I write about special education in the US. What you are describing is what we'd call "accommodation instead of education" it is often used by schools here to deflect the higher cost of actually educating a child with a learning disability. It is both common and highly illegal here. An accommodation should help make education accessible. So a child might be allowed to use Grammerly when writing if they have dysgraphia. They still have to write but the program allows us to facilitate their learning and tap their ideas and communication skills. A dyslexia accommodation might be that they are not graded on spelling but it doesn't relieve the school's responsibility to work with the child on learning to read and spell.
A new legal precedent was recently established by our Supreme Court. If a school fails to provide a child with appropriate education and continues to pass them to graduation we can now sue the school district. This is big because while it is illegal to not provide, say evidenced based dyslexia intervention, it unfortunately often happens. The child is passed forward and graduates without being taught to read when they have a normal IQ and should have been taught. This came out of Perez vs Sturgis (spelling?)
In the US we see a school to prison pipeline exists for kids with unaddressed learning disabilities. Such a waste when early identification and intervention can head that all off. Finland has one of the highest literacy rates and ALL kids are eligible for special education...from the very beginning.
So pleased to read this. Accomodation has been bypassing education for a while now…
The distinction between addressing and accomodating is so crucial yet so often missed. Thanks for mapping it out.
I write about special education in the US. What you are describing is what we'd call "accommodation instead of education" it is often used by schools here to deflect the higher cost of actually educating a child with a learning disability. It is both common and highly illegal here. An accommodation should help make education accessible. So a child might be allowed to use Grammerly when writing if they have dysgraphia. They still have to write but the program allows us to facilitate their learning and tap their ideas and communication skills. A dyslexia accommodation might be that they are not graded on spelling but it doesn't relieve the school's responsibility to work with the child on learning to read and spell.
A new legal precedent was recently established by our Supreme Court. If a school fails to provide a child with appropriate education and continues to pass them to graduation we can now sue the school district. This is big because while it is illegal to not provide, say evidenced based dyslexia intervention, it unfortunately often happens. The child is passed forward and graduates without being taught to read when they have a normal IQ and should have been taught. This came out of Perez vs Sturgis (spelling?)
In the US we see a school to prison pipeline exists for kids with unaddressed learning disabilities. Such a waste when early identification and intervention can head that all off. Finland has one of the highest literacy rates and ALL kids are eligible for special education...from the very beginning.