Part Two.
>This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
>(http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> From the issue dated December 8, 2000
>
>
>
> Sorting Out Which Students Have Learning Disabilities
>
> By PERRY A. ZIRKEL
>
> Although I've spent 30 years in higher education, it's been
> only in the past decade that I have received requests from
> students for extra time, and occasionally a quieter place, to
> take exams. My first such experience occurred when two
> students in my "Introduction to Law" class individually
> requested accommodations for the final exam, which consisted
> of 150 multiple-choice and true-false questions in a
> three-hour period. Both students had received clearance for
> certain accommodations from the assistant dean for academic
> support for students with disabilities.
>
> One student, Jess, who had been identified as having a
> learning disability, was entitled to 50 percent more time. She
> explained to me in confidence that she did not want other
> students to know, and that if she needed her extra 90 minutes,
> she would wink once upon handing in her exam and then return
> immediately to finish after the other students had left.
>
> The other student, Tom, had also been classified as
> learning-disabled since high school. As in most such cases,
> the school district had made the initial evaluation, and the
> college had deferred to it. On that basis, Tom was now
> entitled to twice as much time as most other students, along
> with a secluded exam site. He and I found a quiet and
> comfortable projection booth nearby.
>
> On the day of the exam -- after I had asked the students to
> put away their No. 2 pencils, and they had come up in a group
> to hand in their answer sheets -- I couldn't detect whether
> Jess gave me her special wink. When she failed to return to
> the classroom after quite a while, I became worried and
> searched the campus for her. About an hour later, I finally
> found her in the snack bar. She explained to me that she
> thought she'd performed well on the exam and didn't need any
> extra time.
>
> After I got back to my office to do some writing, I suddenly
> remembered Tom. I rushed back to the soundproof booth, only to
> find him in tears. His extra three hours had expired, and he
> was only halfway through the test. He lamented between sobs
> that he had stayed up all night studying, and that his father,
> a lawyer, would not allow him to stay at Lehigh University if
> he did not do well in the course.
>
> What should I do? I wondered. What would be a fair, and legal,
> response?
>
> Such a situation -- and my quandary over it -- is far from
> unusual. A recent national study conducted by the American
> Council on Education found that the proportion of full-time
> students with disabilities entering colleges and universities
> has more than tripled in the past two decades -- from less
> than 3 percent in 1978 to 9 percent in 1998. Those figures
> are, in fact, encouraging. They reflect the positive effects
> of laws that require higher-education institutions to provide
> equal opportunities for students with disabilities. The laws
> are, specifically, the Individuals with Disabilities Education
> Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, enacted in the
> mid-1970's, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which
> went into effect in the early 1990's.
>
> A closer examination of the data, however, reveals a
> lesser-known trend, one that conflicts with efforts to ensure
> that all students are treated fairly. The evidence points to a
> significant increase in "false positives," or students who do
> not truly qualify as having a disability.
>
> According to the A.C.E. study, 41 percent of the freshmen who
> reported in 1998 that they had a disability came from the
> "learning disability" category, compared with 15 percent in
> 1988. Meanwhile, the percentage of students with
> more-traditional and visible disabilities had declined
> significantly. For instance, the proportion of visually
> impaired students went from 32 percent to 13 percent, and that
> of orthopedically impaired students from 14 percent to 9
> percent.
>
> What's most surprising is that compared with other freshmen
> with disabilities in 1998, those who were listed as
> learning-disabled had, on average, a significantly higher
> parental income and were, more often, white. At-risk factors
> for disabilities are usually connected with poverty, not
> wealth. The recent findings have led many observers to
> question whether a significant number of those students are
> truly learning-disabled or, rather, in the words of one
> college official, "upper-income game players."
>
> In fact, an investigative article in the Los Angeles Times
> reported that high-school students who claim to be
> learning-disabled and ask for special accommodations --
> usually extra time -- on the SAT are disproportionately
> clustered in well-to-do pockets along the Boston-New
> York-Washington and the San Francisco-Los Angeles-San Diego
> corridors. The percentage of students receiving such
> accommodations was not only exceptionally high in prominent
> public secondary schools, like Beverly Hills High School, but
> also more than four times the national average in prestigious
> prep schools, like the Rye (N.Y.) Country Day School and New
> York City's Dalton School. In sharp contrast, an analysis of
> 10 inner-city high schools in the Los Angeles area found that
> not a single student taking the SAT had received extra time or
> other accommodations.
>
> My own experience has been similar. Although one must consider
> thatthe majority of students who attend Lehigh come from
> relatively affluent backgrounds -- my sample is obviously
> skewed -- no lower-income students in my classes have asked to
> receive testing accommodations like those afforded Jess and
> Tom.
