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Grace09
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18 Oct 2009, 9:11 pm

When I was a kid, kids failed grades. However, a friend of mine said the "no child left behind" law meant they push everyone forward (we are in California). Well, my SS went to a private LD elementary school last year. He just finished 6th grade and had never ever received a letter grade.

So this year he had to go to another LD school as his old school only went up to 6th grade. This new school gives grades and his teacher sent him home with a note last week saying he was so far getting an F in his language arts class. It was his first experience with letter grades and his mother was quite upset calling the teacher an idiot and so forth.

Well, so I was wondering, can he actually fail? because I really thought that wasn't something they did anymore. I had a friend who had a horrible time motivating her daugther to go to class in high school because she said "she knows they will just pass her through to the next grade because of 'no child left behind' ". Of course, she was attending a public high school, so I don't know if it is different for the private schools.

Maybe I don't understand this law, as I had preschool children at the time her daughter was in high school.



southwestforests
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18 Oct 2009, 9:18 pm

I have no kids but from my brother's experience with is it can vary dramatically with school,
even in same district.

In general, private schools do seem more interested in producing students with the resources and drive to succeed in the real world of grown ups with bills to pay than government schools appear to be.

Sounds to me like the mother needs to grow up too.

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Well, so I was wondering, can he actually fail?

The real test of that will be when the student is out of school having to earn a living.


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CRD
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18 Oct 2009, 9:22 pm

No child left behind got rid of so called social promotion in schools that fall under this law some smaller ones or charter schools do not.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act hope that helps clear things up a bit. My older NT's son's school is under this program and belive me kids can and do fail. Thank goodness not my son he's got this whole mind set of having to be the ideal worry free child because his little brother has so many needs, but thats a topic for some other time. :?



Last edited by CRD on 18 Oct 2009, 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tracker
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18 Oct 2009, 9:36 pm

O yes, according to US law, children can indeed fail a grade and have to repeat it.

The No child left behind act was written with the intention of promoting school's effectiveness. Whenever a child failed a grade, or performed poorly on testing, the school would receive less funding. Therefore, if schools wanted to be fully funded, they would have to work harder to ensure that their student's didnt fail. This seems good in theory because it encourages schools to help out students who are struggling rather then just letting them fail out.

The unfortunate consequence of this bill is that schools found it was easier to just pass everybody regardless of whether or not they understand the material. Helping children out, tutoring them, and making lectures more understandable is hard work, and if you fail, you lose funds. Passing everybody no matter what is much easier to do, and there in no chance of failure or losing funds.

That is why over half of high school graduates today cant convert decimals into fractions and fractions into decimals. It is also why having a high school degree has become a worthless slip of paper with no actual market value to it. So, yes, your son technically can fail. However, the odds of the school actually failing him if he doesn't learn the material are relatively low.



Grace09
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18 Oct 2009, 10:38 pm

Thanks for the replies! I lived in San Diego when a friend told me about the whole 'no child left behind' law. She was frustrated because she couldn't motivate her daughter. That was 8 years ago, so I am glad they have changed this 'social promotion'.

I think he'll just have to make the transition with more studying. I do think there has been a jump from his old school to his new school. For example, last year in 6th grade, he was reading books in school by authors like Judy Blume. This year in 7th grade he is reading "The Pearl" by Steinbeck and they are teaching about Roman emperors. I think his new school just expects more. They are also not exclusively an LD school like his last school. They just advertise as catering to anyone wanting a smaller learning environment.

Both his parents haven't and won't tell the school he has PDD, CAPD and NVLD, that would probably help things but it's not my call to make. His mom? Well she really pushed for this school because it's not an exclusive LD school - she said he needed to be challenged more, well I guess that is happening. Last month she called up his teachers asking if they could "buddy up" her son with another boy in class because the other boys haven't befriended him. The teacher wouldn't find him a buddy and his mom was furious - and this month we have this note he got from a teacher saying he is failing. I think it will motivate him to try harder which is a good thing.



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18 Oct 2009, 11:03 pm

My understanding of no child left behind is no one funded it and it just kind of existed. Maybe I'm outright wrong, that's just what I heard. I could even be thinking of something completely different.


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19 Oct 2009, 1:05 am

TheMidnightJudge wrote:
My understanding of no child left behind is no one funded it and it just kind of existed. Maybe I'm outright wrong, that's just what I heard. I could even be thinking of something completely different.


No, your right, it is underfunded.

As I said before, the bill penalizes schools who have failing students. The bill also has stuff in there to help the schools provide better education. For example, the bill says that students who struggle should get individual tutoring, disabled students should get more help (Speech therapy, etc.) So, basically the bill stated, 'If you have struggling students who are failing, then you need to do more to help them. You need to use tutors, therapies, etc. in order to increase your effectiveness. Failure to help failing students will get you penalized.' The problem is that in order to enact the bill, schools would have to hire more aids, and tutors, but the schools never got the increased funding necessary to do that.

