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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In other words you have no clue what dyslexia is. It has nothing to do with reading comprehension. Dyslexia means that the parts of the brain that form a word memory and tie it to the word on the page aren't connected in the same way as in the majority of the population. Interestingly people with this type of brain seem to be better at some visio-spatial activities (that are not tested for obvs). It has no bearing on test taking other than taking longer to decode the words on the page, which has nothing to do with comprehension. They are also notoriously bad at spelling as in can't even get into the ballpark bad unless they've had structured language literacy instruction ... which isn't taught in schools. Penalizing someone for having dyslexia makes as much sense as penalizing someone for having bad eyesight and requiring the use of text enlargement. So far as I'm aware, none of these tests are designed to be tests of reading speed.

So then let's make it untimed for everyone so everyone has the same level playing field.

I'm fine with that so long as the length of the material isn't changed. I'm fine with everyone getting a 4 function calculator too. I just don't want the format and circumstances of the test to unduly penalize people with disabilities. Fortunately the Supreme Court agrees with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

How do you know this? I know of no psychologists like this at all. I am the parent of the kid who scored high on the ACT and the psychologist we worked with is highly recommend and respected among pediatricians and educators alike. I really think parents like to think that many of these diagnoses are all bogus, but the truth is, probably 99% are legit. Now, if we have a legitimate diagnosis (which we do), why is it wrong for my son to get the extra time and truly demonstrate his giftedness? Is it because your gifted kid is now on a level playing field with my gifted kid, whereas before he was able to "smoke" him because he doesn't have the ADHD disability? That's what leveling the playing field is all about. My kid is just as gifted as your kid, except he has condition that can prevent him from demonstrating that under testing conditions.

Thanks. I think we actually have come to part of the crux of the disagreement.

Your kid is not actually just as gifted as that other kid.

Your kid has significant strengths but also significant weaknesses. The other kid has fewer weaknesses.

There is also a third child that has strengths that are not as strong as your child but also fewer weaknesses. Your child is probably equivalent to that child.

Then there is a fourth child that has a ton of weaknesses all around. Your child is more gifted than that child.

We are all for you trying to help your kid so he doesn't slip through the cracks and doesn't get lumped in with the fourth child (not that there is anything wrong with the fourth child, there is inherently a bell curve and it just is what it is) because your child and the fourth child do not have different needs.

But your child is fundamentally not the most gifted of the lot.

There is literally a written diagnosis explaining to you that this is the case.

If we prevent all children with dyslexia from having accommodations, then my child with significant strengths and that particular weakness will look like the fourth child, as will most children with dyslexia.
If we give all children with dyslexia accommodations, then some children with dyslexia will look like the fourth child, some like the third, and some like the child with significant strengths and few weaknesses.

Accommodations allow the abilities of these children to be demonstrated. If schools thought strict reading ability was critical, they could test that separate from the other tests and limit which accommodations they allow, but as it is since reading is required throughout the test, accommodations allow the children to demonstrate their knowledge rather than be hamstrung across all the subjects by the reading requirement. Just like if the ability to take the test quickly were important, they could add a subtest for that, and limit which accommodations they allow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

How do you know this? I know of no psychologists like this at all. I am the parent of the kid who scored high on the ACT and the psychologist we worked with is highly recommend and respected among pediatricians and educators alike. I really think parents like to think that many of these diagnoses are all bogus, but the truth is, probably 99% are legit. Now, if we have a legitimate diagnosis (which we do), why is it wrong for my son to get the extra time and truly demonstrate his giftedness? Is it because your gifted kid is now on a level playing field with my gifted kid, whereas before he was able to "smoke" him because he doesn't have the ADHD disability? That's what leveling the playing field is all about. My kid is just as gifted as your kid, except he has condition that can prevent him from demonstrating that under testing conditions.

Your child did not "truly demonstrate his giftedness" by getting a 36 on the ACT with extra time. The ACT is designed to measure processing speed and accuracy; your son got excused from that part.

According to act.org "The ACT is the leading US college admissions test measuring what you learn in high school to determine your academic readiness for college."

