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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
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.   [/quote]

Here is what you do not understand.  An average kid without a documented disability who gets extra time will not [b]significantly[/b] 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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.  
[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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