Nat stds won't help special ed kids

Just finished a long article about deaf education for the spring issue of EA, and the tragedy of those children with mild but multiple conditions, who still slip through the net (if you're severely deaf or autistic, etc, you get resources, but if you have multiple, mild conditions that still add up to severe learning needs - you're not eligible for a lot of the funding, although educators do work around this.)

Talked to a stack of people, including one guy, fantastic commitment to deaf education, but he'd bought the line that National Standards will pick up those kids who are still slipping through the cracks.

In a superficial way the argument stacks up - if you're failing the standards, you'll be identified, and things will happen. The only problem is that the standards also label tens of thousands of children as failing when they're not (children who start school at a low base but who're working hard and catching up; children whose passion that year is dinosaurs and parents and educators have quite rightly not forced them to rote learn to the tests; and all those children who are on track but get the 'failing' label anyway because many of the standards have been set too high). National Standards are simply too blunt an instrument to identify the children who really do need help.

The reality is that teachers already know who the students are who need the extra help (age six net data is all there), but generally the extra resources are simply not available for teachers to tap into for children who have severe needs resulting from multiple, overlapping conditions.

Now, remind me how much is it the government is pouring into the standards - isn't that $60m?and how much new funding has been allocated to  private schools - isn't that $50m? Hmmm

Yet again, the obvious conclusion is that National Standards are not about identifying children who need help and getting them that help, but more about the zeitgeist, parental anxiety and winning votes (though if you can throw in a bit of teacher-bashing I'd expect many would consider that's a win too).