Crude my responses to your post is me being amused of your ignorant questions as you cross your arms and think you’re asking good questions.

>Who am I to question the value of anything such as IEP? His answer is that I have to accept the value of IEP (and other SPED activity) because it’s valuable.

You don’t even know what an IEP is so you questioning the value of it absurd in the first place. I asked you for an alternative to SPED and therefore an IEP, which you did not offer an alternative. I am left to believe you questioning an IEP is just questioning for the sake of questioning because that’s the trend on the right right now on something they either don’t understand or something that’s trending to not like (i.e. federal workers).

>As to my query re the value of SPED in general, his response is to ask what is the alternative?

Yes, what is the alternative. I then asked you what you know about SPED. So I’ll it again, Crude, if I haven’t already (I typed a lot): What do you know about SPED?

>GRA, like the Democratic Party at large, is not winning any converts to his or her side by this type of response.

This isn’t about the Dems. This is about SPED. You and Art are coming at this foolishly.

>The people who are paying huge bills for American education are not willing to continue absent evidence that their money is making a positive difference. The alternative to spending a lot of money on activity that does no good is to stop doing it and save the money, or spend it on things that do do good.

What’s your alternative besides “don’t spend money”? SPED works. Look it up.

And most of Art’s proposals are mostly half-baked. Students with disabilities will suffer, I’d bet money on it. But I do agree with academic tracks, just that, again, there isn’t enough space and not enough manpower.

Dyslexia isn’t a minor issue. It’s a specific learning disorder that has its own spectrum from mild to severe. Some students don’t need class accommodations while others do in the form of a 504 or an IEP. If they student is found to need accommodations or modifications, then usually an IEP is needed. In that case they will have SPED/resource teacher to help them with reading, writing and spelling – working towards specific goals in said realms. No need for an “itinerant faculty employed by the superintendent’s office” because, well, that’s what the SPED teacher is for.

I don’t know what you mean by your last part.

>Ditto the students who are not proficient in English

I prefer the students be taught in a bilingual class where their native language is spoken alongside English, but then I would rather them learn English at home to prepare them for the classroom.

>Why would you employ an occupational therapist?

Wrong question. The right question is when would an OT be needed to service a student. Answer is the following:

Fine and gross motor issues (handwriting vs balance/walking/standing). Oral sensory issues. Visual processing issues (letter spacing, copying from board issues). Student with mild to severe autism (especially if they’re in a self-contained classroom). Students who have developmental delays (especially if they are in preschool or kindergarten).

We’ve been doing this for years in terms of severe behavior and/or low cognitive ability. I just referred a student to specialized program in a co-op for severe behavior. You aren't ahead of anything here, Art.

>Suggest social work be dismantled as an independent profession. Programs in counseling, public administration, child protective services (recruiting counselors, police officers, and nurses for cross-training), and on-the-job training can replace them.<

Lol now you’e just running your mouth. I mean, an utterly dumb thing to say. I would guess you’re hot air is out of bitterness. You know how I know? Because you spared counseling even though I remember you in a past post, a couple of years ago, talking smack about talk therapy despite counseling being one of the major disciplines (besides social work) to offer talk therapy. Or maybe you don’ want to get on Neo's bad side given she has a counseling degree.

CPS has been the domain of social workers since its conception so you wanting to "dismantle" social work as a profession is an emotional response.

Social workers are also vital service providers in SPED, and because of your bitterness (for whatever reason you are against teachers … and social workers, oh, it's me going against you — which you don't like, that's why) you practically offer asinine proposals.

Grow up, Art.

the certification is not geared to subject knowledge but a very subjective methodology of how you teach a subject

Oh is that all? How simple to fix! Just change out the social ideology of the educational apparat and legal profession, why has no one done this before?

For things I know something about, a lot of your proposals seem workable. But they never seem to take into account the vested interests of people who make their livelihood from the system as it exists and that’s why no one ever makes changes like that. It’s not as though people haven’t thought of these things you propose. It’s not “learned helplessness”. It’s that what people in charge of these systems really want and what they say they want are different things. The primary purpose of the education system as it exists now is to employ people using taxpayer money, and every state’s educational system is its largest employer.

In some states, such as the one I live in, it is actually unconstitutional to “underfund” education. Guess who makes that call. It is also illegal for teachers to strike, but they do whenever they wish to and there are never any legal consequences.

If there were such things as “social engineers”, not the progressive euphemism but people actually designing social institutions that did what they were supposed to do, we could do things like you propose. But those decisions are in the hands of politicians, not in a caste of “social engineers”. No politician wants to needlessly offend entrenched institutions which command large amounts of money and lawyers.

That’s why what Trump is doing is so unusual.

The Althouse commentariat is almost unanimous in condemning the coach.

I read that. They condemn the coach for what they consider an inappropriate method of disciplining a minor. This is not a principle that any of us disagrees with, we only disagree on exactly where to draw the line and for some people pulling a ponytail is on the “acceptable” side, but not very many.

I know some of us here are old enough to remember corporal punishment in schools but that ship sailed long ago, as did the idea that we can track students by ability or subject them to meaningful discipline and not violate their civil rights.

Unfortunately, due to the demographics of who’d be overrepresented in detention centers and who’d be overrepresented in the “fast tracks” vs the “slow tracks”, those proposals are impossible under current civil rights law.

Education in this country long ago devolved into an enormous jobs program.