own mistakes or misbehavior
8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past six months

How can those set of symptoms be accommodated? How can any teacher teach someone with those symptoms? How can any other students learn in a class with someone allowed to do those behaviors? How can any parent blame a school system for not teaching a kid with those symptoms?

ODD can be misdiagnosed. A child who is not being supported to learn, at all it sounds like here, will act out in anyway she can. I suspect (although obviously I am guessing here) that if the school gave her intensive learning interventions back when she was 5 she might never have received this diagnosis.

ODD is not a cause of the poor behavior. It’s just a label that says people have given up trying to fix that kid. All ODD cases would have been prevented with good parenting, nutrition, expectations, no drugs, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How the hell is any kid diagnosed with ODD allowed to stay in school. The diagnosis is literally just an acknowledgment that the kid does not behave even remotely appropriately and should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Outrageous.

Seriously. I don't know how anyone can look at the symptoms and not understand that.


1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful
4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for their own mistakes or misbehavior
8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past six months

How can those set of symptoms be accommodated? How can any teacher teach someone with those symptoms? How can any other students learn in a class with someone allowed to do those behaviors? How can any parent blame a school system for not teaching a kid with those symptoms?

ODD can be misdiagnosed. A child who is not being supported to learn, at all it sounds like here, will act out in anyway she can. I suspect (although obviously I am guessing here) that if the school gave her intensive learning interventions back when she was 5 she might never have received this diagnosis.

ODD is not a cause of the poor behavior. It’s just a label that says people have given up trying to fix that kid. All ODD cases would have been prevented with good parenting, nutrition, expectations, no drugs, etc.

While that may be true that is not how things function. Even though many psychiatrists, let alone non-Doctors, don't believe in ODD it is still a part of the DSM and therefore a diagnosis is considered a disability that causes the behavior which then must be accommodated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How the hell is any kid diagnosed with ODD allowed to stay in school. The diagnosis is literally just an acknowledgment that the kid does not behave even remotely appropriately and should not be expected by anyone to do so.

Outrageous.

Seriously. I don't know how anyone can look at the symptoms and not understand that.


1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful
4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for their own mistakes or misbehavior
8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past six months

How can those set of symptoms be accommodated? How can any teacher teach someone with those symptoms? How can any other students learn in a class with someone allowed to do those behaviors? How can any parent blame a school system for not teaching a kid with those symptoms?

ODD can be misdiagnosed. A child who is not being supported to learn, at all it sounds like here, will act out in anyway she can. I suspect (although obviously I am guessing here) that if the school gave her intensive learning interventions back when she was 5 she might never have received this diagnosis.

ODD is not a cause of the poor behavior. It’s just a label that says people have given up trying to fix that kid. All ODD cases would have been prevented with good parenting, nutrition, expectations, no drugs, etc.

While that may be true that is not how things function. Even though many psychiatrists, let alone non-Doctors, don't believe in ODD it is still a part of the DSM and therefore a diagnosis is considered a disability that causes the behavior which then must be accommodated.

This is where the word “reasonable” comes into play. Only reasonable accommodations are required. Having a kid in a school classroom who literally even according to experts on paper is beyond help is completely unacceptable. I can’t even imagine what the poor teacher and other kids have had to deal with. I would have sued the school district straight away if one of my kids was forced to stay in that class. I believe a judge or jury would side with me.

[Anonymous]

The parents are culpable more than the schools. How do you not notice your kid can’t read or write?

[Anonymous]

“Two days before graduation, she says, school district officials told her she could defer accepting the diploma in exchange for intensive services. Aleysha didn’t listen.

“I decided, they (the school) had 12 years,” she says. “Now it’s my time.”

Ridiculous. She has no reason to blame anyone if she didn’t choose to stay. They already promised to help, but she didn’t want help. She just wanted fame and cash. I am horrified by the stupidity of whomever called her a feminist icon. A feminist icon would have trashed the help and worked twice as hard to catch up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The parents are culpable more than the schools. How do you not notice your kid can’t read or write?

Wasn't there a significant language/educational barrier? I don't think the mom is literate (in English).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Two days before graduation, she says, school district officials told her she could defer accepting the diploma in exchange for intensive services. Aleysha didn’t listen.

“I decided, they (the school) had 12 years,” she says. “Now it’s my time.”

Ridiculous. She has no reason to blame anyone if she didn’t choose to stay. They already promised to help, but she didn’t want help. She just wanted fame and cash. I am horrified by the stupidity of whomever called her a feminist icon. A feminist icon would have trashed the help and worked twice as hard to catch up.

Did you not see the list of symptoms she has? It's all right in line with her ODD diagnosis.

But yes, it is horrifying that anyone would think of this person as a hero.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parents are culpable more than the schools. How do you not notice your kid can’t read or write?

Wasn't there a significant language/educational barrier? I don't think the mom is literate (in English).

For a supposedly illiterate and incapable parent she sure seemed good at racking up the diagnosis and playing the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

How would the uneducated parent know that they need to request an evaluation or that an evaluation is a thing that exists? Or that, while the schools in her much poorer country taught kids to read, American schools somehow wouldn't

Well, in most cases a concerned parent would talk to a teacher. I think that is kind of obvious. The teacher isn't hard to locate.
Then above the teacher is a whole slew of admins at any school. They are kind of hard to miss. They usually have a big office with lots of devices, desks, shelves and some PA devices. They hang around that office a lot so there's always someone there. Talk to some of them and at some point a parent would be directed to the county/city department for such things.

Why would the parent be concerned if the school tells them everything is fine?

+1 I'm a school psychologist who just tested a 9th grader for a special education re-evaluation. Student has a 3.7 GPA. Per testing, she is reading at about a 2nd grade level. Parents had NO CLUE their child was so far behind. They saw the good grades...no behavior problems...and assumed all was well.

(This is a crap urban high school where reading scores are really low and behaviors are really bad, so a well-behaved student who turns in work--even if it's crap-- will be passed through with great marks.)

I’m conservative and I think this is such a travesty of justice. Appalling. Where are all the liberal rioters when there’s actually a reason to complain?

As opposed to what that you find trivial. Need I remind you that it was you, conservatives, who complained about trivial things such as boys in girls sports.