rwilly wrote:Great points on how other countries (not just China) track their students, weed them out at an early age, and then only compare their best and brightest to our kids who are on IEP, are BD, have ADHD, have a 504, and are LD, as well as the family being hotlined to DFS... Yes, many of the acronyms and hoops we deal with in the US because everyone is supposed to be able to succeed.
Kids who can't pass 8th grade science class think they can be a doctor. That's all fine and dandy, but not reality. That doesn't make them any less of a person, be we need to get a bit more realistic.
Everyone is some part of the problem - parents, students, administration, and teachers.
Just injecting a minor tweak here about the "get a bit more realistic" part of your intelligent post.. The teachers are the most realistic about the potential of their students. The idea that almost all children can/should be mainstreamed is not to promote false promises or fool children into believing in fairy tales about becoming doctors...it is to integrate those previously shunned from "normalcy" in school and society and to get the weakest among us to maximize their individual potential. In the loooong run, it saves all of us money if kids with severe impediments in life do not have to be institutionalized, if they can learn to take basic care of themselves, learn to read some, maybe more than some, learn a set of life skills, hopefully hold down a job eventually and be much more self sufficient.
Today there are autistic adults with advanced degrees doing research. When I was in elementary schools in the late 50's-early to mid 60's they would have had helmets on their heads and been kept fed and clean.
The science of educating people is a world apart from folks crying about teachers getting paid too much, not working hard, etc. Most of the problems in classrooms today is that these new populations in each classroom come with mandates but no funding and require specialists in many cases. In McBryde's case it is idiotically severe. I can't believe he has half a classroom of special ed kids!
Oh, and for those still not convinced that most professional teachers work much more than you think, did you ever have to meet with any teachers because junior was a frigging illiterate obstinant sh*thead in class? Or maybe you wanted to see how he could do better in school? What time were these meetings held? I'll bet anyone it was before or after school was in session...AKA Personal Time! off the clock! But your moronic offspring mattered enough. How many people you helping professionally off the clock, gratis???
Thought so.