If it wants to test how quickly you can regurgitate what you learned, they could disallow accommodations that interfered with that. If they want to test what you learned (and that's what they say they're testing) then accommodations for disabilities makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

I was a high performing student. Extra time would have bored me stiff. I got a perfect score on the ACT without extra time. I did not get a perfect score on the SAT, and while I was close, it wasn't lack of time that prevented it. I just wasn't smart enough.

I know it's hard for many of us to think that about our children. But honestly. If you have a high performing student who does not have a learning disability, they not only don't need extra time, they'd probably hate it. I have never taken a standardized test I didn't finish "early" and score extremely well on. Including the LSAT and GRE. Did so many of you really feel a time crunch?

I could understand people arguing that perfectly average children might benefit (a small amount) with extra time. But here's the thing. My dyslexic child doesn't just improve a bit with extra time. He goes from essentially failing to doing extremely well, because he's a bright kid. An average kid with dyslexia might go from essentially failing to doing around average. That's the point of accommodations, to allow the abilities of the children to show through.

Is it fair for children without disabilities to score in the 98th percentile? If your answer is yes, then your answer also needs to be yes that it is fair for children with disabilities to score in the 98th percentile.

Culturally, we're not willing to write these kids off as dumb anymore. Sorry that pains you.

As long as you ask, I got a 1600 on my PSAT but only a 1550 on the SAT because I ran out of time on one of the math sections.

With five extra minutes, I am pretty sure I would have gotten a perfect score or maybe a point or two off.

Virtually everyone I know, if offered more time on the SAT, would have taken it and would have seen their scores rise.

You scored slightly better than I did on the SAT. Congratulations! Do you think the difference in scores would have changed anything? I made it into a couple Ivys with my score, but it was easier back then.

You would sit in the room for 5 hours and 45 minutes (time and a half) or 7 hours and 40 minutes (double time)? I wouldn't. I did a quick poll at work and I got mostly nos with a few waffling maybes. Sounds like we run in different circles.

My kid, who will probably qualify for extended time on the SAT (he hasn't taken it yet), is not excited about the idea of spending that much time taking a test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

How do you know this? I know of no psychologists like this at all. I am the parent of the kid who scored high on the ACT and the psychologist we worked with is highly recommend and respected among pediatricians and educators alike. I really think parents like to think that many of these diagnoses are all bogus, but the truth is, probably 99% are legit. Now, if we have a legitimate diagnosis (which we do), why is it wrong for my son to get the extra time and truly demonstrate his giftedness? Is it because your gifted kid is now on a level playing field with my gifted kid, whereas before he was able to "smoke" him because he doesn't have the ADHD disability? That's what leveling the playing field is all about. My kid is just as gifted as your kid, except he has condition that can prevent him from demonstrating that under testing conditions.

Thanks. I think we actually have come to part of the crux of the disagreement.

Your kid is not actually just as gifted as that other kid.

Your kid has significant strengths but also significant weaknesses. The other kid has fewer weaknesses.

There is also a third child that has strengths that are not as strong as your child but also fewer weaknesses. Your child is probably equivalent to that child.

Then there is a fourth child that has a ton of weaknesses all around. Your child is more gifted than that child.

We are all for you trying to help your kid so he doesn't slip through the cracks and doesn't get lumped in with the fourth child (not that there is anything wrong with the fourth child, there is inherently a bell curve and it just is what it is) because your child and the fourth child do not have different needs.

But your child is fundamentally not the most gifted of the lot.

There is literally a written diagnosis explaining to you that this is the case.

If we prevent all children with dyslexia from having accommodations, then my child with significant strengths and that particular weakness will look like the fourth child, as will most children with dyslexia.
If we give all children with dyslexia accommodations, then some children with dyslexia will look like the fourth child, some like the third, and some like the child with significant strengths and few weaknesses.

Accommodations allow the abilities of these children to be demonstrated. If schools thought strict reading ability was critical, they could test that separate from the other tests and limit which accommodations they allow, but as it is since reading is required throughout the test, accommodations allow the children to demonstrate their knowledge rather than be hamstrung across all the subjects by the reading requirement. Just like if the ability to take the test quickly were important, they could add a subtest for that, and limit which accommodations they allow.