>
> Part of the reason for the growth in false positives among
> more-affluent students may be that the basic definition of a
> learning disability in the Individuals with Disabilities
> Education Act (IDEA), which has not changed in more than a
> decade, is not sufficiently specific. The specified criteria
> include a "severe discrepancy" between achievement and
> intellectual ability in at least one of seven designated areas
> (like basic reading skill or written expression) and the need
> for special education to help remedy the discrepancy. Both
> standards are fuzzy, and their interpretation varies,
> depending in significant part on parental pressure and
> sophistication.
>
> For example, some parents shop around for psychologists or
> physicians until they find one who will diagnose their child
> as learning-disabled. It is not uncommon for parents to bring
> attorneys or disability advocates to a school or college and
> threaten legal action. Even when administrators believe that
> an accommodation is unwarranted, they have difficulty making
> tough decisions in the face of such pressure, given the costs
> of defending such suits and the possibility that as school
> leaders, they might infringe on the rights of a truly disabled
> child.
>
> A recent state-by-state trend toward "high-stakes testing" has
> also encouraged school administrators to bow to parental
> demands. Scores on other standardized paper-and-pencil tests,
> in addition to the SAT, are being used as a basis for rewards
> or sanctions for schools as well as students. When schools,
> students, and parents view their own success as being
> dependent on test results, they may increasingly resort to
> questionable means to improve scores. Such costs are hidden,
> in contrast to litigation, but no less significant.
>
> What's more, false positives may be on the rise as a result of
> regulatory changes and interpretations. The most recent report
> by the U.S. Department of Education to Congress revealed a
> whopping 315-percent increase from 1987 to 1997 in the most
> nonstigmatizing IDEA category: "other health impairment." In
> recent years, advocates for students have succeeded in arguing
> that attention-deficit disorder and attention-deficit
> hyperactivity disorder are implicitly covered under that
> category. The inclusion of A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. as allowable
> health conditions in the 1999 regulations for the act will
> certainly fuel even sharper growth in the number of false
> positives. Such conditions are particularly, although not
> exclusively, endemic to the wealthier regions of the country.
>
> But many students who claim to have such learning disabilities
> are not disabled in the legal sense of the term. Under the
> IDEA law, having A.D.D. is not enough; the student must also
> need special education. As an alternative, parents, attorneys,
> and other advocates for psychologists' growing inventory of
> so-called invisible disabilities -- not only A.D.D. and
> A.D.H.D., but also dyslexia (reading impairment), dyscalcula
> (math impairment), dysgraphia (writing impairment), dysthymia
> (mood disorder), obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic
> stress disorder, and multiple-chemical sensitivity, among
> others -- have in recent years sought and secured
> identification of those disorders under the broader definition
> of disability contained in Section 504 and in the Americans
> with Disabilities Act. That definition requires a mental or
> physical impairment that limits a major life activity -- and
> to a substantial extent. Prevailing school-district practice,
> often based on ignorance or parental intimidation, has been
> simply to acknowledge the impairment, like attention-deficit
> disorder, without considering whether it substantially limits
> a major life activity -- especially if the parents threaten to
> sue.
>
> In stark contrast, however, the courts have consistently
> interpreted "major life activity" as generic -- for example,
> walking as general mobility rather than as specific variants,
> like crawling or running; and learning as a broad category
> rather than as a subset like spelling or test-taking. Most
> important, in recent years courts have narrowly interpreted
> the key criterion of "substantial" limitation with reference
> to the average student in the national population, and with --
> not without -- mitigating measures, like medication.
>
> Thus, as a legal reality, students with A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. at
> prestigious public and private schools -- and, later, in
> college -- often do not truly qualify as having a disability
> under Section 504 or the A.D.A. because they typically do not
> display a substantial limitation in learning (the relevant
> "major life activity" in SAT accommodations). Either with
> their medication (which is generally overprescribed), or even
> for those who do not use medication, the grade-point averages
> and standardized-test scores of such students do not suggest
> that they have a substantial learning impairment compared with
> the average student in the national population.
>
> What can be done to preclude such students, who are not really
> learning-disabled, from receiving special accommodations --
> and, as a result, unfair advantages? The solution is
> multifaceted and does not include throwing out the precious
> baby of legally defensible disabilities with the bath water of
> inappropriate attempts to beat the system.
>
> One part of the answer is that school districts and
> higher-education institutions, while giving parents notice of
> their legal rights, should learn to say respectfully, but
> firmly, No when it's appropriate. The courts and the Education
> Department's Office for Civil Rights have provided solid
> backing for such a response. For example, last year the United
> States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the
> denial of learning-disabled eligibility under the Individuals
> with Disabilities Education Act to a fifth-grader in the
> Orinda Union School District, near Oakland, Calif., whom
> private evaluators had identified as having attention-deficit
> disorder. Why the denial? Because even if the inconclusive
> test results were interpreted as establishing a severe
> discrepancy between the student's ability and his achievement,
> his problems could be dealt with by making minor modifications
> in the regular education program. In other words, he did not
> need special education.
