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by Bratmon1 hours ago |
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upvoteby mswphd49 minutes ago|
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"people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to succeed in normal school" is not a clearly divisible population from the regular student population though. Many (but not all) districts deal with disabilities via IEPs, or Individual Education Plans. They are tailored to particular students, and can be fairly common. They make things less of a clear binary than 2 separate school systems would really need.

It's worse because there's been a trend among elite districts to push students to (fraudulently) get a diagnosed disability, so that they can get accommodations on tests and raise their chances to be admitted to an elite university. So, a proposal to partition the school system into a lesser system for students with disabilities would face pushback by the aforementioned elite district parents. While they are participating in a fraud (and so it would perhaps be morally fine for them to face repercussions for it), I imagine it would make implementing any such plan very difficult.

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upvoteby ajsnigrutin18 minutes ago|
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Yep, the abuse is happening over here in slovenia too, you get some diagnosis for the kid, you get 50% more test-taking time, extra help in school, extra accomodations for other stuff, and in the end, your grade is worth the same (for grade averages and high school or college acceptance) as someone elses who finished in regular amount of time. No remarks anywhere saying "while student A and B have the same point average, student B had 50% more time on the test".

So yeah, I kinda understand why parents get the diagnoses for their kids, but the system is unfair.

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upvoteby smileson241 minutes ago|
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In my experience ( to be fair which was a while ago ) things like that just end up making things worse trapping people and leading to a lot of lashing out

Honestly education really feels overthought and micromanaged already the whole setup is unhealthy

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upvoteby 1 hours ago|
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upvoteby HelloNurse1 hours ago|
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You are assuming that there should be distinct "schooling/care for people with disabilities" and "normal school", rather than integration, and further assuming that public schools should be competing with each other to defend and increase their budget, rather than cooperating.

What sad place do you come from?

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upvoteby tash94 minutes ago|
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As a parent of a kid that has special needs (at a minor level), there really is a separate set of skills needed to teach to these kids, as well as needing a better student teacher ratio. It made a huge difference for my kid.
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upvoteby tracker150 minutes ago|
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Do you want to get rid of "advanced" course options and push every student into the same bucket?
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upvoteby throwaway2744826 minutes ago|
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I'd be fine with that. It would provide an incentive to care about the bottom 75th percentile along with the spoiled rich kids
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upvoteby ofjcihen2 minutes ago|
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Just FYI I was dirt poor and from a crap neighborhood and qualified for and benefited from these AP classes. Not all kids who succeed only succeed because of their background.
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upvoteby tracker112 minutes ago|
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The bottom 75th percentile don't advance humanity to nearly the same level. Do you think you'd have the internet or iPads if everyone was capped to the 75th percentile? No.

Beyond this, the entire point of higher education is to push those who are able to higher levels, not to drag the 75% along for the ride.

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upvoteby throwaway2744810 minutes ago|
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> The bottom 75th percentile don't advance humanity to nearly the same level.

Who do you think produces all the value in the world? It's not the people organizing the labor, it's the goddamn laborers.

> Do you think you'd have the internet or iPads if everyone was capped to the 75th percentile? No.

What do you think we would be eating if we left the world up to the rich nerds? We would have starved many millennia ago.

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upvoteby ajsnigrutin15 minutes ago|
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That's horrible. Smarter kids could get a better education, but they can't, because the teachers have to deal with illiterate kids that don't want to learn in the first place.
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upvoteby throwaway2744814 minutes ago|
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Maybe if we tried to educate all our kids instead of just the rich ones they wouldn't be illiterate
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upvoteby tracker18 minutes ago|
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We do... The VAST majority of kids go through public education... It's mostly a matter of effort, and that comes down to mostly parent pressure on having their kids do the work.

Maybe if we actually held kids that can't do the work back, they wouldn't be illiterate. Let social pressure do the work it's meant to. For that matter, let parents do the work they're supposed to.

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upvoteby throwaway274487 minutes ago|
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> It's mostly a matter of effort, and that comes down to mostly parent pressure on having their kids do the work.

Oh, so it's about money.

> For that matter, let parents do the work they're supposed to.

So you want it to be about money.

If we left society up to you fucks, this place would look like the antebellum south

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upvoteby ajsnigrutin11 minutes ago|
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Some kids are just stupid, and it doesn't matter if they're rich or poor, there's nothing you can do about it. No need to keep everyone at the stupidest kids level.
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upvoteby throwaway2744810 minutes ago|
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Half of them are in AP classes. let's not pretend our methods of sorting kids into castes makes any sense. Let's be honest: this is about money and attention, and you want to grind the poor kids into dust
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upvoteby Bratmon38 minutes ago|
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> What sad place do you come from?

The American public education system

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upvoteby bmn__27 minutes ago|
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> What sad place do you come from?

Do you have an actual argument? Shaming tactics are ineffective on HN.

Reality check: in most countries, if you made a public demand of effectively depriving the disabled of the proper care they want and deserve, they would regard you as an inhumane monster, and the education ministry would refer you to state prosecution for violating the constitution.

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upvoteby SpicyLemonZest56 minutes ago|
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I just don't see how it's possible to construct a classroom environment that can simultaneously serve an 8th grader who's ready to start learning algebra and an 8th grader with dyscalculia who struggles with basic arithmetic. (I'd be sympathetic to "let's try our best", except that people often propose to try our best by declaring that first kid isn't actually ready.)
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upvoteby actionfromafar51 minutes ago|
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But maybe they don't need to attend completely different schools, either.
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upvoteby SpicyLemonZest45 minutes ago|
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I agree, but I don't think that's what's being proposed. Many special ed programs today work on that principle: try to mainstream everyone in the classes they can be, run separate classes for the cases where that won't work, and everyone kinda understands that the participants in special ed aren't expected to be as successful in their educational pursuits.
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