I think PP also doesn't understand giftedness. Giftedness means something in relation to IQ. It is also possible to have a disability completely independent of IQ and giftedness. There are many disabilities that are completely orthogonal to IQ, such as physical disabilities, autism, and dyslexia. There are some disabilities that may not be completely orthogonal but also don't "erase" someone's IQ even if it may limit the full expression of their IQ, or giftedness, in some situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The issue I have is that what used to be considered an individuals “strengths and weaknesses” are now considered disabilities. Low processing speed and executive function problems? I’d bet good money that everyone in my family has problems with those.

Yes yes, we know, you like being able to call kids with disabilities "stupid." We're not going back there. Get used to it.

Kids who qualify for accommodations in school have to demonstrate they're significantly outside the average. We had to use private testing (which we were fortunate to be able to do - yes, that is a privilege and it's a shame we had to use it) to demonstrate that my child getting average grades was dyslexic and only managing average grades because he was quite smart and able to do a lot of compensating. When the school saw the private test results, they couldn't deny the needed accommodations. Odds are by middle school had our son not gotten support his grades would have demonstrated what private testing revealed. Because of our wealth we didn't have to put our son through that, and it's horrible that children with less means may have to suffer through years of being considered stupid or not trying until their dyslexia is discovered. I support evaluation and support for all kids, because the consequences of being considered stupid for having a disability are life-long and terribly limiting. This isn't just "reads a little slowly" or "has to make notations in the book to help comprehension."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

I was a high performing student. Extra time would have bored me stiff. I got a perfect score on the ACT without extra time. I did not get a perfect score on the SAT, and while I was close, it wasn't lack of time that prevented it. I just wasn't smart enough.

I know it's hard for many of us to think that about our children. But honestly. If you have a high performing student who does not have a learning disability, they not only don't need extra time, they'd probably hate it. I have never taken a standardized test I didn't finish "early" and score extremely well on. Including the LSAT and GRE. Did so many of you really feel a time crunch?

I could understand people arguing that perfectly average children might benefit (a small amount) with extra time. But here's the thing. My dyslexic child doesn't just improve a bit with extra time. He goes from essentially failing to doing extremely well, because he's a bright kid. An average kid with dyslexia might go from essentially failing to doing around average. That's the point of accommodations, to allow the abilities of the children to show through.

Is it fair for children without disabilities to score in the 98th percentile? If your answer is yes, then your answer also needs to be yes that it is fair for children with disabilities to score in the 98th percentile.

Culturally, we're not willing to write these kids off as dumb anymore. Sorry that pains you.

As long as you ask, I got a 1600 on my PSAT but only a 1550 on the SAT because I ran out of time on one of the math sections.

With five extra minutes, I am pretty sure I would have gotten a perfect score or maybe a point or two off.

Virtually everyone I know, if offered more time on the SAT, would have taken it and would have seen their scores rise.

More context:

I feel strongly about this issue because I was a middle / upper-middle class kid with immigrant parents who did not have alumni status, donation money, sports or any other hook to an elite college. I did get into an elite college.

Straight A's and knocking the SAT out of the parent were the only way I was ever going to be able to pull that off.

I care about the fundamental integrity of the testing system so that as many whip-smart kids without connections or games can get into the best schools possible. I think that is the fairest system, and the best for them, and the best for society.

There are an extremely limited number of spots at these schools for kids without a "hook." It's terribly unfair in all sorts of ways. For many kids, an objective four hour test is the only way THEY are going to be able to level the playing field and now you are trying to take that away from them.

Many children with disabilities also have no hooks. Why should they be penalized by something that the ACT and SAT people have decided is worthy of accommodations? Why should they be represented ONLY by their disabilities and not their abilities? Why do you care less about their unhookedness than any other child's unhookedness?

I don't have any learning disabilities. I think it's unfair that when I was taking these tests back in the dark ages, my scores were compared to children with dyslexia who had no accommodations. Their test results were not representative of their abilities and it affected their ability to get into college ... for those few who actually pushed through and graduated from high school.

You want the playing field leveled only for your benefit. When we want to level the playing field, we need to consider all the players, don't we?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

For the record, my kids are 3 and 1 and I have no idea about whether they are disabled or not or average or not. I was on the right side of the 99% on standardized test scores, and my wife hovered between the 98-99% (no accommodations of course) so let's stop with weird ad hominem insinuations and the even more bizarre "disabled genius" triumphalism.