>
> Similarly, the majority of recent rulings by the Office for
> Civil Rights under Section 504 and the A.D.A. have favored
> institutions of higher education, particularly with regard to
> academic adjustments for learning-disabled students, according
> to a recent dissertation by Margaret M. McMenamin, a faculty
> member at Lehigh Carbon Community College. The courts have
> also sided with defendants in a string of test-related Section
> 504 and A.D.A. suits brought by medical students and others --
> for example, Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine
> (1992),Tips v. Regents of Texas Tech University (1996), Price
> v. National Board of Medical Examiners (1997), Tatum v.
> National Collegiate Athletic Association (1998), McGuiness v.
> University of New Mexico School of Medicine (1998), Gonzales
> v. National Board of Medical Examiners (1999), and Betts v.
> Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (2000).
>
> In Price, for example, three medical students whom the
> National Center of Higher Education for Learning Problems had
> diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, as
> well as with other writing and reading disorders, sought
> extended time and a separate room for the first step of the
> national medical board's exam -- which they had to pass to
> proceed to the third year of medical school. Deciding against
> them, a federal judge, Joseph Goodwin, concluded that "a
> 'learning disability' does not always qualify as a disability
> under the A.D.A.," and that, inasmuch as those students were
> able to learn as well as the average person in the national
> population, they did not qualify for special test
> accommodations.
>
> Colleges and universities can contribute to a solution by
> conducting research that helps systematically and objectively
> to identify students with disabilities. Institutions can also
> offer courses and conferences on learning-disability issues,
> like testing and measurement, and can establish
> learning-disability-evaluation centers in their towns. Thanks
> to the A.D.A., the IDEA, and Section 504, underidentification
> is largely a matter of the past. The focus should now be on
> defining and identifying false positives.
>
> Such research-and-training efforts can help inform
> policymakers as well as practitioners. Congress or the
> Department of Education should clarify the legal definitions
> of disability, and officials of schools and colleges ought to
> interpret them more uniformly.
>
> Of course, a certain amount of ambiguity and discretion is
> inevitable. The fundamental solution, therefore, is for
> school-district personnel, parents, the testing services, and
> college administrators and faculty members to avoid yielding
> to short-term pressure. To ensure long-term academic integrity
> and fairness for all students, higher-education institutions
> must have the courage to reserve special accommodations for
> those who truly have exceptional needs -- even if it means
> investing in special evaluations or, as a last resort,
> litigation.
>
> Colleges, along with primary and secondary schools and state
> governments, should also seriously examine the value and
> techniques of high-stakes testing. Colleges also should
> develop and apply defensible ways to determine the nature and
> extent of accommodations for those students who do have
> disabilities. For example, we might use multiple measures --
> performance portfolios, essays, and structured interviews, in
> addition to standardized, multiple-choice tests -- for
> highstakes accountability. We also could allow all students
> more time on tests, limiting the uniform time allocation only
> to the extent that it reflects an essential eligibility
> requirement. For example, in Wynne v. Tufts University School
> of Medicine, the court upheld timed, multiple-choice testing
> in medical school because doctors often must choose among
> multiple options within a limited time -- say, when working in
> the emergency room.
>
> The issues related to learning disabilities are evolving, and
> all of us in higher education should keep up with changing
> trends in disability regulations and practices. I know that I,
> as a professor, have already had to learn and adapt.
>
> And what about Tom? What did I do about his emotion-laden
> request there in the projection booth? After quick
> consideration, I told him that another, unidentified student
> had been entitled to an extra 90 minutes, and that he could
> have her unused accommodation.
>
> That was 10 years ago. I doubt that I'd make the same decision
> today. But if I saw Tom now and discovered that he was a
> lawyer, I'd recommend that he go into disability law.
> Litigation is booming, with a proliferation of lawsuits
> contesting whether the scores of any students who take extra
> time on their SAT's should be flagged.
>
> Meanwhile, I have halved the length of my exam, so that every
> student has ample time to finish -- with or without winking.
>
> Perry A. Zirkel is a professor of education at Lehigh
> University.
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>Chronicle subscribers can read this article on the Web at this address:
>http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i15/15b01501.htm
>
>If you would like to have complete access to The Chronicle's Web
>site, a special subscription offer can be found at:
>
> http://chronicle.com/4free
>
>Use the code D00CM when ordering.
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>You may visit The Chronicle as follows:
>
> * via the World-Wide Web, at http://chronicle.com
> * via telnet at chronicle.com
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Copyright 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
Elaine Gerber, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate,
Policy Research and Program Evaluation
American Foundation for the Blind
phone: (212) 502-7644
____________________________________________________
Archives for the Disability-Research Discussion List
are now located at
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
|
