For disabled kids, FCAT is new hurdle

From: Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, FL - 03 Mar 2003

By Jamie Malernee
Education Writer
Posted March 3 2003

They thought he couldn't do it. Just accept your son is different, naysayers would politely suggest, and put him in a school for special students.

But 9-year-old Bradley House has beaten the odds. Despite suffering a brain injury at birth, being blind in one eye and coping with autism, the fourth-grader at Silver Ridge Elementary in Davie is earning A's in social studies and science.

Only this week, he faces another hurdle his parents fear will set him back: the FCAT.

"I don't even think he understands why he needs to take the test," says his mother, Carol Hilborn. "It's not fair. He can learn and he has a good memory, but he's very distracted."

Hilborn is just one of a growing number of parents with special-needs children who are expressing frustration at the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Many argue it is inflexible and discriminatory and sets up generations of disabled students for failure because it expects them to perform at the same level as their non-disabled peers.

Special-needs students could once progress from grade to grade even if they failed the exam through a "good cause" clause. But now, state guidelines specify that only the most severely disabled, or about 1 percent of all disabled students, are exempt from taking the FCAT. And most third-graders who fail the reading portion of the test this year will be held back -- with Broward County officials predicting that half of that grade's disabled students will fail.

Disabled students who want a standard high school diploma also must pass the FCAT.

"I'm trying to stay positive. I've said [to my daughter], `Think how nice it's going to be that you have another year to learn,'" says Susan Stevens, a parent and teacher at Embassy Creek Elementary who thinks her child may fail the FCAT and be held back next year.

Her daughter is in the third grade at the Cooper City school, but, because of a learning disability, operates on a first-grade level.

"As a teacher, I do agree with the retention policy if there is no disability. But with special-needs children, I don't understand this. They are not instructed on the same level; they don't read the same books. How can they be successful if they've never seen this material before?" she asks.

The problem, ironically, is one born of progress.

Leah Kelly, director of exceptional student education for the Broward schools, says the district is actually helping special-needs students by holding them back. She estimates that between 1,000 and 1,600 disabled third-graders will fail the FCAT this year and, despite some loopholes that remain, the majority will be retained.

"When we promote kids socially, we're not giving them the extra help we know they need," she said. "We're trying to change retention from being a negative to a positive -- a chance to provide intensive remediation."

The big challenge, she said, will be finding the resources to give the students the attention they need as Broward schools also try to comply with the amendment requiring smaller class sizes.

Lina Gioello, whose son attends Lyons Creek Middle in Coconut Creek and is deaf, agrees that all students need to prove they are learning something.

"If not, it lets schools off the hook. They don't have to teach them," she says. "I know kids at the high school level who used [exemptions for disabled students] and now they are in trouble. They can't pass the FCAT. So what happened? What happened is no one did their job."

Students who never pass the FCAT are eligible only for a "certificate of completion" from high school, which does not allow them to go on to community college, many vocational schools, the military or many police forces. Some students do qualify for an Exceptional Student Education diploma, but it too is of limited use.

Ivan Baratz, a parent advocate with the school district, says the result is a colossal dilemma for parents and educators.

"We are caught in the middle of wanting accountability and wanting what's best for our children. If you have a child who's learning disabled in one subject, does that mean they can't be brilliant in another?" he asks. "If you deny them a diploma, you are sending them down a dead-end street."

The state recently approved more help for the exam -- allowing teachers, for example, to highlight the test directions and provide students with specially lined paper to keep their writing straight -- in addition to traditional accommodations, such as giving special-needs students extra time. But groups are clamoring for more.

The Coalition for Independent Living Options, based in West Palm Beach, recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. And some members hope to get a constitutional amendment on the November 2004 general election ballot saying no one test could determine a child's future.

Gioello thinks alternate versions of the test are necessary to measure special-needs children's progress, not their disability. For example, because Gioello's son is deaf, he has problems with language and writing, even though he is bright. So why, the mother asks, does the math portion of the FCAT require her son to give written explanations of math problems he solves as long as he gets the correct answer? That's testing his verbal skills and belongs in the verbal section, not the math, she says. It penalizes him twice.

"One size just does not fit all," she said.

Fran Lombardo is the mother of two special-needs children, but she thinks all parents should be concerned by the standards they are being held to. In several years, she predicts that so many students will be held back they will overwhelm classrooms.

"We're talking about kids who would normally be in fifth grade and they're still going to be in second. And I certainly wouldn't want my [second-grade] child going to class with a fifth-grader," she said.

She adds that an extra year won't ever be enough to get many disabled students on grade level, and for others, it could slow their progress in subjects where they excel.

She fears the latter applies to her daughter, a fifth-grader at Embassy Creek Elementary who is in regular classes except for math. She says she is dumbfounded that her daughter is expected to pass a fifth-grade FCAT test when she has never been exposed to fifth-grade math.

Yet her failure could keep her from middle school, meaning she would have to repeat all subjects.

"It's not enough that people call her `stupid.' Now every year she has to look forward to being degraded by this test," Lombardo said. "I want my child to be held accountable. I don't want her to skate through school unable to read. But this has to be on a reasonable level."

Jamie Malernee can be reached at jmalernee@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4849.

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