I disagree with your assertion that a 50% kid would not see a significant improvement in test scores without extra time. I know many people who were not able to finish every section of the SAT and lost points as a result.

If that is the case, why are all the "disabled genius" parents so infuriated by the concept that we should simply give everyone a calculator and some more time and make the test more intellectually challenging. That would let us all prove what's really going on here.

While we're at it, I want to be able to park in handicap spots, I want food stamps, I should also get social security disability payments. I suffer from depression and it's entirely unfair that some people are scamming the system and getting disability when I'm not! I could sure use that extra money. And not having to walk into a store from far away when it's raining? No one wants to get wet, after all. And it kind of sucks I have to pay for my groceries out of my own money when other people get them for free.

If you can’t see the difference between someone using accommodations to get a 36 on the ACT rather than a 34, and a person who requires a handicapped sticker because they cannot physically handle a long walk to their destination, then I suppose there is no point in continuing this conversation.

If you are arguing to exclude above average children from accommodations, for consistency's sake you are also arguing to exclude average and below average children from accommodations.

If you accept that average and below average children need accommodations, then you'd be hard pressed to explain why suddenly above average children with the same disabilities don't also need those accommodations.

Yes, it might mean your perfect score kid gets the same perfect score as a dyslexic child. How terrible. How dare that idiot child look the same as yours!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The issue I have is that what used to be considered an individuals “strengths and weaknesses” are now considered disabilities. Low processing speed and executive function problems? I’d bet good money that everyone in my family has problems with those.

Yes yes, we know, you like being able to call kids with disabilities "stupid." We're not going back there. Get used to it.

Kids who qualify for accommodations in school have to demonstrate they're significantly outside the average. We had to use private testing (which we were fortunate to be able to do - yes, that is a privilege and it's a shame we had to use it) to demonstrate that my child getting average grades was dyslexic and only managing average grades because he was quite smart and able to do a lot of compensating. When the school saw the private test results, they couldn't deny the needed accommodations. Odds are by middle school had our son not gotten support his grades would have demonstrated what private testing revealed. Because of our wealth we didn't have to put our son through that, and it's horrible that children with less means may have to suffer through years of being considered stupid or not trying until their dyslexia is discovered. I support evaluation and support for all kids, because the consequences of being considered stupid for having a disability are life-long and terribly limiting. This isn't just "reads a little slowly" or "has to make notations in the book to help comprehension."

Calling kids with disabilities stupid? Where on earth are you getting this from?

Oh, right, you’re just making shit up and putting words in other people’s mouths to somehow bolster your argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

I was a high performing student. Extra time would have bored me stiff. I got a perfect score on the ACT without extra time. I did not get a perfect score on the SAT, and while I was close, it wasn't lack of time that prevented it. I just wasn't smart enough.

I know it's hard for many of us to think that about our children. But honestly. If you have a high performing student who does not have a learning disability, they not only don't need extra time, they'd probably hate it. I have never taken a standardized test I didn't finish "early" and score extremely well on. Including the LSAT and GRE. Did so many of you really feel a time crunch?

I could understand people arguing that perfectly average children might benefit (a small amount) with extra time. But here's the thing. My dyslexic child doesn't just improve a bit with extra time. He goes from essentially failing to doing extremely well, because he's a bright kid. An average kid with dyslexia might go from essentially failing to doing around average. That's the point of accommodations, to allow the abilities of the children to show through.

Is it fair for children without disabilities to score in the 98th percentile? If your answer is yes, then your answer also needs to be yes that it is fair for children with disabilities to score in the 98th percentile.

Culturally, we're not willing to write these kids off as dumb anymore. Sorry that pains you.

As long as you ask, I got a 1600 on my PSAT but only a 1550 on the SAT because I ran out of time on one of the math sections.

With five extra minutes, I am pretty sure I would have gotten a perfect score or maybe a point or two off.

Virtually everyone I know, if offered more time on the SAT, would have taken it and would have seen their scores rise.

More context:

I feel strongly about this issue because I was a middle / upper-middle class kid with immigrant parents who did not have alumni status, donation money, sports or any other hook to an elite college. I did get into an elite college.

Straight A's and knocking the SAT out of the parent were the only way I was ever going to be able to pull that off.