The bill itself isn't bad in design. On the contrary, it is intended to provide struggling students with help. The problem is that the extra help mentioned in the bill isn't funded. And rather then motivating the schools to help those who struggle, it motivated schools to drop the bar for success so low that everybody can pass. It was a good idea, just poor execution.

Also, to Grace:

It is entirely possible that your step son merely needs to work a bit harder in order to get better grades. But often times getting an F is an indication that the child may need some help, as opposed to them being lazy and not putting in effort. So, while I have nothing against your child putting in some more time on the subject, I don't think its a good idea to assume that is all that needs to be done in order for him to succeed. Also, if he is only getting an F in his language arts class then it isnt really a problem. There is not much in that class worth learning anyways.



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19 Oct 2009, 1:39 am

The jump in reading material you've mentioned is huge. How many words is he reading per minute? What is his reading lexile? Both of these things need to be known to figure out how to best support him. I worry that if he was reading Junie B. Jones last year, he is NOT what is considered "fluent" as a reader. In which case, the school needs to have him read, read, and read - on his level - until he gets there. Independently, perhaps with a tutor but not with the class. If the school suggests themselves as a good environment for special needs kids, then it would seem they are willing to offer accommodations and/or individualize education to some extent. Call them on it.

Beyond the ability to read well, Tracker probably has a point about Language Arts being useless. Well ... except he does need to learn to write. Spell, use proper grammer, create a co-herent sentence. Whether or not he can properly read the nuance in a some obscure work of literature ... THAT isn't essential in the least to life. 7th grade skills tend to still be pretty basic, and I would want them mastered.

As for No Child Left Behind, it does not, to my knowledge, prevent children from failing. I could rant on for quite a while about that law, for I find the standards to be well biased against schools with difficult populations to teach. The requirements of the law assume that all kids can learn equally, and put the blame on the schools when they don't. Well, nice as it would be to say that is true, it just isn't. You can't ask a child that immigrated 6 months ago to score "proficient" on a test in English, and that is exactly what the law requires. The schools my kids attend both have large English language learner populations and the percentages of each subgroup that must score well are now beyond the reach of common sense (the law phases in until 100% of each subgroup in a school must score proficient or penalties will ensue, and that includes disabled students as a subgroup, language learners as a subgroup, and so on). I'm not sure how the play between the states and the federal government work, because the standards in CA are much higher than those in TX, and apparently that was at least in part the state's choice. What I see in real life is the rich school where all the parents have advance degrees and $2m homes winning awards and the more challenged schools being handed penalties. OK, that is NOT your topic at all, but when NCLB gets mentioned, that is the part I live with.

Private schools aren't covered by the law at all. They aren't tested, they are held to no minimum requirements. They just get to benefit if a nearby school is deemed to have failed because now those parents are supposed to have the option to choose the private school instead, and the "failing" public school is required to write all the parents a letter telling them so. Um ... I went on a tangent again, didn't I?

Language Arts is the sore point in my son's education, and he loves to read and has a high lexile score. What he can't do is write. If your son is more like mine on this, I would recommend teaching him more at home, and helping him with the assingments. Focus on what he really needs to know; talk him through the rest.


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Tracker
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19 Oct 2009, 4:13 am

DW is correct in that fluent reading is an important and useful skill to learn. It opens up a new world when you can gain information from books, articles, and especially the internet. So, while you dont need to worry about him knowing what the plot of 'the pearl' is, you should try to help him work on his reading.

If he is like me, he finds fictional works to be rather boring, a better way to get his interest in reading would be to get him books, articles, or whatever else you can find about a topic which interests him. I know that I loved to read about space, specifically the Apollo program when I was in elementary. I found it to be fascinating. And I dont mean those little kid picture books, I mean history books 100 of pages long in the adult section. It was those books that got me really interested, and helped me to spend time reading.

I think you said that he was interested in electronic devices? Perhaps he would enjoy books about Thomas Edison's and Nicholas Tesla's works. Just find out what interests him and get him some books about that.

As for learning how to write, that comes later. I really didn't start effectively making coherent writings on my own until high school. Generally you need to read and read a lot in order to figure out how to compose proper writings. So, trying to get your son to write effectively before he can read effectively is like putting the cart before the horse.



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19 Oct 2009, 9:18 am

I'm seeing the samethings in New Mexico as you are in CA DW_a_mom. My older son's school does give testing in spainsh but we just had a large group of imagrants from french speeking Africa. So they have "failed" two years in a row and we got the letter from the school bah, bah .bah you can move your kid if you like,but what they don't tell you is they move the under achiving and lowest income kids first we aren't rich but are far better off then alot of his classmates families and Alex is a A-B student in avanced classes. So even if your kids school does fail it doesn't get your child out of a failing school. Alex's school is doing the very best they can with what they have and should be awarded not puinshed because they do take the harder to place kids and give them a safe place to learn in a unsafe world. Sorry off topic.
Ok back to the O.P. giving a kid what they want to read is a wonderful way to bost the skills. Forgive me if I'm thinking of some other family but doesn't your stepson love roads and road maps? Maybe some of the books you get at AAA would spark some inrest in him or the history of famos roads. I'm not sure how fiting Jack Karowacks works would be for his age. He also has a thing for plugs and wires if I'm not wrong maybe soem old service booklets might get him reading more and give him the jump he needs in skill level. We used grapic novels with my older son and books about myths but this is what he's loved all his life and it took him from being at the bottom of his class in reading in the 4th grade to the very top by the end of 5th. Pushing a kids to read something they find too hard and have no inrest in only makes them shut-down. Sorry for the sloppy post I'll be back to edit later if I find the time. :) best of luck and hang in there.



epril
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19 Oct 2009, 10:10 am

I thought if you were an English learner, you could get an IEP for it, and anyone who has an IEP is not included in the No child left behind rule? Also, any LD kids are not included in it?



