{"id":6311,"date":"2011-12-29T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=6311"},"modified":"2012-01-04T17:38:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T21:38:21","slug":"the-blame-game-doesnt-fix-educations-shortfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/the-blame-game-doesnt-fix-educations-shortfalls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blame Game Doesn&#8217;t Fix Education&#8217;s Shortfalls"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"The%20Blame%20Game%20Doesn%27t%20Fix%20Education%27s%20Shortfalls%20\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Why do children continue to fail in school despite being repeatedly tested?<\/p>\n<p>According to schools, children fail because they do not want to learn or their parents do not care. Typical school culture is to first, blame the child, and then blame the parent.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Galen Alessi, Psychology Professor at Western Michigan University researched this phenomenon by asking 5,000 school psychologists why children have learning and behavior problems. Not one psychologist mentioned inappropriate curriculum, ineffective teaching, or ineffective school management practices as a factor for student failure. Psychologists blamed parent and home factors 10-20 percent of the time and child factors 100 percent of the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Common sense tells us that it cannot always be the fault of the parent and the student.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Most five-year-olds are excited about starting school. We need to find out why that excitement wanes and dies.<\/p>\n<p>Schools always treat parents as outsiders in educational decision-making. It\u2019s okay for parents make copies, file records, and raise funds, but a parent who offers methodology suggestions is labeled a \u201chelicopter\u201d parent at best, a \u201cnutcase\u201d at worst and told to leave this to the experts.<\/p>\n<p>We never hear about parents who spend hours helping their child or who pay expensive tutors, only to see their child fail. Nor do we hear about parents who go to school unsuccessfully begging for help for their child.<\/p>\n<p>Some <strong>parents<\/strong> never learn they <strong>have a right to have the school test their child for conditions that interfere with learning.<\/strong> Children placed in special education programs may spend their entire school career there without learning to read. They were either identified too late, after the window of opportunity had closed, or, they received \u201caccommodations,\u201d not appropriate reading instruction.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of learning to read, their assignments and tests were read to them. They are unprepared for further education, employment, and independent living.<\/p>\n<p><strong>According to the<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fcrr.org\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR)<\/span><\/a>, <strong>schools can identify children with reading disorders in preschool or kindergarten.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Serious reading difficulties are preventable with the right kind of intensive instruction provided early in a child\u2019s development<\/strong>. That window of opportunity closes early. After first grade, a student can still improve. However, those who do not receive early powerful interventions will always perform poorly on phonemic decoding, reading fluency, and spelling. They will never be able to close the gap.<\/p>\n<p>Alessi, Galen. (1988) Diagnosis Diagnosed: A Systemic Reaction. Professional School Psychology, 3: 145-151<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fcrr.org\/TechnicalReports\/Dyslexia_Technical_Assistance_Paper-Final.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">http:\/\/www.fcrr.org\/TechnicalReports\/Dyslexia_Technical_Assistance_Paper-Final.pdf<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Torgesen, J.K., Wagner, R. K., Rashotte, C.A., Rose, E., Lindamood, P., Conway, T. , &amp; Garvin, C. (1999). Preventing reading failure in young children with phonological processing disabilities: Group and individual responses to instruction. Journal of Educational Psycholog, 91, 579-593.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/mustang.doe.state.in.us\/IS\/iststate2.cfm?year=2009.20&amp;grade=3&amp;gender=C&amp;SubmitForm=Submit\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">http:\/\/mustang.doe.state.in.us\/IS\/iststate2.cfm?year=2009.20&amp;grade=3&amp;gender=C&amp;SubmitForm=Submit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll find this article on Pat&#8217;s Blog, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/spedconsulting.blogspot.com\/2011_04_01_archive.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Ask the Special Education Advocate<\/span><\/a>&#8221; &#8211; A place for parents and advocates to ask questions about special education topics. It was originally published on April 13, 2011 in the <a href=\"http:\/\/pqasb.pqarchiver.com\/jconline\/access\/2318453231.html?FMT=ABS&amp;date=Apr+13%2C+2011\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Lafayette (IN) Journal and Courier<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why do children continue to fail in school despite being repeatedly tested? According to schools, children fail because they do not want to learn or their parents do not care. <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/the-blame-game-doesnt-fix-educations-shortfalls\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,33,161],"tags":[851,852,849,850,1300,848],"class_list":["post-6311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-reading","category-teachers","tag-fcrr","tag-florida-center-for-reading-research","tag-galen-alessi","tag-preventing-reading-failure","tag-reading","tag-the-blame-game"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6311"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6466,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions\/6466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}