I care about the fundamental integrity of the testing system so that as many whip-smart kids without connections or games can get into the best schools possible. I think that is the fairest system, and the best for them, and the best for society.

There are an extremely limited number of spots at these schools for kids without a "hook." It's terribly unfair in all sorts of ways. For many kids, an objective four hour test is the only way THEY are going to be able to level the playing field and now you are trying to take that away from them.

Would you feel the same way if it took you two to four times as long to read every question and to fill in every bubble as it did other kids with your same general IQ level and knowledge base? Then you'd have way more than one question you didn't get to, but oh well, that's fair, right?

Asked and answered. We need to make sure the testing system properly accounts for their strengths AND their weaknesses.

Part of the purpose of the reading comprehension section of the SAT is literally to test reading comprehension. If we decide to exempt some (but not all) children who literally have trouble comprehending reading, we are distorting at least one of the purposes of the test, which is to test for reading comprehension.

I am all for discussing ways to make sure the test fairly measures what we are trying to measure. Maybe we should also have submit an IQ test. Or an untimed writing sample done closed-book environment and demonstrating their general knowledge. Maybe those things should be in addition to or in lieu of the SAT.

I don't want a system where a high-IQ dsylexic kid gets a 700 on the SAT because of his dyslexia because that is not accurate or fair. I also do not want a system a high IQ dsylexid kid gets 1600 because that is not accurate and fair.

It is fundamentally not fair to make one kid suffer by losing points due to that kid's failure to comprehend a reading question while at the same time designing a scheme where another kid does not lose points despite the fact that he has even more trouble comprehending reading.

Anyways, I'm all for discussing options but the current system is broken. This matters because EVERYONE has an interest in making the system as fair as it can be for EVERYONE. Part of this is making sure we are accurately testing students on the things that we trying to test them for.

I've said my piece, I'll hang up my mic now, I'm done.

That's the thing though. Reading comprehension is testing *comprehension* not the ability to read. Having the passages read out loud to my dyslexic child, or giving him extra time to read them, will still require him to understand and answer the questions appropriately. The reading comprehension section is not about "can you actually read this passage." For the SAT, I'm told the graders don't care about grammar and spelling, they care about the construction of the argument. It's the same sort of thing. You have to figure out what you're trying to measure. When they allow accommodations, the accommodations are to support areas that aren't being measured.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

Agree - this is what the college board’s studies have shown - the distribution of scores after the flagging were removed did not follow a normal distribution.

I'd actually expect that. Wealthy kids are more likely to be identified because they have parents who can spend the time and money to do it.

If I were working two jobs to make ends meet, I might not have noticed how much my son was struggling. He was getting good grades, after all. When the school identified him as a lagging reader and did some tests, they said he just needed a little support, no problem. I was seeing things that concerned me, however, and had the time and money to pay for full testing. At that point his dyslexia was identified. And I was then able to push the school to give him real support, and not just "have him leave class a couple times a week to do guided reading with a small group" which is absolutely insufficient support for dyslexia. And I was able to make sure he had appropriate tutoring, summer programs, and the like.

That's a function of wealth and education. It's wrong - every child with dyslexia should be supported appropriately. They shouldn't have to wait until they're literally failing to get the school to realize there's an actual problem.

So what you get is a group of wealthy kids being overly represented. Not because they're scamming the system, but because they're the bellwether.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

Agree - this is what the college board’s studies have shown - the distribution of scores after the flagging were removed did not follow a normal distribution.

I'd actually expect that. Wealthy kids are more likely to be identified because they have parents who can spend the time and money to do it.

If I were working two jobs to make ends meet, I might not have noticed how much my son was struggling. He was getting good grades, after all. When the school identified him as a lagging reader and did some tests, they said he just needed a little support, no problem. I was seeing things that concerned me, however, and had the time and money to pay for full testing. At that point his dyslexia was identified. And I was then able to push the school to give him real support, and not just "have him leave class a couple times a week to do guided reading with a small group" which is absolutely insufficient support for dyslexia. And I was able to make sure he had appropriate tutoring, summer programs, and the like.

That's a function of wealth and education. It's wrong - every child with dyslexia should be supported appropriately. They shouldn't have to wait until they're literally failing to get the school to realize there's an actual problem.