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19 Oct 2009, 10:30 am

epril wrote:
I thought if you were an English learner, you could get an IEP for it, and anyone who has an IEP is not included in the No child left behind rule? Also, any LD kids are not included in it?

No only the kids that are very, very disable are left out of no child left behind. My older son was on a IEP for LD and speech and was still tested and held to the no child left behind standers he did how ever get accomodations. My younger son is not tested but we had to sign paper work stating he will never get a diploma. :( So even if he does make amazing progress in the next few years the best we can get him now is a GED.



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19 Oct 2009, 10:54 am

CRD wrote:
epril wrote:
I thought if you were an English learner, you could get an IEP for it, and anyone who has an IEP is not included in the No child left behind rule? Also, any LD kids are not included in it?

No only the kids that are very, very disable are left out of no child left behind. My older son was on a IEP for LD and speech and was still tested and held to the no child left behind standers he did how ever get accomodations. My younger son is not tested but we had to sign paper work stating he will never get a diploma. :( So even if he does make amazing progress in the next few years the best we can get him now is a GED.


My son gets extended time but still does the testing. And he does quite well. The IEP kids like him are, I believe, one of the subgroups that must "make progress" and so on. There are no children in our school that are excluded, although I do believe the county wide special ed classes might be - I've never asked. If a child is in the county wide program, their impairments are pretty severe. CRD, I don't think its right that you had to sign him out of diploma. Schools are doing all sorts of tricks to avoid penalties, aren't they? Soooo frustrating.

epril, one of the things they were trying to do with NCLB is make sure that every subgroup, and that includes children with learning disabilities, would be brought to a minimum level of education, ie, that they would not be "left behind." A worthy goal, of course. It's just that the way its been implemented here in CA is crazy, and many states similarly have applied it poorly. That is definitely a part of the law that could have used funding, as well, to allow more individualized education, but that never really happened.


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Grace09
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19 Oct 2009, 2:20 pm

I don't know how he is doing in his other classes but as we haven't received any notice I am assuming he is doing okay. As I am his stepmom I don't think they would contact me, but my husband would tell me. I was actually surprised the problem was in language arts because what he really struggles with is math. I mean I guess it's not just math, getting the essential underlying meaning to a story is hard for him.

Another problem with the class I guess was that he wasn't turning in homework. Well for some reason he was forgetting to even tell his dad he had homework. His dad would ask and he would say no. The other problem is that both his parents used to correct his homework and send him to school with perfect work but after seeing that I just make sure my 2 younger kids have done their homework, I don't correct it (they actually won't even let me try! they say the teacher says the parents can't help!), my 2 younger kids are in public school, well my husband started to just check to see his work was done and not correct it. Well his mom still corrects all his homework before he turns it in, so when he got the progress report saying he was getting an F, she yelled at my husband for not correcting his homework. My husband said, well how is he supposed to learn?

But I don't think homework counts for much. I actually never knew he would have trouble in Language Arts, he has NVLD and these kids tend to have good vocabulary and reading skills. I mean that is what I thought. But yes, there was a jump. Someone mentioned Junie B. Jones, besides Judy Blume, he was also reading Junie B. Jones last year in 6th grade and this year, in 7th grade, they seems to have been a jump in literary works. He also had to write a short paper on a short story by Issac Asimov. I mean, I am quite impressed with the literature they are reading but I guess he is having a hard time with it.

One of his teachers is willing to tutor him a couple days after school which I think is great. I would be willing but when I have tried to help him, as I have with math, he just gets embarrassed and says 'I know how to do it, I'll do it later'. He just wants to do things with me like bake and run errands and when I can see he is getting embarrassed I drop it. Better it be a teacher. Or his mom or dad.

He is in the process of getting an IEP for a transition to public high school in 2 years. They accepted his Dx of NVLD and Math Disabled but did their own evaluation a couple weeks ago, we haven't gotten the results yet so I don't know how he will be classified. I really don't know where NVLD fits although I consider it an ASD but I don't know how they classify things for an IEP.

He does tend to gravitate to teachers. He is more comfortable hanging out with adults and young children, but ignores kids his age. So I worry that, because the teacher doesn't know he has NVLD, maybe he is annoying her? He also gets physically too close but I can't be a fly on the wall so I really don't know what is happening. I do know that when he comes home he talks about the teachers and never about his classmates which is opposite of my 2 younger kids.