The Education Wars

My little rant on a board about inappropriate curriculum:

Well, "really" high "achieving" kids were NOT taking algebra in middle school when I went

This is entirely the fault of the standardistas, as Susan Ohanian calls them, and it is completely inappropriate to teach high-level math in middle school, and it is trickling down into the lower grades, and many if not MOST kids cannot handle it. But that's okay, because there are always special education teachers to pick up the slack, and the kids who are "failing" math are forever labeled as "failing" when in reality it is shitty, inappropriate curriculum that is being shoved down kids' throats.

Thirty or forty years ago one almost NEVER saw kids in special education (only those who would be labeled "life skills" students were found in self-contained classrooms--the TRUE special education students such as the "mentally retarded" and of course others severely disabled weren't in schools at all or were in institutions) and very few students got ANY remedial help in reading or in math, and yes, there have always been second-language learners in public schools, so that isn't the reason for the huge explosion of kids in special education, nor can poverty or divorce be blamed, either. No, what happened is trends in education "upped" the ante in requiring kids to go on college-track preparation in high school and the lower grades, thanks to the fraudulent Nation at Risk report and other reports pushed by anti-public school politicians saying this country was falling behind academically compared to other countries and many, many kids have fallen through the cracks as a result because they can't do the work. And then there was the whole language fad, promoted by Ken Goodman and others trying to put an inappropriate high school-style language arts pedagogy on elementary school students who need explicit, sequential language arts instruction. Inappropriate curriculum/pedagogy is the real reason so many kids are in special education today, and if there is any blame leveled at teachers, it should be that many of them aren't taught how to teach reading.

Now your child is an exception, but it is the exception which proves the rule. Hundreds of thousands of middle school kids can't handle abstract concepts like algebra. That is a fact. They aren't stupid, they aren't lazy, though standardistas would say they are, or they, like you, blame the teachers. These kids simply aren't cognitively ready to handle abstract concepts.

By the way, many, many intelligent adults can't do algebra, either.