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Yes, the problem is not school funding but school segregation. It takes more than money to help high needs students, it takes attention and support. If your chi

by dwater 5y ago

Yes, the problem is not school funding but school segregation. It takes more than money to help high needs students, it takes attention and support. If your child needs attention and support and they go to a school where the majority of their peers have the same needs, none of them will get it.

wyager 5y ago
Hold on… your claim is that students are not having their special needs met, and your solution is to put them in a school that’s even less equipped to handle their special needs? Schools absolutely should be segregated, as much as possible, by things like academic ability. That’s the only way schools can effectively meet students where they’re at. It takes a totally different strategy to help a low-performing student catch up vs helping a high-performing student excel. By forcing those kids into the same classroom, you’re not helping either of them.
- dwater 5y ago
  My claim is that more of the students that attend schools in impoverished areas need significant support beyond being presented instructional content than students in affluent areas, and that when students with those high needs are concentrated they are less likely to have them met. My experience as a secondary school teacher in multiple Title 1 schools was that when you are responsible for a classroom of 30 students, once you have more than a few with high needs (3-5 in my experience) you are unable to provide any of them the support they need. When I taught in an affluent school, I saw that students who were in Special Education programs were given a lot more personal attention and support, which provided them the structure they needed to be successful. Students where those needs are concentrated don't get the attention and support and as a result are very, very unlikely to be successful academically.
  - wyager 5y ago
    > and that when students with those high needs are concentrated they are less likely to have them met. This is totally opposite to my experience in public school through age 11. I never got the advanced instruction I needed, trying to mix like 4-6 stddev of ability in a single classroom never worked, and no one on the low end really benefitted from it.
    - dwater 5y ago
      Your experience is not the issue I was addressing and it's not really the subject of the original article. I, and in my interpretation the article, was talking about the problem of education not providing the opportunity of success for those of lower means that has typically been considered the "American Dream". Your anecdote does not appear to contradict my statement. I made a statement about students with high needs being concentrated in a class or school overwhelming the system, and you made a statement about being a single student with exceptional ability in what I interpreted to be a typical American classroom setting not getting personalized instruction.

by dwater 5y ago

wyager 5y ago

Hold on… your claim is that students are not having their special needs met, and your solution is to put them in a school that’s even less equipped to handle their special needs? Schools absolutely should be segregated, as much as possible, by things like academic ability. That’s the only way schools can effectively meet students where they’re at. It takes a totally different strategy to help a low-performing student catch up vs helping a high-performing student excel. By forcing those kids into the same classroom, you’re not helping either of them.

dwater 5y ago
My claim is that more of the students that attend schools in impoverished areas need significant support beyond being presented instructional content than students in affluent areas, and that when students with those high needs are concentrated they are less likely to have them met. My experience as a secondary school teacher in multiple Title 1 schools was that when you are responsible for a classroom of 30 students, once you have more than a few with high needs (3-5 in my experience) you are unable to provide any of them the support they need. When I taught in an affluent school, I saw that students who were in Special Education programs were given a lot more personal attention and support, which provided them the structure they needed to be successful. Students where those needs are concentrated don't get the attention and support and as a result are very, very unlikely to be successful academically.
- wyager 5y ago
  > and that when students with those high needs are concentrated they are less likely to have them met. This is totally opposite to my experience in public school through age 11. I never got the advanced instruction I needed, trying to mix like 4-6 stddev of ability in a single classroom never worked, and no one on the low end really benefitted from it.
  - dwater 5y ago
    Your experience is not the issue I was addressing and it's not really the subject of the original article. I, and in my interpretation the article, was talking about the problem of education not providing the opportunity of success for those of lower means that has typically been considered the "American Dream". Your anecdote does not appear to contradict my statement. I made a statement about students with high needs being concentrated in a class or school overwhelming the system, and you made a statement about being a single student with exceptional ability in what I interpreted to be a typical American classroom setting not getting personalized instruction.