NYT article - DCUM board menttioned

[Anonymous]

Need Extra Time on Tests? It Helps to Have Cash

[Anonymous]

Ugh god OP, come on. Your post as is with no details, quotes, or summary is utterly useless and frankly kind of asinine.

[Anonymous]

Mostly about the wealthy being able to game the system and this tidbit:

One of the most common accommodations is extra time on classroom tests, which the two main college admissions testing companies, the College Board and ACT, look for when determining whether to grant students additional time for their exams. Many students struggle to complete standardized tests in the allotted minutes, and research has found that having more time can raise scores for students who have a decent grasp of the test material, whether or not they have a disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mostly about the wealthy being able to game the system and this tidbit:

One of the most common accommodations is extra time on classroom tests, which the two main college admissions testing companies, the College Board and ACT, look for when determining whether to grant students additional time for their exams. Many students struggle to complete standardized tests in the allotted minutes, and research has found that having more time can raise scores for students who have a decent grasp of the test material, whether or not they have a disability.

So why not have untimed for all? When one out of 3 students in wealthy schools get accomodations, it is not a level playing field.

[Anonymous]

Some private schools help smooth the process. One mother in Montgomery County, Md., said that when she transferred her son, who has A.D.H.D. and a reading disability, from a public high school to a private one that charges $45,000 per year in tuition, the staff at the new school told her about ACT accommodations she had not known about. Her son scored a 33 after taking the exam over multiple days, and is now considering applying to Ivy League schools.

[Anonymous]

As if we ever needed more proof that the NYT is Fake News.

[Anonymous]

this article pisses me off. My DD gets extra time because of autism and ADHD. She would gladly give up the extra time to be neurotypical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this article pisses me off. My DD gets extra time because of autism and ADHD. She would gladly give up the extra time to be neurotypical.

You should be pissed off at the people who are securing diagnoses their kids don’t qualify for, and accommodations they probably don’t need.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad this article didn’t conflate IEPs and 504s. Perhaps because IEPs carry more (unwarranted) stigma I never hear of someone seeking one for a kid without a true disability. But who gets 504s and why they have them is a lot murkier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mostly about the wealthy being able to game the system and this tidbit:

One of the most common accommodations is extra time on classroom tests, which the two main college admissions testing companies, the College Board and ACT, look for when determining whether to grant students additional time for their exams. Many students struggle to complete standardized tests in the allotted minutes, and research has found that having more time can raise scores for students who have a decent grasp of the test material, whether or not they have a disability.

So why not have untimed for all? When one out of 3 students in wealthy schools get accomodations, it is not a level playing field.

Makes sense but you’d have to change the tests which currently value processing speed. Given unlimited time most reasonably intelligent kids would get perfect scores. The whole system is a joke and the conniving parents are a disgrace.

[Anonymous]

Take some practice SAT questions, with unlimited time, and let me know how many of you get "perfect scores." That is a gross exaggeration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this article pisses me off. My DD gets extra time because of autism and ADHD. She would gladly give up the extra time to be neurotypical.

I think most of the parents in that article or whose kids have diagnoses probably truly believe their kids are not neurotypical. And barring a few fringe cheaters, likely they are right. My DS has had an IEP for severe dyslexia since second grade (assessed by the public school, not a private doctor), and in all my years of navigating SN education, I have never met a parent who tried to fake a diagnosis. However, many poorer kids have no access to evaluation services and help they desperately need. IMO the issue here is not people faking, but the fact that rich kids get spotted earlier, get more help, and get more supports early on. Your DD with ADHD and autism likely has a lot of poorer peers who are just like her, but with no diagnosis or support. That's the travesty here, that there are a lot of kids who fly totally under the radar, who really need the help as much if not more.

In fact, it's the gatekeeping around SNs from wealthy SN parents that really angers me. I have seen threads on DCUM where obnoxious SN parents have insisted that only kids who were diagnosed before high school should get any accommodations, which of course really only privileges rich kids further because at poorer schools, kids fall through the cracks until high school and that's where a lot of them get caught. Or SN parents who object to untimed tests for all, when that would really help bright kids with undiagnosed processing, ADHD, or dyslexia issues and would not hurt anyone else (frankly any SN parent who objects to untimed tests for all has shown their true colors, IMO).

What I have seen around these threads is that everyone is convinced their child's disability is legitimate but other people are faking it or gaming the system. That's not a productive approach. But it's clear that wealthy kids with diagnosed SNs get support that poorer kids who would likely qualify don't, and that is wrong. Personally I think that the way to short-term fix this is to either get rid of the SAT completely or allow untimed for anyone, but long-term, there's a systematic structural issue about equal access to education that needs to be fixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take some practice SAT questions, with unlimited time, and let me know how many of you get "perfect scores." That is a gross exaggeration.

This is sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this article pisses me off. My DD gets extra time because of autism and ADHD. She would gladly give up the extra time to be neurotypical.

You should be pissed off at the people who are securing diagnoses their kids don’t qualify for, and accommodations they probably don’t need.

No. Angry at them for gaming the system. Angry at the other for being so stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this article pisses me off. My DD gets extra time because of autism and ADHD. She would gladly give up the extra time to be neurotypical.

You should be pissed off at the people who are securing diagnoses their kids don’t qualify for, and accommodations they probably don’t need.

No. Angry at them for gaming the system. Angry at the other for being so stupid.

So your DDs diagnosis is legitimate but somehow all those other parents are gaming the system. Huh.