So what you get is a group of wealthy kids being overly represented. Not because they're scamming the system, but because they're the bellwether.

Well said!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

I was a high performing student. Extra time would have bored me stiff. I got a perfect score on the ACT without extra time. I did not get a perfect score on the SAT, and while I was close, it wasn't lack of time that prevented it. I just wasn't smart enough.

I know it's hard for many of us to think that about our children. But honestly. If you have a high performing student who does not have a learning disability, they not only don't need extra time, they'd probably hate it. I have never taken a standardized test I didn't finish "early" and score extremely well on. Including the LSAT and GRE. Did so many of you really feel a time crunch?

I could understand people arguing that perfectly average children might benefit (a small amount) with extra time. But here's the thing. My dyslexic child doesn't just improve a bit with extra time. He goes from essentially failing to doing extremely well, because he's a bright kid. An average kid with dyslexia might go from essentially failing to doing around average. That's the point of accommodations, to allow the abilities of the children to show through.

Is it fair for children without disabilities to score in the 98th percentile? If your answer is yes, then your answer also needs to be yes that it is fair for children with disabilities to score in the 98th percentile.

Culturally, we're not willing to write these kids off as dumb anymore. Sorry that pains you.

As long as you ask, I got a 1600 on my PSAT but only a 1550 on the SAT because I ran out of time on one of the math sections.

With five extra minutes, I am pretty sure I would have gotten a perfect score or maybe a point or two off.

Virtually everyone I know, if offered more time on the SAT, would have taken it and would have seen their scores rise.

More context:

I feel strongly about this issue because I was a middle / upper-middle class kid with immigrant parents who did not have alumni status, donation money, sports or any other hook to an elite college. I did get into an elite college.

Straight A's and knocking the SAT out of the parent were the only way I was ever going to be able to pull that off.

I care about the fundamental integrity of the testing system so that as many whip-smart kids without connections or games can get into the best schools possible. I think that is the fairest system, and the best for them, and the best for society.

There are an extremely limited number of spots at these schools for kids without a "hook." It's terribly unfair in all sorts of ways. For many kids, an objective four hour test is the only way THEY are going to be able to level the playing field and now you are trying to take that away from them.

Many children with disabilities also have no hooks. Why should they be penalized by something that the ACT and SAT people have decided is worthy of accommodations? Why should they be represented ONLY by their disabilities and not their abilities? Why do you care less about their unhookedness than any other child's unhookedness?

I don't have any learning disabilities. I think it's unfair that when I was taking these tests back in the dark ages, my scores were compared to children with dyslexia who had no accommodations. Their test results were not representative of their abilities and it affected their ability to get into college ... for those few who actually pushed through and graduated from high school.

You want the playing field leveled only for your benefit. When we want to level the playing field, we need to consider all the players, don't we?

Yes. Which is why my suggestion was extra time and calculators for all students and make the test more intellectually rigorous to compensate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We can go back and forth about individual cases but here is how I think about it on a systemic level. Let's take the example of a kid that scores in the 95 percentile in a bunch of metrics but the 20 percentile in one and thus qualifies as disabled.

There are some people who seem to think that this kid is really a 95 percentile kid with just some sort of issue preventing his ability from being truly recognized. That's not really accurate. Their kid is a kid with many strengths but also clear weaknesses.

it is unfair for the weaknesses to hamper the kid to such an extent that he is not able to display his strengths. So if he was getting a 30 percentile score on the test I would take that as evidence that the test did not truly reflect his ability.

Giving accommodations so that the kid ends up with a 95 percentile score is also not fair to all the other kids who also are hard working, who also want to go to good colleges, who also have their own strengths and weaknesses, because a 95 percentile score is ALSO not actually reflective of his abilities. Because his abilities are in fact limited, just like everyone else's, it's just they are limited in a way that we can better measure and try to address with novel learning techniques now that we know more about the human brain. But they still exist. The reality is this is probably a 70 percentile kid when all these factors are considered.

And then to get on the internet and brag about how your "gifted" kid smoked all the other kids is really both myopic and cruel. And if done on a mass scale will limit (and has limited) the enthusiasm of parents whose kids don't get extra time or a calculator but sure as shit could get higher scores with it to put up with the system you are trying to create.

