Alaska's disabled students are officially off the hook. After some legal discussions and class-action lawsuits, Alaska Education Commissioner Roger Sampson has announced that Alaska's disabled students need not pass the state exam - this year - if they've fulfilled all the other requirements for graduation:
The lawsuit was filed March 16 in U.S. District Court by Oakland, Calif.-based Disability Rights Advocates. Sid Wolinsky, an attorney with the group, said three-quarters of disabled Alaska students were flunking the graduation test, which assesses proficiency in reading, writing and math.
The exit exam was approved by the Legislature in 1997, but it was later amended and the effective date was delayed until this year.
The Alaska plaintiffs are seeking "reasonable accommodations" for disabled students, such as a read-aloud format for students with dyslexia or judging them on grades, comments in class and performance on projects rather than on a test.
Emphasis mine. Not to pick on dyslexics, but isn't this as much as admitting that students should be allowed to get Alaskan high school diplomas while being functionally illiterate? And why weren't the lawsuit filers demanding to know what the disabled students were being taught over 12 years of schooling, if the result was a high likelihood of failing a basic skills exam?
Posted by kswygert at April 12, 2004 11:38 AM