9/7/05
HERE'S A HIGH RANKING WE DON'T WANT:
NEBRASKA #12 IN LEARNING DISABILITIES?
According
to the Congressional Quarterly State Fact
Finder 2005: Rankings Across America report, Nebraska ranks 12th in the
nation in the category of children with learning disabilities.
One out of
every six Nebraska youngsters is considered "disabled," and Nebraska's 15.5%
disabled tally compares to the national average of 13%, according to the data
supplied by the various state education agencies.
It just
gets curiouser and curiouser: meanwhile, state and local education spending as
a percentage of general spending in Nebraska ranks 4th in the
nation, and as for our staff-to-child ratios in schools, we rank 16th.
So we spend
darn near to the max of our ability on education, and we devote far more adult
brainpower to relatively small class sizes here than in most other states . . .
yet we still have proportionately ‘way more learning-disabled kids than most
other states?
Of course
we do. Because very few schools in this state teach reading right. That's
what's wrong. There's nothing in the water, and Nebraska parents aren't all
drug-takers and child-abusers. Most of these kids aren't "learning-disabled,"
either. There's nothing wrong with them that proper phonics instruction
wouldn't cure. They are being instructionally-disabled by the wrong reading curriculum
in our public schools in the early grades. Maybe not 100% of them . . . but
close to 80%, if studies done elsewhere hold up here, and there's no reason to
think they wouldn't.
Look.
Learning-disabilities is a huge reason we're on a special education spending
wildfire. It has to be contained, prevented, headed off – whatever you'd like
to call it, we've got to get it done, and fast. If you look on the annual financial
report filed by the State Department of Education tallying statewide spending
on http://ess.nde.state.ne.us, you'll
see that special-ed cost Nebraska schools $138.7 million in state aid to
education in the 1993-94 school year . . . and $255.8 million 10 years later.
That's an increase of 84% -- and it doesn't even count other special-ed
spending in the Educational Service Units and other places.
You know,
the annual state conference of the Learning Disabilities Association of
Nebraska is coming up on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at the Holiday Inn in Kearney.
They're bringing in Nancie Payne and Jonathan Jones, both bigtime
learning-disabilities guest speakers, to help parents and teachers help ADHD
kids and others navigating the choppy – and expensive waters – of life as a
learning-disabled student. (For more information on the conference, contact
Kathy Rayburn, krayburn@tvsonline.net,
or the LDA State Office, ldaofneb@yahoo.com)
Here's what
I wish: I wish they would take 5 minutes out of that meeting to pass a
resolution demanding to know why Nebraska is #12 in the nation in learning
disabilities, why we shouldn't be #45 or #50 – and what it would take to get
there, so that other people's children don't have to go through what theirs
did.
Two words,
ladies and gents: reading instruction.
That's all
it would take to cut ‘way, ‘way down on the numbers of LD kids in this state. If
we taught reading correctly in kindergarten through Grade 3, I promise you,
we'd plunk ‘way, ‘way down that list to where we should be – where these dear
parents wish we could be – where these struggling students deserve to be – and
where we could have been, and should be, ASAP.
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9/7/05
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