Here is what you do not understand. An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not significantly improve his or her score. That is because the average kid does not have the intellectual capacity to answer the questions correctly. People keep saying to give extra time across the board, but the truth is that you will be disappointed with your average kid's results. A kid with a documented disability like dyslexia or ADHD would improve their score significantly with the extra time because that is the biggest factor holding them back. Unlike your average, some of these kids are brilliant and are able to demonstrate that with the extended time. If you really want to improve your average kid's score, why don't you just get him some tutoring or have him do more practice tests on his own.

No one is talking about average kids. The debate topic is high performing students. Both high performing students with and WITHOUT disabilities score higher when given extra time. No one is talking about the kids who without any accommodations score 1000 on the SAT or an ACT score of 20. Students who are scoring in the 80th or 90th percentile rank are panicking because that's not good enough for top colleges. If you can score better than 90% of the population without any accommodations, is it fair to get extra time to score in the 98th percentile rank? You just aren't that disabled to begin with if are doing better than 9 out if 10 students. Affluent parents realize this and have increasingly shopped around for sympathetic psychologists. If a psychologist who has a business privately testing has a reputation of not recommending extra time and being conservative with a diagnosis, they aren't going to stay in business.

I was a high performing student. Extra time would have bored me stiff. I got a perfect score on the ACT without extra time. I did not get a perfect score on the SAT, and while I was close, it wasn't lack of time that prevented it. I just wasn't smart enough.

I know it's hard for many of us to think that about our children. But honestly. If you have a high performing student who does not have a learning disability, they not only don't need extra time, they'd probably hate it. I have never taken a standardized test I didn't finish "early" and score extremely well on. Including the LSAT and GRE. Did so many of you really feel a time crunch?

I could understand people arguing that perfectly average children might benefit (a small amount) with extra time. But here's the thing. My dyslexic child doesn't just improve a bit with extra time. He goes from essentially failing to doing extremely well, because he's a bright kid. An average kid with dyslexia might go from essentially failing to doing around average. That's the point of accommodations, to allow the abilities of the children to show through.

Is it fair for children without disabilities to score in the 98th percentile? If your answer is yes, then your answer also needs to be yes that it is fair for children with disabilities to score in the 98th percentile.

Culturally, we're not willing to write these kids off as dumb anymore. Sorry that pains you.

As long as you ask, I got a 1600 on my PSAT but only a 1550 on the SAT because I ran out of time on one of the math sections.

With five extra minutes, I am pretty sure I would have gotten a perfect score or maybe a point or two off.

Virtually everyone I know, if offered more time on the SAT, would have taken it and would have seen their scores rise.

More context:

I feel strongly about this issue because I was a middle / upper-middle class kid with immigrant parents who did not have alumni status, donation money, sports or any other hook to an elite college. I did get into an elite college.

Straight A's and knocking the SAT out of the parent were the only way I was ever going to be able to pull that off.

I care about the fundamental integrity of the testing system so that as many whip-smart kids without connections or games can get into the best schools possible. I think that is the fairest system, and the best for them, and the best for society.

There are an extremely limited number of spots at these schools for kids without a "hook." It's terribly unfair in all sorts of ways. For many kids, an objective four hour test is the only way THEY are going to be able to level the playing field and now you are trying to take that away from them.

Many children with disabilities also have no hooks. Why should they be penalized by something that the ACT and SAT people have decided is worthy of accommodations? Why should they be represented ONLY by their disabilities and not their abilities? Why do you care less about their unhookedness than any other child's unhookedness?

I don't have any learning disabilities. I think it's unfair that when I was taking these tests back in the dark ages, my scores were compared to children with dyslexia who had no accommodations. Their test results were not representative of their abilities and it affected their ability to get into college ... for those few who actually pushed through and graduated from high school.

You want the playing field leveled only for your benefit. When we want to level the playing field, we need to consider all the players, don't we?

Yes. Which is why my suggestion was extra time and calculators for all students and make the test more intellectually rigorous to compensate.

That is idiotic. You just created the same scenario and wast time.

[Anonymous]

look, nobody is going to care about a handful of otherwise able dyslexic students who get acccomodations on exams and standardized tests. But when it starts to get to the point where 20% of highly privileged kids claim a disability ... that becomes an issue.